Rightful Heritage: The Renewal of America

by Douglas Brinkley

  While I was writing this book, the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation published a series of “Historic Resource” studies pertaining to Springwood, Val-Kill, and Top Cottage. Packed with photos, maps, and research, these Olmsted Center reports—written with the help of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse—were of inestimable value to me, as were back issues of the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Living Wilderness, Journal of Environmental History, Scenic and Historic America, Forestry News Digest, Journal of Forestry, National Geographic, and American Forests. The Forest History Society (Durham, North Carolina) publishes the elegant periodical Forest History Today. Every issue offers cutting-edge articles pertaining to U.S. conservation history. I find it must reading.

  A special mention is due Curt Meine, author of the masterful Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010). Curt diligently proofread the manuscript and offered numerous helpful suggestions. He is a true gentleman and scholar. And the noble Char Miller—author of Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001)—always answers my U.S. Forestry Service questions.

  A key component of this book is the working relationship between FDR and Harold Ickes. The best books on Ickes are T. H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874–1952 (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1990); Jeanne Nienaber Clarke, Roosevelt’s Warrior: Harold L. Ickes and the New Deal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and Linda Lear, Harold L Ickes: The Aggressive Progressive, 1874–1933 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1981). The diaries of Harold L. Ickes (published and unpublished) are a true treasure trove of information about New Deal conservation. The Library of Congress does an admirable job of making these diaries—as well as the Gifford Pinchot Papers—available to scholars.

  The key CCC book is Neil Maher’s landmark Nature’s New Deal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Others that were exceedingly helpful were Cynthia Brandimarte, Texas State Parks and the CCC (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2013); Stan Cohen, The Tree Army: A Pictorial History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933–1942 (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co, 1980); Alfred E. Cornebise, The CCC Chronicles: Camp Newspapers of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933–1942 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2004); Diane Galusha, Another Day, Another Dollar: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Catskills (Delmar, NY: Black Dome Press, 2008); Edwin G. Hill, In the Shadow of the Mountain: The Spirit of the Civilian Conservation Corps (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1990); Perry H. Merrill, Roosevelt’s Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933–1942 (Montpelier: Perry H. Merrill Publisher, 1984); and John Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933–1942: A New Deal Case Study (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1967). Ren and Helen Davis, Our Mark on This Land: A Guide to the Legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps in America’s Parks (Granville, OH: McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, 2011) is a wonderful guidebook and history of CCC sites across the nation. Special thanks to the Davises for proofreading my manuscript and offering cogent commentary.

  Special thanks to Joan Sharpe, president of CCC Legacy (Edinburg, Virginia). Joan introduced me to surviving CCC veterans, now all in their nineties. Their heartfelt reminiscences were illuminating. The CCC museums in Chesterfield, Virginia, and Sebring, Florida, were also quite helpful. I’ve been equally impressed with the CCC legacy projects under way in California, Iowa, Arizona, Missouri, New York, Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The first CCC camp in a national park was Sequoia, and under the superintendent Woody Smeck they do a marvelous job of interpreting CCC history. Everywhere I travel around America, the CCC is fondly remembered. As FDR’s assistant secretary of agriculture Rexford G. Tugwell once quipped, the CCC was “one thing in these troubled times of which not even the Republicans can complain.”

  At the University of California–Berkeley, I profited from the “Living New Deal” project (www.livingnewdeal.org), run by leading WPA scholar Gray Brechin, a landmark digital-historical repository for the accomplishments of FDR’s New Deal across the nation. Nick Taylor’s American-Made (New York: Random House, 2008) has become the must-read book on the WPA.

  Spending time in Dutchess County is great fun because I have a coterie of friends living there. Fredrica and Jack Goodman of Poughkeepsie—proud Rooseveltians—have been like family to me for decades. And then there are David and Manuela Roosevelt, who now live just a stone’s throw from the FDR Library. Their stories about FDR and ER are priceless. Finally, Joan Burroughs, the granddaughter of nature essayist John Burroughs, sponsored me as a guest lecturer at both Vassar College and the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York (a short walk from the Payne estate).

  While most of my research was conducted at FDRL, the Library of Congress, and the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, other archival repositories were visited. These included the Smithsonian Institution (Waldo Schmidt Papers); the USGS–Patuxent Wildlife Research Center; the Groton Preparatory School; the Columbia University Oral History Project; the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University; the Idaho Conservation League, Boise, Idaho; the Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson, Arizona; the Roosevelt House at Hunter College in New York City; and the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Site Archives in Hyde Park.

  Eleanor Roosevelt was also a true-blue conservationist. Her “My Day” columns, written from 1935 to 1962, are brimming with natural history observations. Scholars owe George Washington University—especially Allida Black—gratitude for putting them online.

  Across the Atlantic, I visited on a number of occasions the Roosevelt Study Center (RSC), located in the twelfth-century Abbey of Middelburg, the Netherlands. The RSC is the most dynamic American Studies center in Europe. Great thanks go to director Cornelius A. van Minnen for teaching Europeans about the enduring legacies of Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

  My collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History in New York proved beneficial, and I’m very grateful to director Ellen Futter for her support of my work. Periodically, I guest-lecture at the museum on U.S. conservation history. Likewise the New-York Historical Society, under the inspired leadership of Louise Mirrer, has allowed me to be impresario of its ongoing forum on the U.S. presidency. Her able colleagues Jennifer Schantz, Margi Hofer, and Dale Marsha Gregory are consummate professionals.

  Kennon Moody, author of FDR and His Hudson Valley Neighbors (Poughkeepsie, NY: Hudson House Publishing, 2013), proofread the manuscript. His knowledge of the Hudson River Valley is unsurpassed. Professor Mark Carnes of Barnard College escorted me around Newburgh, New York (home of the Delanos). This proved very instructional in my imagining the role the river played in the lives of the Delano family. Mark, along with Jill Leopore, is the glue that keeps the Society of American Historians thriving. Being a member of this organization, getting to know other historically minded writers, is a great privilege.

  For assistance large and small, my thanks to Wint Aldrich, John Auwaerter, Lowell Baier, Rocky Barker, David Beard, Shane Bernard, Dick Beahrs, Allida Black (an encyclopedia on all things ER), Reed Bohne, Talmadge Boston, Camille Bradford, Nate Brostrom, Doug Brown, Michael Brune, William J. Bryan, Clark Bunting, Tom Campion, Dorothy Canter, Ben Carter, Dan Chu, Richard A. Coon, William Cronon, Kate Damon, Ginny Davis, Harry Dennis, Patricia Duff, Bob Dumaine, Dave Foreman, Gail Friedman, Lynda Garrett, Gary and Elizabeth Goetzman, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jeff Gronauer, Dale Hall, Bruce Hamilton, Patricia Hart, Martin Heinrich, David and Sarah Holbrooke, Vicky Hoover, Nancy Roosevelt Ireland, Bob Irvin, James M. Johnson, Emma Juniper, Michael Kellett, David Klinger, John A. Knox, Brad Knudsen, Chieu and Mike Komarek, Jill Krastner, Karen Bates Kress, Jane B. Kulow, Bob Kustra, Howard Labanara, Joette Langianese, Linda Lear, Douglas Leen, Jim Madsen, Tim Mahoney, Terri Martin, Mike Matz, Clayton Maxwell,
Lisa Mighetto, Char Miller, Kristin Miller, Neil Mulholland, Jim Mullen, Patty Murray, Jay and Georganne Nixon, Michael Northrup, Matt Nye, Joy Oakes, Brian O’Donnell, Uri Perrin, John Podesta, Christopher Pryslopski, John F. Reiger, Allison Whipple Rockefeller, George Roderick, Jedediah Rogers, Anne Roosevelt, David Roosevelt, Simon Roosevelt, Winthrop Roosevelt, Alfred Runte, Ken Salazar, Alexandra Schlesinger, Steve Schlesinger, Larry Schweiger, Janet Seegmiller, Kabir Sehgal, Laurie M. Shaffer, Cindy Shogan, Mike Simpson, Jay Slack, Carter Smith, Gary Snyder, Melanie Spoo, Will Swift, Melissa Switzer, Mark Tercek, Paul Tritaik, Tom Udall, Robert M. Utley, Peter Van Tuyn, Melody Webb, Jann Wenner, Brooke Williams, Jamie Williams, Terry Tempest Williams, Felecia Wong, David Yarnold, Suzanne Ybarra, Lee and Anne Yeakel, and David Zilberman.

  I am deeply indebted to historian Mark Madison of U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, for guiding me through the maze of archival materials in the collection. He also kindly proofread the manuscript. While I was writing this book, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife asked me to be a judge for the 2013 Federal Duck Stamp Contest, held in Maumee, Ohio. Since 1934, the sale of these FDR-inspired stamps has raised more than $850 million to protect more than six million acres of prime habitat on our nation’s national wildlife refuges. Thanks to my fellow judges—John E. Cornley, John Ruthven, Charles “Chad” Snee, and Mamie Parker—all now friends.

  All Americans should visit Roosevelt’s Little White House State Historic Site in remote Warm Springs, Georgia, ably managed by Robin Glass. All the items in the modest cottage have been left exactly as they were when FDR died there. The thermal pools where Roosevelt once swam are now run by the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. Special thanks to David Burke, who discovered this book’s rare cover photo of FDR standing at Warm Springs, inspecting a pine tree. Burke is the heart and soul of Little White House preservation.

  Franklin Roosevelt’s conservation legacy has enormous significance to the modern-day National Park Service. It was FDR—not Woodrow Wilson—who configured the agency that resembles today’s NPS. Two bills passed during Roosevelt’s first White House term—the Reorganization of 1933 and the Historic Sites Act of 1935—had a more profound impact on the National Park Service System than did any other legislation since the Organic Act of 1916. To write this book, I consulted with a wide range of NPS and Interior leaders, including John Jarvis, John Sprinkle, Jason Jurgena, Bob Sutton, and Tracy Baetz. Also David Nimkin and Suzanne Dixon of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) helped direct me to a half dozen national park “friends” groups. Jamie Williams of the Wilderness Society and Michael Brune of the Sierra Club helped me better understand the roles their nonprofits played during the New Deal era. On issues pertaining to American wilderness history, Doug Scott of Seattle is The Man.

  Touring the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building (aka Harold Ickes’s Palace) is one of the great tourist-friendly things to do in Washington, D.C. The New Deal is alive in the corridors and offices of this grand edifice. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell facilitated my visits to the Udall Building and encouraged the staff to help me. Together with Janet Napolitano, we participated in a three-way public conversation at the University of California–Berkeley on the future of the national parks. In addition to Jewell, the NPS is very lucky to have Sarah Olson serving as superintendent of Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites. Nobody has more preservation savvy or works harder than Sarah to protect the integrity of Springwood. Together we explored FDR’s tree farm, local woodlands, the Hudson River, and Top Cottage. I treasure her as a kindred spirit.

  My dear friend Julie Fenster, author of many seminal books of American history, proofread and helped edit the manuscript. Her input is always smart and on point. All my kids adore Julie’s stable of horses in upstate New York. She takes them riding. And Rob Fleder ably edited early chapter drafts.

  At HarperCollins, my editor Jonathan Jao was a constant source of support. His standards are among the best in the business. Jonathan Burnham epitomizes an excellent publisher. We are good friends and have amazing shorthand. Michael Morrison, president and publisher, U.S. General Books and Canada at HarperCollins, has been a friend since the 1990s. I’m always grateful for his wise counsel. A new addition to the HarperCollins family—Sofia Groopman—did a dazzling job of shepherding this book through the production process. Competence should be her middle name. Thanks also to Trent Duffy (editor), David Koral (production editor), Leah Carlson-Stanisic (design), Kate D’Esmond (publicist extraordinaire), and Katie O’Callaghan (marketing). They’re a marvelous team. Lisa Bankoff of ICM remains the best of agents and counselors.

  My indispensable assistant on this book was Mark Davidson. A brilliant New Deal scholar in his own right, Mark earned his PhD in cultural musicology at the University of California–Santa Cruz while helping me from Austin. Nobody knows more about WPA folk music collecting than he does. An Internet wizard, he helped me track down academic articles and obscure facts. Likewise, in the early stages of this book, Virginia Northington, a University of Texas–Austin graduate, served as my research assistant. Although Virginia now lives in Washington, D.C., we stay in constant touch.

  Every fall semester I teach a class on U.S. environmental history at Rice University. Over the years my students have stimulated my thinking about New Deal conservation. Special thanks to Kim Ricker, Jean Aroom, and the wonderful staff of the GIS/Data Center of Rice’s Fondren Library for preparing the maps that appear in this book. I’m also the presidential historian for CNN. It’s exhilarating to be part of a first-rate news team. While the producers and on-air talent didn’t directly help with this book, their enthusiasm for my work helps fuel me forward.

  Carolyn Merchant, professor of environmental history, philosophy, and ethics at the University of California–Berkeley, continues to be a source of inspiration to me. It was Merchant who made sure I was aware of female environmental warriors of the New Deal, such as Minerva Hamilton Hoyt and Jean Harper. Her knowledge of the Progressive Era, her mensch-like words of wisdom, her marvelous mind, and, above all, her openhearted generosity are deeply appreciated.

  My wife Anne and our children—Benton, Johnny, and Cassady—went on this environmental history journey with me. Together we lived in the Hudson River Valley, hiked the Lost Mine Trail at Big Bend, beach-combed in Aransas, swam in the fresh spring water of Balmorhea, stargazed in Joshua Tree, photographed the sequoias of Kings Canyon, and visited many other FDR-established national and state parks. Getting to “work” in scenic towns such as Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Front Royal, Virginia, is as good as it gets for a historian of Wild America. And all the love in the world to my mother and father—Anne and Edward Brinkley of Laguna Niguel, California—who brought the National Park Service into my life as a boy.

  Austin, Texas

  November 23, 2015

  NOTES

  CHAPTER 1: “ALL THAT IS IN ME GOES BACK TO THE HUDSON”

  1.Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Hyde Park: Personal Reflections of Eleanor Roosevelt (Washington, DC: Department of the Interior, 1977), p. 1.

  2.Jan Pottker, Sara and Eleanor: The Story of Sara Delano Roosevelt and Her Daughter-in-Law, Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: St. Martin’s, 2004), p. 1.

  3.Hudson’s log, quoted in Carl Carmer, The Hudson (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989), pp. 12–13.

  4.Geoffrey C. Ward, Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882–1905 (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 120–21.

  5.Lisa Nowak, Cultural Landscape Report for Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site (Boston: Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, 2005), p. 5.

  6.“The New Summer White House an Old Hudson River Estate,” New York Times, March 12, 1933.

  7.Harry T. Peters, Currier and Ives: Printmakers to the American People (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1942).

  8.Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden (New York: Oxford Universi
ty Press, 1964), p. 3.

  9.Pottker, Sara and Eleanor, p. 59.

  10.Franklin D. Roosevelt (hereafter, as author, FDR), “Address at the Cornerstone Laying of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park,” November 19, 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY (hereafter cited as FDRL).

  11.Olin Dows, Franklin Roosevelt at Hyde Park: Documented Drawings and Text (New York: American Artists Group, 1949), pp. 23–29.

  12.John F. Sears, “FDR and the Land,” in Historic Resource Study for the Roosevelt Estate (draft report prepared for National Park Service, July 2004), p. 3.

  13.John F. Sears, Historic Resource Study for the Roosevelt Estate (Boston: National Park Service, 2004), p. 3. This study was undertaken with help from the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation.

  14.Gardner Bridge, “Sea Attractive to Roosevelt,” New York Times, November 11, 1932.

  15.Thomas Cole, “Essay on American Scenery,” American Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1 (January 1836), pp. 1–12.

  16.Article VII, Section 7, of New York Constitution, quoted in “History of the Adirondack Park,” New York State Adirondack Park Agency, last updated 2003, http://apa.ny.gov/about_park/history.htm; see also James M. Glover, A Wilderness Original: The Life of Bob Marshall (Seattle: Mountaineers, 1986).

  17.Charles Sprague Sargent, Report on the Forests of North America (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1884).

  18.Pottker, Sara and Eleanor, pp. 11–13.