Catalogue: 1916-1962

Adams, Ansel (C)

ADAMS, Ansel (1902-1984)

Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail

1938 - First edition, limited to 500 copies, of which this is number 218. Published by Archetype Press, Berkeley. Signed as issued and separately inscribed

Each of the 500 copies was signed at the colophon by Adams. This copy is also inscribed: “For Bruce Belt - Ansel Adams/If he likes [company?] no explanation is necessary!” Per the colophon: “Engravings and prints made by the Lakeside Press, Chicago. Book designed, set up, and printed on Wayside Text by Wilder & Ellen Bentley, The Archetype Press, in Berkeley, California 7 November 1938.” The book consists of 50 tipped-in plates, black-and-white and unaccompanied by text, each on a separate page with a preceding title page for each photo. A huge, heavy book. Original white buckram covers. VG-VG+

The John Muir Trail was critical in persuading FDR to establish Kings Canyon National Park. According to anseladams.com, the photographer brought his photos to Washington DC and met with over 40 members of Congress lobbying passage of a 1936 bill to establish the park. When that effort failed, he published this book:

Though the bill to create the park failed in 1936, Ansel’s fight was not over. In 1938, he published his Kings Canyon images as a book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail. The book itself was impressive—17 inches tall, 13 inches wide, and nearly two inches thick. [And very heavy!]. The large photoengraved images—of Kings Canyon’s soaring peaks, sunlit cliffs, and stoic sequoias—were trimmed and individually glued onto the pages. So exquisitely were they reproduced that they have, in the years since, often been mistaken for actual photographic prints. The effect was arresting.

For Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, who received a copy from the Director of the National Park Service, it was more than a book of photographs, it was an argument: Kings Canyon must be protected. So convinced was Ickes that he took a copy to the White House, and set it in front of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Finally, as the President of the United States looked at this stunning book, capturing the full grandeur of Kings Canyon, Ansel’s argument found purchase. Just two years later, in 1940, Kings Canyon National Park was founded, and today it sees over 600,000 visitors a year.

Ickes never did get his book back. Roosevelt kept it, and when the President wants something, you let him have it. Of course, as befitting a masterpiece, Ickes immediately asked Ansel for another copy.

Per Adams' Wikipedia entry, the book was "part of the Sierra Club's efforts to secure the designation of Kings Canyon as a national park." The Sierra Club Bulletin is indeed one of the acknowledgees. In his two-page introduction, Adams does not reference an explicit conservation goal, but waxes lyrical on the unique attractions of the Sierra, noting that "[a]s a region of recreation it is unequaled." He describes the photos as "my best work with the camera in the Sierra, they attempt to convey the experiences and the moods derived from a close association with the mountains.... This work, then, is a transmission of emotional experience - personal, it is true, as any work of art must be, - but inclusive in the sense that others have enjoyed similar experiences so that they will understand this interpretation of the intimate and intense beauty of the Sierra Nevada."

From the collection of Shawn Donnille, his sale PBA Galleries Nov 2023. Donnille is an environmental activist and well-known natural living proponent, the founder of Mountain Rose Herbs, a large organic products retailer. Cloth soiled, as typical, lower corners lightly bumped; small corner creases to a few tipped-in photographs, others with an occasional hint of edge wear; coffee stain at rear pastedown with slighter stain to rear fe. VG

Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada

1948. First edition. Published by Houghton Mifflin and Co., Boston. Inscribed to Adams' student Ray McSavaney

Inscribed on ffe: "For Ray McSavaney/Ansel Adams/Carmel/8-17-79." The folio sized book has photos by Adams accompanied by text from John Muir's writings chosen by Charlotte E. Mauk. The first half of the book consists of selections from Muir on plain paper. The second half consists of photos by Adams, each on the right facing page, with a quote on the left. The photos are on lightly coated paper. VG+ in a VG NPCDJ.

Ray McSavaney (1938-2014) was a celebrated fine arts photographer who, while working an office job for a Howard Hughes Corp. subsidiary in the early 1970s, enrolled in an Adams photography workshop and, in the late 1970s (when this book was inscribed) embarked on a second career as a photographer. The Wikipedia page describing his career and art is unusually long - pointing to an authorial fan.

Yosemite and the Range of Light

1979. Stated first printing. Large coffee-table style photo book. Published by New York Graphic Society/Little, Brown. Signed

Signed on half-title. Folio sized coffee-table photo book on heavy coated paper. Introduction by Paul Brooks. First few pages are slightly creased. NF in a NF NPCDJ.

As with writers like John McPhee, Al Gore and several other notables, I feel like it is unnecessary to write a great deal about Ansel Adams. He was the master of outdoor photography - both artistically and technically. He was particularly known for his work in Yosemite, which he first photographed at age 12. He was a lifelong environmentalist, long affiliated with the Sierra Club, which he joined at age 17. His work nearly always intertwined with his conservation philosophy. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980 and was a "key advisor in establishing the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, an important landmark in securing photography's institutional legitimacy." [From his Wikipedia page]. Interestingly, he was a gifted pianist who initially planned to pursue a career in music, but he felt his small hands limited his repertoire.

ADAMS, Ansel and NEWHALL, NANCY (1908-1974)

This is the American Earth

[Photos]

1960 - First edition. Published by Sierra Club Books.

The first of the award-winning, influential and popular "exhibit format" coffee-table style photo books published by the Sierra Club, several of which are contained in the Collection. Foreword by David Brower. Publication of the book stemmed from a 1955 photo exhibition organized by Adams, Brower and Newhall. The book contains 82 b+w photogravures, 43 by Adams and others from Eliot Porter, Philip Hyde, Joseph LeConte, Magaret Bourke-White, Henri Carter-Bresson and Edward Weston, among others. Funding for production of the book in the amount of $15,000 was provided by Max McGraw's foundation (see Ding Darling (1962) for more on McGraw). Blue cloth boards. Text consists of blank verse written by Newhall. VG+ to NF- in a G+ NPCDJ showing tape marks from prior repairs of two small tears.

The 1955 photo exhibit which was the progenitor of this book was originally displayed in a Sierra Club building in Yosemite which the Parks Department wanted used publicly. The exhibit was so popular and well-regarded that the Smithsonian ended up touring it in the US and the US Information Service circulated it internationally.

The importance of the Sierra Club's exhibit format books cannot be understated - in terms of their popularity and success in introducing many people to the beauty of nature and in terms of their success in raising funds for the Sierra Club. William O. Douglas described the book as "one of the great statements in the history of conservation." Per published reports, sales of the first books in the series generated more than $10 million in revenue in the first few years. A deeper discussion about the impact of art generally and the series specifically will be the subject of a blog piece expected to be published in Jan 2025. The Douglas quote is repeated in a 1980 piece by Robert Turnage from a Wilderness Society's publication which is reprinted on anseladams.com.

Nancy Newhall was a photography critic and interim curator at MoMA who became an active Sierra Club member and vocal conservationist as a result of this project.

ALBRIGHT, Horace M. (1890-1987)

[As told to Robert Cahn]

The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years 1913-33

1985. First edition. Published by Universal Books, New York. Inscribed to important environmental leader and advocate Marian S[ulzberger] Heiskill.

[Catalogued herein reflecting both the subject matter and the dominant period of Albright's career]

Co-authored ("As told to") by Robert Cahn. Inscribed on ffe: "To Marian S. Heiskill, whose knowledge and wisdom and her always attractive presence contributed so much to the strength and influence of the Advisory Board and Council of the National Park Service. And with my admiration and fond regard, Horace M. Albright." Several words have touches of whiteout and rewriting, which is poignant as Albright was 95 years old when the book was published. NF in a VG unclipped DJ.

Albright (1890-1987) was the second director of the National Park Service, serving from 1929-1933, having taken over from Stephen Mather, for whom Albright had served as a legal assistant when Mather was Assistant Director of the Interior Department in charge of National Parks. During his career, Albright also served as superintendent of both Yellowstone and Yosemite and helped acquire land for several new national parks. He received the Audubon Society's highest honor, the Audubon Medal, in 1969. In 1980 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, by President James Earl Carter. [See also Hans Huth (1957) in References, which is inscribed to Albright]. [See also Robert Sterling Yard for more on the early NPS].

Cahn was awarded the 1969 Pulitzer for National Reporting for his 16-part series on the challenges faced by the National Parks due to their increasing popularity. [See Cahn's Footprints on the Planet (1978) for more about Cahn]. Per an nps.gov history, Albright and Cahn met in 1972 at the Second World Conference on National Parks held at Yellowstone - their families became close friends. From 1979 to 1985, Cahn recorded his conversations with Albright about the latter's experiences around the founding and early years of the NPS. In 1984, Cahn persuaded Albright to allow the recordings and his recollections to be turned into this book. Cahn's papers and recordings are now part of the NPS History archive.

Marian Sulzberger Heiskill (1919-2019) was a civic and environmental leader and outdoors person who first became involved when Mayor Robert Wagner asked her to serve on a "Keep New York City Clean" campaign. That experience led her to be named to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission by the Kennedy administration. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall followed up by naming her to the National Park System Advisory Board (as per the inscription above).

For over 20 years, Heiskill was chair or co-chair of the Council on the Environment of NYC, a privately funded group she founded with Mayor Lindsay, which created dozens of community-run parks, playgrounds and gardens, as well as the first modern farmers' markets. [As a frequent client of the latter, she has my thanks!]. She was also a leader in the 1970s-era campaign to create the 26,000-acre Gateway National Recreation Area near JFK Airport. The Interior Department in a 1980 award ceremony said she was "responsible for the acceptance of the urban recreation concept" within the NPS. She was also a leader in the way too successful (my opinion) campaign to clean up the Time Square area. (The resulting proliferation of tourists can make it almost impossible to walk there now :). She also served as a director of the National Audubon Society, the National Park Foundation and the New York Botanical Garden.

Heiskill was a major owner of the NYT as a member of the Sulzberger family. As a youth she struggled with school due to dyslexia, undiagnosed until she was near 20 years old. But "much to my horror," she discovered that she was very good indeed at getting things done and raising money. I'd like to have met her. An admirable person.

The information about her is from her 3/15/19 NYT obituary.

ALLEN, Durward L. (1910-1997)

Our Wildlife Legacy

[Photos]

1954. First edition. Published by Funk and Wagnalls. Inscribed to Boone & Crockett Club leader Jack Reneau.

Inscribed on ffe: "21 September 96, For Jack Reneau - and for many other students who made good use of this book. Durward Allen." Also laid in is a brief letter from Susanne Allen on Durward Allen's stationary that mentions returning a check in his stead, as he was ill. Recipient Jack Reneau was the big game record keeper for the Boone & Crockett Club, where he was a strong advocate for wildlife conservation -- for many years wrote a regular column in the club's periodical. VG in a G PCDJ.

Durward Allen was a wildlife biologist of extraordinary influence. After a long career in various governmental agencies, including a stint at USFWS as acting director of research, he became a professor at Purdue. There he conducted his famous wolf and moose study on Isle Royale which changed the understanding of the balance of natural systems. From an undated piece by Lonnie Williamson remembering Allen which published on the Outdoor Writers Association of America website:

There are and have been hundreds of special people in fish and wildlife conservation. Some teach, some conduct research, some write and some administer programs. However, no one has ever performed so grandly in all those segments of the profession as did Durward Allen....

Durward's landmark book, Our Wildlife Legacy, was published in 1954 while he was working for the [USFWS]. To find someone in wildlife conservation today that has not studied this classic would be rare indeed, virtually a sin.... The work remains, in my opinion, the most eloquently written book ever on wildlife management....

He came to believe that wildlife conservationists must convince the general public that scientific resource management is necessary to maintain and improve the quality of life...his impact was great. [https://owaa.org/owaa-legends/a-grand-performance-durward-allen/]

Allen was awarded the Aldo Leopold Memorial Award by the Wilderness Society and Audubon Medal by the National Audubon Society, both the highest awards bestowed by those organizations.

BAILEY, Florence Merriam (1863-1948)

Birds of New Mexico

1928. First trade edition. Published by the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game in cooperation with the US Biological Survey and the State Game Protective Association of NM.

The book was the author's magnum opus - it was started by Wells Woodbridge Cook, who died. At the request of Edward Nelson, head of the US Biological Survey, FMB took it over and substantially expanded it. The book was completed in 1919, but publishers were hesitant to publish such a lengthy and weighty tome, so it was not published until 1928, when the state agreed to do it. Initially FMB and Cook were to be credited as co-authors, but she petitioned based on relative contributions and won. Per a note where the dedication would typically be, it says the book was published with financial support from Mr. and Mrs. George Deardorf McCreary, Jr. of Silver City, NM. A (positive) review of the book in 1929 in The Auk magazine notes that a "comparatively small number of copies were printed, due to the expense of such a large book." Green boards/gilt lettering. A bit shaken but otherwise in excellent shape - NF.

Canadian artist Allan Brooks (1869-1946) was a successful ornithological artist who nevertheless never quite achieved the profile of his contemporary Louis Agassiz Fuertes. He did finish illustrating Edward Forbush's multi-volume Birds of Massachusetts (1925-9 - Catalogued in the Progressive Era section) after Fuertes was killed in a car crash. He illustrated several other ornithological books, primarily Canadian. He served for Canada in WWI as a marksman in an infantry battalion and later training snipers. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for an episode of extraordinary courage while in combat.

[SEE MORE ON BAILEY IN THE EC HISTORY CHAPTER COVERING THE PROGRESSIVE ERA 1890-1915]

BEDICHEK, Roy (1878-1959)

Adventures with a Texas Naturalist

1941. First edition. Published by Doubleday & Co., Garden City

Gray cloth boards, crisp green ink to spine. Illustrated by Ward Lockwood (1894-1963). Unmarked and unfoxed, VG++ to NF in G+ NPCDJ with part of rear cover illegible due to something pasted on and torn off.

Bedichek was a journalist and educator - this was his first book. Writes Lyon [p. 401]: "This book regards simple items such as fences with an open, category-bridging attention; the 'adventures' are thought-journeys into progressively deeper levels of relationship and complexity."

Illustrator Ward Lockwood was of some renown. He painted a number of public murals during the New Deal and taught at UC Berkeley and Univ. of Texas. Most impressively, he was a veteran of both World Wars, having served in the 89th Division of the American Expeditionary Force during WWI and in the Army Air Corps during WWII, retiring as a Lieutenant or full Colonel..

BEEBE, William (1877-1962)

Galapagos: World's End

1924. First (trade) edition, first printing. Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. Inscribed in the year of publication to close friend Louise Closser Hale, a prominent actress of the time

Published "under the auspices of the New York Zoological Society," for whom Beebe worked as Director of the Department of Tropical Research, and which funded the Galapagos expedition described in the book. There was a first limited edition printing, which is why I mention "trade" above. With 24 full color illustrated plates by Isabel Cooper and 83 photographs, "mostly" by John Tee-Van and mostly full page. Introduction by Henry Fairfield Osborn. Blue cloth boards with worn gilt lettering to cover and spine. Tissue-guarded frontispiece. Binding seems to have been repaired. Could be original but the covers are attached in a way I've never seen before. The book was a best-seller, on the NYT top ten list for several months.

According to johnmahaffie.com, Isabel Cooper traveled on eight of Beebe's research expeditions between 1917 and 1925 and essentially invented the techniques used to produce the illustrated plates - which I have to say are extremely impressive, beautiful and artistic. Says Mahaffie "...she perfected the art of detailed, color animal illustration from live specimens before color photography was available. Isabel's sharp, clear, artistically appealing, but scientifically valuable work got attention right away from the scientists and philanthropists involved with New York City science and exploration, and her work went on exhibit at the Bronx Zoo." She was frequently written about in newspapers at the time, given her gender. Mahaffie describes himself on his website as a "futurist and writer" and, most pertinently, as Isabel Cooper's grandson. John Tee-Van (1897-1967) started working at the Bronx Zoo at age 14 as apprentice keeper in the Bird Department (which Beebe curated). According to Tee-Van's Wikipedia page, Beebe heard he took night classes in architectural drafting and asked him to draw a bird bone - Beebe was so impressed that he made him his assistant. Tee-Van became Beebe's close collaborator and ultimately become the Director of the entire Bronx Zoo for ten years until retirement after 50 years there. Tee-Van also was the man who was sent to Chengdu, China in 1947 to bring two pandas back that were the gift of Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

The book has a complicated provenance. Inscribed above half title: "Inscribed with enthusiasm for Louise Closser Hale by William Beebe/September 7th, 1924." Immediately below the half title reads: "(in memory of delightful meeting[?] with Dr. Beebe at the home of Louise Hale)". Underneath that is written: "Presented to Maryanne[?] Cher[?] Peak by Myla Joe Closser [Louise's sister] on the death of Louise Closser Hale/1933." Opposite the half title is a further, undated inscription: "To Russell Walter, I now transfer this book in the knowledge that he will get out of it what the author put into storage for adventurous minds like his + yours. // That the book is autographed by Dr. Beebe, and presented to one of his oldest friends, Louise Closser Hale, authoress, character actress, should make it all the more desirable. R.K." [Or possibly P.K.]. All well and good. But the book also has the stamp of the City of Oswego [New York] Public Library on the recto of the ffe, along with handwritten reference numbers on the lower spine. Perhaps Russell Walter did not value the book to the extent contemplated by the last inscription and donated it to the library? Louise Closser Hale (1872-1933) was a Broadway actress who also appeared in 30 early Hollywood films. She had a parallel career as an author and playwright, with 10 books and 100 short stories to her credit. She was a correspondent for Harper's Magazine during World War I. She has a Wikipedia page from which the preceding is drawn.

The Arcturus Adventure

1926. First edition. Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.

Blue cloth boards with bright, like-new gilt lettering to cover and spine. Published "under the auspices of the New York Zoological Society," for whom Beebe worked as Director of the Department of Tropical Research, and which funded the expedition described in the book. With seven full color illustrated plates, all with tissue guards, by various artists including Isabel Cooper and Helen Van-Tee. Approximately 60 illustrations and photographs by various parties, including Cooper and John Van-Tee. Tissue-guarded frontispiece. Prior owner's bookplate. VG++ to NF in VG+ DJ

Beneath Tropic Seas: A Record of Diving Among the Coral Reefs of Haiti

1928 stated first. Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. Inscribed by Beebe and expedition team members John and Helen Tee-Van

Inscribed on second fe: "To Leopold & Douglas Damrosch by William Beebe, John Tee-Van and Tante [Aunt] Helen," with each of the names being written in the named person's own hand. "Tante Helen" is Helen Damrosch Tee-Van, artist and wife of John. With separate gift inscription on ffe to the stated recipients "from Grandmama." The book is the account of the NYZS Dept of Tropical Research's tenth expedition, to Haiti. Illustrated with sixty b+w photo illustrations, including both aerial and undersea shots. John and Helen Tee-Van were members of the expedition team, with John writing Appendix C on the underwater photography. See Galapagos above for more on John. Helen was an artist who accompanied many of Beebe's expeditions as well, although her art was not included in this volume. She was the daughter and granddaughter of prominent musical figures Frank and Leopold Damrosch. (In 1972 Helen donated the family's collected musical papers to the NYPL). Green buckram boards, with gilt lettering on spine entirely rubbed off and that on cover largely rubbed off. Boards with little wear, text block clean and sound. Photographic endpapers depicting coral reef intact. G+ no DJ

William Beebe was a naturalist, scientist, explorer and author who was a giant in his field during his lifetime and whose influence can still be seen today. He spent the bulk of his career at the New York Zoological Society (The Bronx Zoo), leaving college when the zoo opened to help oversee care of its birds. Beebe led frequent research expeditions for the Society, including the three described in the books above, many in the tropics. He traveled all over the world, writing both scientific and popular accounts of his explorations and discoveries, which greatly enhanced the Society's reputation. He is described as "more famous in the United Sates than any other American naturalist before the days of television" - a scientific writer who participated in both the popular and academic worlds [given John Burroughs was read by most schoolchildren in the country, that description may be an overstatement]. In the 1930's he became interested in marine biology and with a partner made what were then the deepest ocean dives ever in a bathysphere, which made him even more famous. He was close with everyone from Frank Chapman, Henry Fairfield Osborn and William Hornaday to Teddy Roosevelt and Rachel Carson. Carson dedicated The Sea Around Us (1951): "My absorption in the mystery and meaning of the sea have been stimulated and the writing of this book aided by the friendship and encouragement of William Beebe." Notably, Beebe rejected the eugenic ideas promoted by some his early-20th century naturalist contemporaries.

From his Wikipedia page:

William Beebe was a pioneer in the field now known as ecology. His theory that organisms must be understood in the context of the ecosystems they inhabit was completely new for its time and has been highly influential. The method he invented of methodically analyzing all organisms within a small area of wilderness has become a standard method in this field. Beebe was also a pioneer in the field of oceanography....

Among the most significant of Beebe's influences on other researchers was Rachel Carson, who regarded Beebe as both a friend and an inspiration. Carson dedicated her 1951 book The Sea Around Us to Beebe.... Due to Beebe's renewed emphasis on field research at a time when laboratory studies were becoming the dominant trend in biology, more recent field researchers such as Jane Goodall and George Schaller are also sometimes considered his intellectual descendants.

By writing for a scientific as well as popular audience, Beebe did much to make science accessible to the general public. This was particularly significant in the area of conservation, of which he was one of the most important early advocates. With his many writings about the dangers of environmental destruction, Beebe helped to raise public awareness about this topic....

During the course of his career, Beebe authored over 800 articles and 21 books.... He had a total of 64 animals named after him....

The William Beebe Tropical Research Station in Trinidad and Tobago, which he established, is still active as part of the Asa Wright Nature Center and Lodge.

In 1952 on his 75th birthday, after 50 years, Beebe retired from the Zoo and became Director Emeritus. In honor of his work, he was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1953. He spent his last years mostly at the Research Station, continuing his work, and is buried there.

[PLEASE SEE BLOG POST OF 11/10/23 FOR MORE ON BEEBE AND GOULD'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HIM]

BENNETT, HUGH H. (1881-1960)

(With Pryor, William C.)

This Land We Defend

1942. Stated first. Published by Longmans, Green & Co., New York

With co-author William C. Pryor, who was an associate of Bennett's at the USDA. Green cloth boards, bumping and rubbing at spine ends and corners. Blind embossed ownership stamp on ffe (Joseph A. May). Interesting DJ with full page photo, identical on front and rear. Rear flap as an ad for war bonds and stamps, below which is description of how to send the book along after it is read to be made available to men in the armed forces (not women). Spine ends missing including first two words of title and the publisher logo at bottom, and corners and joints fraying. VG in G- NPCDJ

Hugh H. Bennett was the "Father of Soil Conservation" in the United States. His prewar work resulted in 1929 legislation funding soil erosion studies sponsored by Representative James P. Buchanen of Texas, to whom this book is dedicated. By 1929 it was too late of course - the Dust Bowl struck, as predicted by Bennett, and in 1933 the Soil Erosion Service was formed under Interior with Bennett as director. He kept pressing and two years later the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Serice) was formed as an agency under the USDA, which Bennett ran until his retirement in 1951. Bennett also was instrumental in founding the Soil Conservation Society. Bennett's work "changed the mindset of American farmers toward soil conservation, and... helped them learn new ways of cultivation that protected the soil and preserved fertility." (Wikipedia entry on Bennett).

The soil experimentation stations established as a result of Bennett's research and Buchanen's legislation, the sites for which were chosen by Bennett, were described by George Washington Carver as "one of the best things that ever happened to America's rural poor." (RH 143).

Bennett was deservedly widely recognized for his pioneering achievements, receiving the Audubon Medal from the National Audubon Society, the Distinguished Service Medal from the USDA, the Cullum Geographical Medal from the American Geographical Society, and many others. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

BESTON, Henry (1888-1968)

The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod

1928. First edition. Published by Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, NY. Warmly inscribed with separate full page inscribed drawing to same recipient

"Inscribed to Mrs. Woodruff with the compliments and homage of the Outermost Householder. Henry Beston/The Miller Stile Inn/Jan 1, 1929." With a separate full-page ink sketch laid in of beach, dunes and single cabin, and anchor below, inscribed: "Ship ahoy, cheerio, and Happy New Year to Mrs. Woodruff from her friend of the Outermost House. H.B./New York 1929." Blue boards with crisp but fading gilt lettering on cover, spine sun-faded to virtual illegibility. Some mild dampstaining/offsetting/foxing to recto of half title containing list of books by Beston and facing blank page, and very lightly to title page. Stated first edition illustrated with photos by William A. Bradford and others. Unmarked. VG-

The St. Lawrence

1942. First edition. Published by Farrar & Rinehart, New York and Toronto

Part of the popular Rivers of America Series. In DJ protecting like-new blue boards (one small stain) with embossed cover and crisp spine. Prior owner's ink stamp on top corner of dedication page, otherwise pristine. VG++ to NF- in VG+ PCDJ.

The Outermost House is widely considered to be one of the great works of literary nature writing, and Beston is esteemed as one of the progenitors of the modern environmental movement. The book, which has never been out of print, is seen as one of the primary motivating factors leading to the establishment of the Cape Cod National Seashore by JFK in 1961. The book was frequently quoted in the report of the Interior Department representatives sent to assess the area in the 1950s as a potential National Park.

[SEE THE EC HISTORY CHAPTER FOR MORE]

BRANT, Irving (1885-1976)

Adventures in Conservation with Franklin D. Roosevelt

1988. Assumed first edition. Published by Northland Publishing, UK. Ex libris Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Prize-winning physicist

Finished by Brant shortly before his death in 1976 and published posthumously by his daughters. Foreword by Steward Udall. Illustrated with b+w photos taken by Ansel Adams and Brant's grandson, the photographer, professor and environmental activist Marc Gaede. With the attractive bookplate of Murray Gell-Mann on the fpd, with Southwestern Native American motifs. NF in a NF DJ

Irving Brant was a successful journalist who became one of the first and leading members of Rosalie Edge's Emergency Conservation Committee, which was an important force advocating for the conservation measures which became part of FDR's New Deal. In 1933 Brant became a close advisor to FDR and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes on conservation issues and on constitutional issues such as defense of New Deal programs. Per Douglas Brinkley, Brant "became FDR's eyes and ears on public land and wildlife protection issues." (RH p. 408). Per a piece on Chaco Press' website about photographer Marc Gaede, "Brant is credited by historian Carsten Lein as the primary founder of Olympic National Park, saving the Hoh and Bogachiel rain forests under President Truman [it was actually FDR, in 1938], as well as submitting Stewart Udall to President-elect John F. Kennedy for Secretary of the Interior."

Writes Udall in his two-page Foreword: "Although he was a major figure in the conservation movement for over thirty years (and performed some of his final, sterling work for the Interior Department during my tenure) the main focus of the book is on policy disputes that were dominant in the New Deal years. As the self-appointed point man in many of these controversies, Brant wrote speeches and strategy papers for FDR and for...Ickes." (p. viii). Brant later published his six-volume biography of James Madison over a 20-year period beginning in 1941.

Murray Gell-Mann was a theoretical physicist who played a key role in developing the theory of elementary particles and the concept of quarks as fundamental building blocks of strongly interacting particles. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969. Gell-Mann was a nature lover and polymath whose other interests included birdwatching, archeology and linguistics. The author Cormac McCarthy is quoted on Gell-Mann's Wikipedia page as saying he "knew more things about more things than anyone I've ever met...." [Wikipedia cites a 2019 article on Gell-Mann by Kendrick Frazier's 2019 in the Skeptical Inquirer as the source of the McCarthy quote.]

Marc Gaede (b. 1946) is Brant's grandson and is an environmental activist, teacher, photographer and Instructor in Environmental Issues and Physical Anthropology at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He was a Marine Corps photographer, professional skydiver, river raft guide and museum curator, among other things. In 1977, he worked for Ansel Adams as a darkroom assistant.

BREWSTER, William (1851-1919)

October Farm: From the Concord Journals and Diaries of William Brewster

Clean green boards with crisp gilt lettering on spine. Unmarked and unfoxed. No DJ. NF

Concord River: Selections from the Journals of William Brewster

1937. First edition. Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Mostly clean green boards with crisp gilt lettering on spine. Unmarked and unfoxed. Illustrated by Frank W. Benson (1862-1951), with tissue-guarded full color frontispiece being a reproduced painting by him. The other illustrations are full page black and white printed etchings. Benson was and continues to be a highly regarded artist for whom etching was an "interesting pastime" but who became the "best known and most popular etcher in the world" according to one contemporary critic. VG++ to NF in VG+ NPCDJ.

Both of these books were obviously published posthumously and are today considered "classics of their kind." [Brooks, p. 144] - in fact Brooks describes Brewster as "that Gilbert White of the Concord River." [p.142]. Brewster was raised in privilege and able to pursue his naturalist interests freely - he "became known as the foremost field ornithologist of his time" [Brooks p. 144] and built one of the largest private collections of (stuffed) birds in the country, which he displayed in a private museum. He later took charge of the bird collection at Harvard's zoology museum. Per Brooks: "In 1876, when only twenty-five, he organized America's first bird club, the Nuttall Ornithological Club.... Seven years later, at his urging, it gave birth to the American Ornithological Union (A.O.U.), one of whose members, George Bird Grinnell, would in turn found the first Audubon Society. So began a chain reaction of immeasurable impact on the course of conservation history.""

Frank W. Benson is one of the more highly respected American artists. While his most famous works are across a broad range of subjects, he started his career intending to be an ornithological artist (like his contemporaries Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Allan Brooks). He was a charter member of the Essex County Ornithological Club in Massachusetts, serving as founding president for 18 years. The second federal duck stamp (1935), used to support conservation of waterfowl and their habitats, was based on a painting by Benson.

BURDEN, W[illiam] Douglas (1898-1978)

Look to the Wilderness

1960. Stated first edition. Published by Atlantic Monthly Press - Little Brown & Co., Boston.

Black cloth and yellow boards. Intro by Roy Chapman Andrews. Unmarked and unfoxed. VG+ to NF in VG PCDJ.

Burden was a naturalist, author and filmmaker who cofounded and for a time was president of Marineland in Florida. Per his Wikipedia page, out of college he did specimen collection trips for the AMNH, leading to the establishment of its Department of Animal Behavior in 1928. He became an AMNH trustee in 1926. He explored the Arctic as well as various tropical islands but is best remembered as being the first westerner known to have found and trapped Komodo dragons in what is now Indonesia.

Roy Chapman Andrews was a prominent explorer and naturalist who worked for and ultimately ran the AMNH.

CARHART, Arthur H. (1892-1978)

Timber in Your Life

1954. Stated first edition. Published by J.B Lippincott Co, Philadelphia and New York.

Outstanding 12-page Introduction by Bernard DeVoto. Mustard-colored cloth boards with brown writing and silhouette vignette of tree grove on front cover. NF in NF PCDJ.

The National Forests

1959. Stated first edition. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Illustrated with 24 pages of black-and-white photos. Four-page Introduction by Joseph W. Penfold, the conservation director of the Izaak Walton League of America. Would be F save some damp staining to rear cover. VG+ in VG PCDJ.

Planning for America's Wildlands: A Handbook for Land-use Planners, Managers and Executives, Committee and Committee Members, Conservation Leaders, and All Who Face Problems of Wildland Management

1961. First edition. Paper covers. Jointly published by the National Audubon Society; the National Parks Association; The Wilderness Society; and the Wildlife Management Institute.

Six-page Introduction by Howard Zahniser, then Executive Secretary and Editor for The Wilderness Society. Bound in buff cardstock wrappers. An important conservation work, and seemingly rare in the original paper-wrapped version. Ownership signature of one Denis Allen on ffe and p. 50, with some penciled annotations by him throughout. VG in paper wraps.

Carhart was maybe the most important 20th-century conservation figure which you (and, until recently, I) likely never heard of. Per wilderness.net: "While no one person can be called 'Father of the Wilderness Concept,' Arthur Hawthorne Carhart has been referred to as 'the chief cook in the kitchen during the critical first years.'" Aldo Leopold is often credited with pioneering the wilderness concept in national forests - it was Carhart who worked through the concept with him.

Carhart received the first degree in landscape architecture awarded by Iowa State. During a stint in the Army during WWI, Carhart worked as a medical officer seeking to understand water pollution and the environmental links between communities and army camps due to serious health issues at the camps - digestive disorders and mass outbreaks of food poisoning happened all too frequently.

In 1919, Carhart was hired by the Forest Service as "recreation engineer" - the NPS had been established in 1916, and the Forest Service felt compelled to compete in providing recreation activities and facilities. In fact, that competition was so heated that the National Conference on Outdoor Recreation in 1924 criticized both agencies for over-development of their recreation programs, and specifically castigated the NPS for abandoning the idea of preserving natural wonders altogether in order to create a "people's playground."

The "over-development" was not due to Carhart's efforts. In fact, among his first tasks for the Forest Service was to lay out plans for the building of a road and summer cabins around Trapper's Lake in the White River National Forest in Colorado. Instead, after surveying the area, Carhart returned to Denver and persuaded his superiors to leave the area undeveloped - the first protection of its kind by the Forest Service.

One of those superiors was Aldo Leopold. In December 1919, Carhart submitted a memorandum to Leopold - noting it supplemented a recent conversation between the two men - advocating for preservation throughout the National Forests:

There is a limit to the number of lands of shorelines on the lakes; there is a limit to the number of lakes in existence; there is a limit to the mountainous areas of the world, and in each one of these situations there are portions of natural scenic beauty which are God-made, and the beauties of which of a right should be the property of all people....

There are great values of this type to be found in the several forests of the Nation, which in order to return the greatest total value to the people, not only of the Nation, but of the world should be preserved and protected from the marring features of man made constructions. These areas can never be restored to the original condition after man has invaded them, and the great value lying as it does in natural scenic beauty should be available, not for the small group, but for the greatest population. Time will come when these scenic spots, where nature has been allowed to remain unmarred, will be some of the most highly prized scenic features of the country, and unless the Forest Service has thoroughly exerted all influences possible to preserve these areas, severe criticism will some day be meted out by the collective owners of this territory, the public.... There will ever be a demand on the part of the people of the United States to be able to get into a part of the country which is undeveloped. There is no place particularly suited for such territory than is in the possession of the National Forest. [The entire three-page letter is worth a read at: http://ppolinks.com/forestservicemuseum/2016_5_25a.pdf]

In addition to Trapper's Lake, Carhart worked with Leopold on the Gila Wilderness - the nation's first area designated, in 1924, as wilderness. His crowning work for the Forest Service occurred when he was sent to the Superior National Forest to devise a recreation development plan. After weeks of canoeing through the area, and discussing merits of development with both sides, he recommended that the money to build roads into the area be withdrawn and the region remain accessible only by boat - that area is now the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Carhart left the Forest Service after only three years - he was a victim of the aforementioned competition with the NPS over recreation resources. He butted heads with NPS Chief Stephen Mather, who used his political influence to reduce the Forest Service's requested allocation for recreation from $45,000 to $900. Carhart left soon after.

Carhart joined a landscape architecture firm where he stayed for eight years, during which time he wrote numerous magazine articles and two novels, most with explicit or implicit conservation themes. [His 1929 book about extirpating the wolves of Colorado, The Last of the Pack (not in Collection), argued the necessity for the killing. According to wilderness.net: "Perhaps repentant about his unfortunate portrayal of the wolf slaughter, Carhart never again attempted to justify predatory animal control, arguing later for sharp regulations and containment of [as?] animal control policies."]

In 1930, he left the architecture firm to write full time, ultimately publishing over 4,000 articles and many books, including several novels under different pen names. He opposed grazing on public lands, wrote about the dangers of pesticides (work that Rachel Carson read in her research of Silent Spring - she also corresponded with Carhart), took on entrenched private interests and government agencies he felt were doing their bidding, and wrote and worked extensively to reconcile hunters with the environmental community, two groups whose common interests and conservation heritage (as discussed extensively elsewhere herein) had grown attenuated.

Importantly, Carhart was a prominent and important opponent of the Echo Park dam - it is notable that DeVoto wrote the Intro to Timber in Your Life around the time of that controversy - see DeVoto's article against the dam (1950) and the Stegner anthology This is Dinosaur (1955) for more. [Incidentally, DeVoto's 12-page Introduction to this book is outstanding. It opens, deliciously: "It is no more permitted to speak disrespectfully of The Pioneer than of American Womanhood." He continues farther along: "In no respect did the Pioneer more truly express the American character than in his wholesale dissipation of the land and its products." He goes along in like vein for the full 12 pages, articulate and clearly mad as hell.]

Carhart considered his greatest conservation accomplishment to be the establishment of the Conservation Library Center at the Denver Public Library, which was established in 1960 with Carhart's private library and now consists of over 2,500 linear feet of material. Per one writer, it is "the historic core for anyone doing conservation research." It is the repository of the archives of the Nature Conservancy, Izaak Walton League, American Bison Society, American Rivers and American Farmland Trust, it also has papers from Aldo Leopold, Olaus Murie and Howard Zahniser, among others.

The federal inter-agency national wilderness training center is named for Carhart. He was awarded many other honors as well, including the Izaak Walton League's Founders Award and the first Outdoor Writers Association of America's Conservation Award. In 2000, the National Audubon Society recognized Carhart as one of the world's most important conservationists, along with Leopold and Theodore Roosevelt.

CARRIGHER, Sally (1898-1985)

Icebound Summer

1953. Second printing. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Inscribed

First edition, second printing. Inscribed on ffe: "Inscribed with particular pleasure for Ellen and Herman Smith remembering their day in Nome - Sally Carrigher." Carrigher was a naturalist and celebrated nature writer. In a 1965 Atlantic article, critic Edward Weeks writes that "Sally Carrigher, Joseph Wood Krutch, Rachel Carson and Edwin Way Teale have been our most eloquent contemporaries" of natural history.

Carrigher (born Dorothy Wagner - she adopted her grandmother's name) was partially disfigured at birth by the use of high forceps, which also injured her mother. Her mother never warmed to her and was abusive. Carrigher had a difficult childhood but developed sense of communication with wildlife around her house. Her books chronicle the lives of wild animals but not anthropomorphically - her work was based on years of observation. Icebound Summer compresses years into a summer in the same way her first book compressed years into a day. Her works are considered classics of the genre. The back cover of this book contains blurbs of high praise for her first two books from such luminaries as William Beebe and Edwin Way Teale. She was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for general nonfiction in 1948 and 49. NF in VG PCDJ.

Albright, Horace M. (C)

Bailey, Florence Merriam (C)

Bedichek, Roy (C)

Beebe, William (C)

Beston, Henry (C)

Brewster, William (C)

Burden, William Douglas (C)

Carhart, Arthur H. (C)

Carrigher, Sally

Adams, Ansel and Newhall, Nancy

Brant, Irving

Allen, Durward L.

Bennett, Hugh

Carson, Rachel Louise (C)

Carver, George Washington (C)

Cousteau, Captain J.Y. / Dumas, Frederic (C)

Devoto, Bernard (C)

CARSON, Rachel Louise (1907-1964)

My Favorite Recreation

[Article from July 1922 issue of St. Nicholas magazine]

1922. Original copy of the July 1922 issue of St. Nicholas magazine

Magazine. Original, complete copy in VG condition (although I've little experience with mag conditions).

Among Carson's first appearances in print (sold to me as the first appearance, but per Wikipedia entry she had published at least one short piece in the same magazine previously.) Carson was age 14 at the time she wrote this piece, which is on page 999 and is about 300 words. It is about a day out with "Pal" (her dog? friend?) seeking out and photographing birds' nests. Coincidentally, the magazine also has an installment of a serialized fiction story by Samuel Scoville Jr. Elsewhere in the Collection is his book Everyday Adventures (1920), which was inscribed by Carson to a Miss Marguerite Howe in August 1921. St. Nicholas was a popular magazine for youths published by The Century Co. It folded in 1940.

Under the Sea-Wind: A Naturalist's Picture of Ocean Life

1941. First edition. Published by Simon & Schuster. Inscribed. Stored in a custom clamshell case.

Carson's first book, which was well reviewed but sold poorly until it was reissued following her very successful second book, The Sea Around Us. inscribed: "For Captain H.W. Goodall - a naturalist and book lover. Rachel L. Carson. April 9, 1948." Blue cloth boards. Illustrated by Howard Frech. VG++ in somewhat tattered but G first state NPCDJ.

I cannot positively verify if inscribee H.W. Goodall is actually the following individual, but it seems exceptionally likely: Henry William Goodall (1900-1988) was a World War II hero (a sadly overused word - but not in this case). He was a naval officer who was awarded both the Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross for saving his ship during and following the Japanese attack on Manila harbor, and for his efforts to protect the soldiers on the Bataan death march. Goodall was ultimately captured and spent nearly three years in Japanese POW camps (few prisoners survived that hell for that long). A summary of Goodall's war exploits can be found at https://www.anastasiaharman.com/2020/02/14/henry-goodall/. He remained in the Navy after the war and retired as a rear admiral. This copy of this book was in the hands of two true heroes. I am humbled.

Chincoteague: A National Wildlife Refuge

[FWS "Conservation in Action" pamphlet]

1947. Number one in the Fish and Wildlife Service's series of 'Conservation in Action' pamphlets

An 18-page pamphlet plus stapled wrappers, measuring 9.7" x 7.7". Priced $0.15. Illustrated by Carson's FWS close friends and colleagues Shirley A. Briggs and Katherine L. Howe. This is number one in the series of 12 'Conservation in Action' Pamphlets published throughout the 1940s and 1950s, most about individual refuges. Liberally and attractively illustrated with maps and b+w drawings, with a picture of a greater snow goose landing on a salt marsh on the cover. A dime-sized sticker reading "8/1" on the cover, minor signs of handling. NF in stapled wraps.

Carson wrote or co-authored five of the 12 in the 'Conservation in Action' series. The others were on Bear River (co-authored with Vanez T. Wilson), illustrated by Bob Hines; and Mattamuskeet, Parker River, and 'Guarding our Wildlife Resources', (the last a 45-page effort), all three of which were illustrated by Howe. This copy is the first of any of these that I have seen listed for sale in well over a year of looking, a sign of the pamphlets' rarity.

Katherine L. Howe was a colleague of Carson's for several years at FWS, where she was hired as an artist. She had gone to University of Iowa with Briggs and brought Briggs into FWS, introducing her to Carson. The three remained lifelong friends. Interestingly, according to a piece on rachelcarson.org, Carson asked Howe to do some illustrations for The Sea Around Us (1951), which Howe did but Carson ultimately could not afford to buy them. So much for true immortality.

The Sea Around Us

1951. First state. Published by Oxford University Press. Rare (<100 copies printed) true first state with cloth boards which Carson rejected. Provenance: Carson's long-time research assistant Jeanne Davis. Stored in a custom clamshell case.

This is one of what is believed to be less than 100 pre-publication copies produced for Carson's approval and for her distribution to reviewers. The boards have the same stylized design as was ultimately used for the final version but constructed of a cheap-feeling matte paper which Carson rejected. The publisher rebound the first edition with plasticized boards bearing the same design. Per seller (Ken Lopez), the book comes from the library of Jeanne Davis, Carson's long-time research assistant. VG+ in a VG+ first state dust jacket.

Dedicated: "My absorption in the mystery and meaning of the sea have been stimulated and the writing of this book aided by the friendship and encouragement of William Beebe." Per an excellent piece on the publishing history of the book (https://www.squidinkbooks.com/rachel-carson.htm), most copies offered in the market are actually book club editions. The article, by Bob Maddox, opens: "Rachel Carson's second book proved amazingly popular for a natural science book written for the general reader. It went immediately into multiple printings and was also printed in large numbers as a Book of the Month Club selection. The book won the National Book Award in 1952 and was also made into a documentary film that won an Academy Award in 1952." The book was on the NYT Best Seller list for 86 weeks, and also won the John Burroughs award.

Islands and Man

[Article from Autumn 1951 issue of The Land quarterly magazine]

1951. Original copy of Autumn 1951 issue of The Land magazine

Magazine. Original, complete copy in VG condition (although I've little experience with mag conditions).

Five pages of text, reprinted from the second half of the chapter "The Birth of an Island" from The Sea Around Us. There is also a three-page review of the book attributed to the Editorial Board of the magazine, calling the book its top pick of works published in the last quarter. "It is a classic. We believe that...people the world over will be reading and rereading this work of Rachel L. Carson's for many years to come.... It is superb."

The Land magazine describes itself as being: "Published by Friends of the Land, a Society for the Conservation of Soil, Rain and Man." This issue also contains articles by Roy Bedichek and John dos Passos, among others, in addition to an interesting letter/correction from William Vogt, quoted in the section about him below.

The Edge of the Sea

1955. Stated first printing. Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., New York. Signed by Carson

Blue cloth boards. Signed by Carson on half-title. Otherwise, unmarked. Illustrations by Bob Hines. Excellent condition. VG+ to NF in VG+ to NF NPCDJ.

Bob Hines is a fascinating figure. He also illustrated Matthiessen's Wildlife in America (1959). Read about him in the Trefethen entry (1961) below.

Our Ever Changing Shore

[Article from July 1958 issue of Holiday magazine]

1958. Original copy of July 1958 issue of Holiday magazine

Magazine. Large format - folio sized. Original, complete copy in VG condition (although I've little experience with mag conditions).

The article of 4.5 pages was written for this special edition of Holiday, described as follow: "This entire issue: The beauty and wonders of natural America." The magazine has many large format, full page photographs (including one by Ansel Adams).

Mountains in the Sea

1962. Published by Science Research Associates, Inc., Chicago, IL.

Paper-covered octavo-sized booklet style youth book, 31 pages, excerpted from the 1958 Golden Press young adult version of The Sea Around Us. The word "Resource" is written in marker on the inside front cover, otherwise unmarked and VG.

Silent Spring

1962. Stated first printing. Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., New York. Signed by Carson

Blue cloth boards. Signed by Carson on half-title, else unmarked. Illustrated by Lois and Louis Darling. VG+ to NF in VG NPCDJ.

Silent Spring [Uncorrected Proof Copy]

1962. Uncorrected proof copy ring bound in pale blue cardstock covers. VG+ to NF.

The following is the complete and very well written description from the dealer (Ken Lopez) from whom I acquired this item:

The uncorrected proof copy, with over 50 variations from the published text, some substantial, although in many cases it is the smaller changes that most reveal the intent of the revisions. Paragraphs have been deleted (and others added) between this state and the published version; one chapter title has been changed. In several instances, brand names of chemicals have been removed. In one case, an identifying advertising slogan was deleted; in another, the sum of money involved in a matter of litigation was omitted. Some of Carson's conjectures (and those of her sources) were dropped or softened; probable but unsubstantiated cause-and-effect connections between chemical exposure and illness were left out or reworded. Throughout the rewrite that had to have taken place between these sheets and the finished book, qualifying phrases were added and incendiary remarks deleted: Carson was making her work more cautious and less assailable, ensuring that her text would survive the attacks that would follow. The publication of the final book is given here as 10/8/62; actual publication was in September. We have dated this proof at approximately late April [in fact, the publisher's header on certain pages has the date 4/16]. On April 5, Carson wrote to Dorothy Freeman (in a letter published in the 1994 collection Always, Rachel): "Miss Phillips called today (H.M. editor) and said text will go to printer today or tomorrow. Galleys in 2 or 3 weeks then!" Several small pencil annotations on rear blank and in text. The preliminary pages of the proof are out of order, and the appendix is not included. One page corner is turned. Printed on rectos only and ringbound in tall, cardstock covers that are modestly sunned and edgeworn, with a small corner chip to the rear cover; still about near fine. A rare advance state of probably the most influential book in the history of environmental writing, which is commonly credited with having launched the modern environmental movement, and whose repercussions are still helping shape social policy today. These proofs predate the appearances of sections of the book in The New Yorker magazine, its first exposure to a general readership. We have only seen one other copy of these proofs in the past.

The Rocky Coast

[Photos by Charles Pratt]

1971 - Advanced review copy. Published by McCall Publishing Co. Quarto.

The book is a reprint of 'The Rocky Shores' chapter from Carson's Edge of the Sea, illustrated with photos by Charles Pratt and some of the original drawings from that book by Bob Hines. Laid in is advanced review slip, a black and white photo of the book and a one-page publicist release saying Carson was involved in starting the project to reprint the chapter but was delayed after the furor following Silent Spring - she then became ill and died. Pratt later took the photos. Pratt is described in the note as having illustrated another Carson book for children, among other accomplishments. VG in a VG NPCDJ.

[See also: Scoville's Outdoor Adventures (1920) which Carson inscribed and gifted at age 14; Paul Brooks' The House of Life: Rachel Carson at Work (1972); Ruth Harrison's Animal Machines (1964) with a two-page forward by Carson; various references to Shirley Ann Briggs; and Courage for the Earth: Writer's, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson (2007), edited by Peter Matthiessen, in the Anthology Section].

CARVER, George Washington (1864ish - 1943)

Two Handwritten Letters, signed photo [Photos]

1932-33

Two handwritten and signed letters to close friend and student Ford Davis on Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute letterhead. The first, dated 6/25/32, is one page and discusses what appears to be research by Davis on treating calcium deficiency. The second letter, dated 7/16/33 is two full pages and is altogether more interesting, in that appears to point to a more intimate relationship with Davis than simply friend and student - a biography of Carver from 2015 posits that Carver, who never married, was bisexual. From the context, it appears that Ford Davis was white. The letter itself discusses the possibility of doing a lecture tour with Davis, allowing the latter to display some of his work and expertise as a scientist. The following is excerpted from the letter (paragraph breaks omitted):

My beloved boy Mr. Davis: -

I know you know exactly what I mean when I say beloved boy. I saw you before you got out of the car and I wanted to run out and get you but I thought it best to wait "until" you came in. Dear. I believe you look better than ever, so much more intellectual. Your skin is not the fresh baby pink that I like, but a few massages will bring it back again. My mind keeps telling me that the time is now ripe for a trip even in parts of the South where we could be together unmolested. What I want most is to take my precious boy "Ford" on a real lecture tour.... I want my boy to go and it hurts my very soul to think I cannot have the very one that God has endowed with a brain, spirit and personality to fit into this great work, simply because of complexion and nationality. Dear, I believe this handicap will soon pass away, so that real progress will not be curtailed as it is altogether too much now. So study hard, dear, get acquainted with many many things.... I would have my dear handsome boy with me right along if I could, I am not discouraged our time is coming. Some days I believe that dream will be realized and we will be out [on?] a real scientific investigation trip. My dear boy pleases me from every possible angle. Admiringly yours, G.W. Carver

Also included in the package is a Chapel Bulletin from Tuskegee Institute with a poem entitled "This is Friendship" with the first four stanzas reading "I love you not only for what you are....// I love you, not only for what you have made yourself....// I love you for the part of me that you bring out.// I love you for putting your hand in my heaped-up heart....". Carver has highlighted these stanzas and written "This is what you mean to me."

Finally, there is a silver gelatin print photo of Carver signed by him.

George Washington Carver was an agricultural scientist who developed and promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion, through the agricultural extension program at Tuskegee which he founded. He headed the modern organic movement in the southern agricultural system, identifying nitrogen-rich crops that regenerated soil depleted by cotton farming. He developed and promoted uses for those crops, particularly peanuts and sweet potatoes. He also worked to pioneer organic fertilizers and natural fodder for farm animals. And he supported woodland preservation in order to help improve the quality of topsoil.

Carver was born at the tail end of slavery - his father died before he was born and he, his sister and mother were kidnapped by raiders when he was a baby - only he was recovered by his owner, who raised him and his brother. He pursued his own education (he was not allowed to attend school where he was raised). Ultimately, he got his bachelor's and master's degrees at Iowa State, where he was the first black student and later the first black faculty member. Booker T. Washington lured him to Tuskegee, where he taught for 47 years. He became among the best-known Black Americans of his day, one of a handful of Americans to be made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, consulted by presidents including Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge and FDR.

Ever since I read a "Landmark" series biography of GWC as a boy he has been a particular hero.

COUSTEAU, Captain J.Y. [Jacques Yves] (1910-1997)

With Frederic Dumas [accents over both e's]

The Silent World

1953. First edition, early printing. Published by Harper & Row, New York and Evanston. Signed.

Signed on half-title page. Cousteau's first book, which he wrote in English despite being a native French speaker, was an international best-seller, having sold over five million copies and translated into 22 languages. It remains in print to this day. The dj has a lengthy blurb by Rachel Carson, beginning at the bottom of the front cover (which is highlighted with a bright yellow background strip) and continuing on the rear cover. The other, shorter blurb is by William Beebe. The book describes Cousteau's co-invention of, and initial use (with co-author Frederic Dumas) of scuba gear. He describes many other undersea adventures and first posits the use of echolocation by porpoises. The book contains 83 black-and-white and 20 color illustrations, the latter provided by National Geographic and described on page xi as follows: "The handheld color work in Ektochrome is the first ever made in significant depths, using artificial light and scientific color correction." Per a publisher's note, Cousteau was aided by former reporter and long-time collaborator James Dugan (1912-1967) in the preparation of the book. The DJ has a color illustration of a scuba diver. It also has a seal/sticker identifying it as "A Harper Blue Ribbon Book," described as identifying a book of "tested excellence, conforming to the highest educational standards." NF. The VG DJ is price-clipped but has small gold sticker next to the clipped section with a $5.95 price showing.

The Silent World was made into a documentary film in 1956, directed by Cousteau and Louis Malle - one of the first films to use underwater color cinematography. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the 1956 Academy Award for Best Documentary, the first of two films directed by Cousteau to do so - the second being World Without Sun (1964). The aforementioned James Dugan wrote the narration for both films.

Carson's blurb reads in full: "THE SILENT WORLD, says Rachel Carson, 'had my fascinated attention...from beginning to end. We owe Captain Cousteau an immense debt of gratitude. He has revolutionized the means of human access to the undersea world.... But all of us, whether we enter the sea or merely read about it, are indebted to Captain Cousteau for this completely fresh and unhackneyed account of what the diver sees and feels when he descends into the sea. This book cuts a refreshing path through the murky literature of diving that has accumulated over the years, much of it steeped in legend and superstition and hair-raising battles between divers and undersea 'monsters.' Heaven knows, there is excitement enough for anyone in this book, but Cousteau remains throughout the factual and clear-headed reporter of what he actually experienced. He has a keen mind and his reactions are always interesting. This book makes a real contribution to our understanding of the world beneath the sea's surface.'"

Cousteau was probably the most influential marine explorer of all time - and it's hard to imagine him ever being supplanted from that throne. William Beebe and Sylvia Earle of course both get high marks as well. [Interestingly, I'd argue that Rachel Carson was the most influential marine biologist of all time - but perhaps not for her work in marine biology]. Cousteau basically invented, along with Emile Gagnan, the modern scuba apparatus, making extended underwater exploration possible. He published more than 50 books and 120 documentaries and founded an environmental protection foundation with over 300,000 members.

From 1966 through 1982, Cousteau hosted two separate documentary series on U.S. and U.K. television which were quite popular - introducing countless people to the wonders of the undersea world. I grew up on those documentaries. My mom was generally not a TV watcher (with the exception of the Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett shows on Thursday night). But she loved the Cousteau specials, and we watched every one. They were an event in my house. Those shows, along with Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (with Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler) on Sunday nights, had a huge impact on me - probably more so as my sister and I were generally not allowed to watch much other TV. But I digress....

Cousteau's interest in environmental conservation developed organically over the course of his career. Starting from a time and place where environmental awareness was negligible (and he had his faux pas' early in his career), his love of the natural (undersea) world led him to an awareness and a leadership role on the issue. He was an early warner on climate issues and led a protest which prevented the dumping of large amounts of nuclear waste into the Mediterranean in the 1960's. He became a champion of the cause, and I am pleased he is represented in the Collection (the more so as I had previously purchased a signed Cousteau book, but the USPS left it on my front steps (I live in Manhattan, for goodness sake.)) Needless to say, I never saw that book.

Cousteau's honors included, among many others, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Geographic Society's Special Gold Medal (presented by JFK), election to the Academie Francaise, Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, and Commander of the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre - the last two for his work as a French naval gunnery officer and member of the French Resistance during WWII.

DARLING, J.N. "Ding" (1876-1962)

Ding's Half Century

[Photos]

1962 - Stated first. Published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce. Edited by John M. Henry. Signed presentation materials of conservationist Max McGraw laid in.

Jay "Ding" Darling was a two-time Pulitzer winning editorial cartoonist who was also one of the major conservation forces of the first half of the 20th century. This book was published in the year of Darling's death and contains a selection of Darling's cartoons from over his long career, with accompanying text. According to the Intro, Darling's last work was reviewing the drawings to be included, and either writing or reviewing the accompanying text (the wording in the Intro is ambiguous on that point). While the cartoons are often not per se conservationist, Darling was such a major figure in the EC movement that insofar as he never published a book on environmental topics, the inclusion of this one seemed appropriate. Laid in are presentation materials from conservationist Max McGraw, about which more below. Editor John M. Henry was a journalist and PR officer who worked with Darling at the Des Moines Register. NF in a VG+ NPCDJ

Darling was an editorial cartoonist by profession, once judged the best in America, but as Douglas Brinkley puts it, "his consuming passion was to protect the upper Mississippi River ecosystem from wanton destruction." (RH p269). During the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, Darling lobbied for the creation of the US Forest Service and worked to systematize scientific management of federal bird preserves. He served as president of the Izaak Walton League in Iowa and as chair of the state Fish and Game Commission.

In January 1934, FDR appointed Darling, a staunch Republican, to the Committee on Wildlife Restoration, along with Collier's editor Thomas Beck and Aldo Leopold. The committee issued the "Beck Report," which, due to Darling and Beck's public prominence, garnered significant national attention. It recommended $50 million be dedicated to acquiring and restoring wetlands and marshes, 75% of which had been destroyed for agriculture or other development. FDR cut the amount to a more realistic $8.5 billion and appointed Darling to be the head of the US Biological Survey in 1934-35, where he hired John Clark Salyer II, a wildlife biologist. Together, Darling and Salyer worked to acquire hundreds of thousands of acres of land, often denuded from short-sighted agricultural practices, to be rehabilitated and converted to federal wildlife refuges. These efforts were the foundation in the growth of migratory waterfowl populations from 30 million in 1933 to over 100 million by the onset of WWII.

In addition to his government work, Darling was also the founder and first president of the National Wildlife Federation. He designed the first federal duck stamp. He was awarded the Audubon Medal and the Theodore Roosevelt Gold Medal Award for his conservation work. The J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge and Lake Darling State Park in Iowa are named after him.

Laid in to the book are two presentation cards from conservationist Max McGraw (1883-1964), who was a friend and protégé of Darling as well as a very successful businessman. The first card reads:

I little thought when I was a boy pumping the organ in the church of Ding's father that either of us would see the changes in this world of ours which Ding so meticulously records in this fine selection of old cartoons, a sometimes amusing, sometimes satirical, but always accurate history of our century. Through the McGraw Wildlife Foundation I am striving to realize Ding Darling's dream of perpetuating our depleted wildlife by practical research, and by the raising and releasing of game to the wild. I know he has noticed the thousands of Mallards we have released these last two years, and that he approves. Since he was my first and only employer preceding my sixty four year venture in the electrical industry, I feel privileged to send you this volume of his works.

Max McGraw [signed by hand].

President, Mcgraw Foundation

Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation

North American Wildlife Foundation.

The second card, which was once affixed to the ffe but is now separated, reads in full: "Presented As A Tribute To The Late "Ding" Darling/A Great Conservationist And A Great Friend/In the long ago "Ding" was my first "Boss." He was Circulation Manager of the Sioux City Journal and I a newsboy/Greetings and Best Wishes for 1963."

The McGraw Foundation and the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation remain active today in wildlife and fisheries research and education. [mcgraw.org]. The Max McGraw Professorship on Corporate Environmental Management at the Univ of Michigan was endowed by the McGraw Foundation.

DEVOTO, Bernard (1897-1955)

Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks?

[Article from July 22, 1950, issue of The Saturday Evening Post]

1950. Original copy of July 22, 1950, issue of The Saturday Evening Post

Magazine. Original, complete copy in VG condition (although I've little experience with mag conditions). Shrink-wrapped.

The Uneasy Chair

1955. Published by Houghton Mifflin. Inscribed.

Inscribed on ffe: "For Perry//Benny." Marbled boards with black cloth spine. Rough cut outer edge of text block. A collection of DeVoto's articles from Harper's (see below). VG in a VG- NPCDJ with a few chips out of top of spine

Brooks writes of DeVoto that he "may well have been the most potent one-man force for the conservation of nature in the mid-twentieth century.... As Wallace Stegner has pointed out, DeVoto was a highly vocal champion of environmental conservation long before it became a mass movement." [pp. 247-8]. The influential article "Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks" was the first salvo in the fight against the Echo Park dam - a successful fight which was a bellwether in the modern environmental movement, as discussed more fully in connection with the anthology This is Dinosaur, edited by Stegner. [See also Stegner's biography of DeVoto (1974)]

DeVoto is described as "volcanic", "mercurial," etc. His primary platform was a monthly column, "The Easy Chair" which he wrote for Harper's Magazine. He was not a naturalist, but an historian, and as such "he knew that the assault by private interests on the public reserves had been going on ever since they were created in the eighteen-eighties. The principal objects of his wrath were the miners...; the loggers, whom Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot strove mightily to keep under control; and above all the cattlemen and the sheepmen, whose depredations in the early days had so enraged John Muir." [Brooks p. 248]

Sadly, DeVoto died a couple of weeks before the Echo Dam project was defeated. "When he died in the autumn of 1955, it became clear there was no one who could quite replace him. His voice had helped to carry his country and its natural treasures, without too much loss, through the bleak period of the late forties and early fifties - a period when the public domain was under attack, the national parks were being starved for funds, and the Secretary of the Interior - an Oregon automobile dealer named Douglas McKay - dismissed conservationists as 'long-haired punks.'" [Brooks p. 250].

DOBIE, J. Frank (1888-1964)

The Longhorns

1941. First edition. Published by Little, Brown & Co. Signed

Signed below half-title. Illustrated by Tom Lea. VG in a VG PCDJ

J. Frank Dobie was one of the premier folklorists of the Southwest who was an ardent promoter for the creation of Big Bend NP in southwestern Texas. Dobie accompanied a National Geographic exploring party to the area in 1938 and later lived in the area while researching this book, which is his best known, while living in a CCC camp and soliciting stories from the largely Hispanic workforce. Writes Stephen L. Davis in the Oct 2019 online issue of texashighways.com: "I began to see that Dobie was also a visionary environmentalist [in addition to being at the vanguard of inclusivity, racial and gender]. He helped inspire Big Bend National Park by galvanizing the Texas Legislature to preserve the vanishing wilderness. He also was instrumental in the movement to save animals from extinction by railing against the widespread use of chemical poisons such as DDT." Brinkley calls him "an able promoter almost comparable to John Muir...." (RH p. 316).

Dobie was a liberal Democrat who, after becoming the first non-PhD full professor at UT Austin, was fired due in part to his public efforts to integrate the University. He was generally outspoken, famously once writing that "[w]hen I get ready to explain homemade fascism in America, I can take my example from the state capitol of Texas." Proving there is nothing new under the sun!

DOUGLAS, Marjory Stoneman (1890-1998)

The Everglades: River of Grass

1947. First edition with colophon. Published by Rinehart & Co.

Green cloth boards and spine pristine. No markings or foxing. Illustrated by Robert Fink. Part of the popular "Rivers of America" series. VG++ in a VG PCDJ.

Florida: The Long Frontier

1967. First edition. Published by Harper & Row, New York, Evanston and London. Inscribed

Yellow cloth boards and spine pristine. No markings or foxing. Inscribed: "To Virginia Abbott, To keep her coming south and for all her interest in "Florida: The Long Frontier" [Half-title used in lieu of handwriting], With best wishes, Marjory Stoneman Douglas/Coconut Grove/Florida, 196?." Folding map opposite first page of text. NF in NF PCDJ.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas has been credited with nearly single-handedly saving the Everglades from development. The Everglades: River of Grass "redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson's...Silent Spring." [Wikipedia]. She ranks with Leopold and Carson in the pantheon of post-war environmental conservation writers.

Douglas was a journalist, free-lance writer, suffragette and human rights activist. She spent the last 30 years of her very long (108 year) life dedicated to saving the Everglades, founding the Friends of the Everglades in 1979. Before that, she was a charter member of the first ACLU chapter organized in the south, she testified in favor of the ERA, she supported organizations seeking to help migrant farm workers. She was a giant - one of less than twenty people inducted into the National Wildlife Federation's Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Pres. Clinton at age 103, among many other honors. Said Florida Governor Lawton Chiles: "Marjory was the first voice to really wake a lot of us up to what we were doing to our quality of life. She was not just a pioneer of the environmental movement, she was a prophet, calling out to us to save the environment for our children and our grandchildren." The citation for the Presidential Medal of Freedom reads: "Marjory Stoneman Douglas personifies passionate commitment. Her crusade to preserve and restore the Everglades has enhanced our Nation's respect for our precious environment, reminding all of us of nature's delicate balance. Grateful Americans honor the 'Grandmother of the Glades' by following her splendid example in safeguarding America's beauty and splendor for generations to come."

DOUGLAS, William O. (1898-1980)

My Wilderness: The Pacific West

1960. Stated first. Published by Doubleday & Co., Garden City, New York. Signed

Signed on second fe. Illustrated by Francis Lee Jaques. Grey cloth boards, very lightly soiled. Large owner's bookplate on verso of ffe. Text block pristine - would be NF except for the foregoing. VG in VG+ NPCDJ.

My Wilderness: East to Katahdin

1961. Early printing (lacks "First Edition" on copyright page). Published by Doubleday & Co., Garden City, New York. Signed

Signed on second fe. Illustrated by Francis Lee Jaques. Grey cloth boards. Text block pristine. VG in VG+ NPCDJ.

The Three Hundred Year War: A Chronicle of Ecological Disaster

1972. Stated first. Published by Random House, New York

Black cloth boards. NF to F in a NF NPCDJ.

Douglas was a U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1939-75, the longest serving justice in history. He is also considered amongst the most progressive justices in history - approaching from the libertarian side of the house. As a justice he was, as the Irish say, "himself truly." A summary of his long tenure is beyond the scope of this site, but worth a quick read.

Douglas was a lifelong outdoorsperson, environmentalist and conservationist, who was a close friend of the Kennedy family and environmental mentor to JFK. From an environmental perspective he is credited with saving the 185-mile D&O canal path and having it named a National Historic Park in 1971. He persuaded the Supreme Court to preserve the Red River Gorge in KY and was instrumental in keeping Arkansas' Buffalo River free-flowing - the first National River. He is credited with having hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. He served on the Sierra Club board for a time. In a dissenting opinion in 1972 he argued that "inanimate objects" such as trees, rivers, valleys, beaches and even the air should have standing in litigation. In addition to the U.S., he also wrote on his extensive travels in Asia and the Middle East.

Francis Lee Jacques (1887-1969) was an American wildlife painter, author and conservationist who, with his wife Florence Page Jacques, championed the Boundary Waters Wilderness and also helped preserve an area on an island in Lake Superior, which is now named the Francis Lee Jacques Memorial Preserve.

DUBKIN, Leonard (1905-1972)

The Natural History of a Yard

1955. Presumed first. Published by Henry Regnery Co., Chicago

Attractive patterned green and white cloth boards with maroon spine. Illustrations by Carl Kock. Unmarked. NF in a VG+ NPCDJ

Dubkin was an amateur naturalist, author and journalist who published on urban nature themes (like John Kieren), in his case in Chicago. He was a correspondent of Rachel Carson and Edwin Way Teale, among others. Writes Lyon of Dubkin: "Dubkin came to a certain perspective on himself as a potential interpreter of the importance of nature in the modern, working world.... This book is a testimony to the endurance of several species, including our own." [Lyon p. 415].

EISELEY, Loren (1907-1977)

The Immense Journey

1957. Stated first printing. Published by Random House, New York

Eisley's first book, described as "a collection of writings about the history of humanity, and it proved to be that rare science book that appealed to a mass audience. It has sold over a million copies and has been published in at least 16 languages.....[It] was also Eisley's most well-known book and established him as a writer with the ability to combine science and humanity in a poetic way." [Wikipedia]. Salmon-colored cloth boards with gilt lettering over black and white fields on spine. VG+ in a G- NPCDJ.

Interestingly, both Wikipedia and (by citation) the Loren Eisley Society website (eiseley.org) state that this book was first published in 1946. The first (of seven) copyright dates is in fact 1946, but this I believe reflects the fact that some of the material in the book includes previously published essays, and the copyright dates reflect the dates of those individual publications. According to the NYT obituary of Eiseley, the book was in fact first published in 1957, and there is no mention of a prior edition in the volume.

Eiseley was a giant of his time - a scholar of immense breadth who was the most honored member of the University of Pennsylvania since Benjamin Franklin, having received 36 honorary degrees and numerous other awards. Eiseley was lauded as a scientist who brought a poetic sensibility and style to subjects and styles as disparate as Francis Bacon, evolution, poetry, autobiography, history and biography. He has been described as "the modern Thoreau" [Publishers Weekly]. His is a name which I have come upon often when reading about other, more recent environmentalists and their influences. I look forward to reading this book.

FOSBURGH, Pieter W. (1906-1978)

The Natural Thing: The Land and Its Citizens

1959. First. Published by The Macmillan Company, New York. Inscribed to Fosburgh's mother

Inscribed on ffe: "For Dear Mother Whitney, with much love, Pieter." A collection of essays on preserving and managing forest reserves and wildlife from The Conservationist, the official publication of the NYS Conservation Department, of which Fosburgh was the founder and editor. Fosburgh served in the position for ten years until he resigned in 1956 over an experiment in pheasant-rearing by the department in which about 15,000 birds died of botulism. He also spent 21 years as president of the North Woods Club, a private conservation group which aided in preservation of large tracts of woodland and wildlife in the Adirondack Mountains of NYS. Per his NYT obituary, Fosburgh "was a tall, rangy, unassuming man whose life was dedicated to advocating prudent use of natural resources and pressing for improved conservation policies for land and wildlife." NF in a VG NPCDJ

FRYXELL, Fritiof (1900-1986)

The Tetons: Interpretations of a Mountain Landscape

1938. First. Published by University of California Press: Berkeley. Inscribed to president of college where Fryxell taught

Inscribed on ffe: "July 16, 1938. To the Bergendoffs, with the regards of Fritiof Fryxell." John Bergendoff was the president of Augustana College in IL, Fryxell's alma mater where he taught for his entire career. A slim book at 77 pages in auburn cloth boards, fold-out map at rear, b+w photos. Among those friends thanked in the Preface are Francis Farquhar, also an accomplished mountaineer. Boards warping and fraying at edges, text block sound. VG no DJ

Described as "a classic of Western nature literature that has been reprinted many times." (Wikipedia entry on Fryxell). Fryxell writes eloquently in the Preface about the "National Park Idea" and its global impact. "In our own country its ever widening circles of influence are evident each year in the designation of wilderness areas and in the establishment of new bird and wild-animal refuges; state, county and municipal forests and parks; and reserves of historical and scientific significance." (p viii). Writing of the great mountain ranges of Wyoming: "To one who has been among them their natures will call out of the past a flood of unforgettable impressions; the fragrance of sage or pine after the rain, the glowing sunsets with which the days close and that night after night outline the long broken skyline, or a recurrence of that sense of profound solitude that comes when in regions as uncrowded as these." (p. 2). A lovely book about a wonderful place.

Fritiof Fryxell was a geologist, mountaineer, professor and author. He spent his academic career at Augustana College, where he was brought in as the first chair of the new Department of Geology after receiving his PhD from U of Chicago. He spent his summers in the Tetons starting in 1926 and he was instrumental in its designation as a National Park in 1929. Fryxell was hired to work summers as the park's first ranger naturalist. In 1935 he was hired to work summers at the NPS' Museum Laboratories, where he helped create museum exhibits for most of the NPs and Monuments in the West. He also wrote, publishing a number of scientific books and several well-regarded biographers of Western explorers, including artist Thomas Moran and photographer W.H. Jackson (see Master Lists). During and immediately after WWII he worked as a military geologist of the U.S. and for the Philippines. He taught at Augustana for over 50 years, heading the Sciences for part of it. The school's geology museum is named after him. Fryxell was a "natural mountaineer" who put up numerous first ascents. The government sought his counsel in naming many of the natural features of the Teton NP - most of his suggestions were accepted and are used today.

GABRIELSON, Ira N. (1889-1977)

Wildlife Refuges

[Photos]

1943. Indicated first printing. Published by The Macmillan Company, New York. Signed.

Signed on ffe, below which is a separate gift inscription from an Oshkosh, WI businessman (Clyde B. Terrell) to "My friend and neighbor" dated 1956. Published while Gabrielson was Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Green cloth boards. Illustrated with 32 b+w photo plates and 17 figures. Page edges rough cut. In really good shape - NF+ in a G NPCDJ.

Ira Gabrielson is today perhaps not so recognized but was an important naturalist, ornithologist and conservationist who worked at the US Biological Survey for 20 years until he became its head in 1935 - he continued as head of the USFWS after it was formed by the consolidation of the Biological Survey and the Bureau of Fisheries for another six years starting in 1940. During his tenure as head of the services, he added millions of acres of wildlife refuges and systemized management of the national refuges. He later served as president of the Wildlife Management Institute and helping to found the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in 1948 and helping organize the World Wildlife Fund (United States) in 1961, serving as its first president. He was awarded the Audubon Medal in 1949 and the Interior Department's Distinguished Service Award.

Laid in are two reviews of the book, a lengthy one from Nature Magazine by Howard Zahniser and the other from Audubon magazine. Zahniser describes the book as "indispensable to wildlife conservationists."

GOIN, Olive Bown (1912-2000)

World Outside My Door: A Housewife-Naturalist Explores the Living Wilderness in her own Backyard

1955. Indicated first printing. Published by The Macmillan Company, New York

In the author bio blurb on the rear DJ flap, Goin is described as "first and foremost a housewife." However, in her spare time, she was also a biologist with a master's degree in science from Pitt who served at various times as assistant in the mammalogy laboratory at Carnegie Mellon, a graduate assistant and teaching fellow at the University of Florida, and a research associate at the Museum of Northern Arizona, in Flagstaff. The blurb assures us that her husband was a biology professor at Univ of Florida, in case her bona fides might be questioned on their own. The book was well reviewed in the NYT on 6/5/55, described as "interesting, authentic and informative...." Green cloth boards with maroon spine. Some offsetting and a magic marker blot on ffe, otherwise VG in a G+ NPCDJ.

GRAHAM, Edward H. and VAN DERSAL, William R.

Water for America: The Story of Water Conservation

1956. First. Published by Oxford University Press. Inscribed by both authors

Inscribed "To Jim Vessey, best wishes from his fellow conservationists. Edward H. Graham//William R. Van Dersal." Written for a juvenile audience, one of three "Stories of Conservation" written by the duo. Each page addresses a separate aspect of the topic, with the facing page consisting of a full-page photograph. Graham was a prominent international conservationist who, at the time of his sudden death in 1966, was slated to serve a three-year term as president of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. VG in a VG NPCDJ

GRANGE, Wallace Byron (1906-1987)

Those of the Forest

1953. First. Published by The Flambeau Publishing Company, Babcock, Wisconsin. Inscribed by prominent naturalist and conservationist Herbert L. Stoddard Sr. to ornithologist Alex Sprunt Jr.

Inscribed on ffe: "To my dear friend Alex Sprunt Jr., With best wishes for a Merry Christmas. Herbert L. Stoddard Jr. Dec 1953." Stoddard blurbed the book. The first word of fiction to win the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing. A prior owner has tipped in the promotional blurbs from a different copy of the DJ onto the fpd and ffe. Green cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine, somewhat scuffed about the edges. Illustrated by Olaus J. Murie. Flambeau Publishing was formed by Grange's wife to publish the book, which was extremely well received. VG- in G sunfaded (but clearly legible) DJ.

Wallace Byron Grange was an important conservationist in Wisconsin, friends with the Murie brothers and Aldo Leopold. He was the state's first game superintendent (from ages 22-24) and also worked for the U.S. Biological Survey. In the 1930s he bought thousands of acres of denuded farmland in Wisconsin through tax foreclosure auctions and created a large, fenced game farm and preserve which today is the Sandhill Wildlife Demonstration Area. According to a bio of Grange on the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame website (Grange was elected posthumously), Grange was ahead of his time in his ecology-based approach to conservation, advocating for extensive use of fire for land management purposes, appreciating the role of predators in an ecosystem, and warning against environmental hazards from poison and radioactive substances. "Could all our hunters of game be ecologists, even in spirit, the future of North American game would be safe for all time," said he (per the WCHF bio). Also per that bio, Grange wrote this book, a fictional biography of a snowshoe hare, for his wife Hazel. "On one level it was a fine natural history narrative in the tradition of Ernest Thompson Seton. On the next it was [a] well-written course in ecology, drawn from the author's encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. And finally it was a poetic sermon, a celebration of Creation."

Herbert L. Stoddard was an important naturalist and conservationist who was friendly with Grange and Leopold - Leopold considered Stoddard to be the founder of scientific wildlife management. "...not only was he a champion for putting fire back on the landscape and one of the first to conduct active wildlife management, but he was also one of the first to recognize that cultural landscapes could harbor substantial ecological diversity. The intersection of these three components forms the foundation of ecosystem management." [Wikipedia entry on Stoddard].

Sprunt was an ornithologist who served as Southern representative and supervisor of Southern sanctuaries for the National Audubon Society and naturalist in residence at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, FL.

GRAVES, Henry S. (1871-1951)

The Forest [Photos]

[Graves wrote the copy for the 6/1/18 issue of The Mentor, an unusual educational magazine covering one topic per issue]

1918. Copy of The Mentor, published by The Mentor Association, New York City. Serial No. 156, Vol 6, No. 8. Good

The Mentor was an unusual magazine published by William David Moffat. The magazine started as a subscription-only weekly in 1913. Each issue consisted of a roughly dozen page article on a single topic along with six "exquisite intaglio gravures" - full page photos, accompanying each issue but not bound in. Its motto was "Learn One Thing Every Day." The publication morphed over time - after a year it went to bi-monthly. The annual subscription fee at the time of the 6/1/18 issue was $4.00. In 1920 it increased the number of pages to 40 and the photos were bound in - the last five pages were also allowed to be on other topics. Moffat sold the business but remained as editor until retirement 1929 - the magazine's subscription base staying generally at or below 100,000. It was enlarged and sold once more but appears to have shut down in early 1931.

The 6/1/1918 issue, entitled "The Forest," was written by Graves, who was still head of the Forest Service at that time. It is illustrated with small photos. The last page is an "Open Letter" by Moffat, also on forestry. The six unbound full-page photos are intact, each with a full page of text printed on the reverse written by "the editorial staff of the Mentor Association." Notably, the text on the verso of the last photogravure is about the importance of timber to the military, which makes sense in that WWI was still underway. The inside front cover is a lengthy excerpt from John Muir, while in the rear is a shorter excerpt from Washington Irving (both on forests of course). The rear cover is a full-page publisher's ad for bound copies of prior and future issues of the magazine (five leather-bound volumes at the time), for $37, payable monthly over the course of the next year.

Henry S. Graves co-founded the Yale Forestry School in 1900 with Gifford Pinchot and James Tourney. It was endowed by Pinchot's parents, and was the first graduate school of forestry - today it is the oldest continuously operated forestry school in the country. Graves was the head of the school for the first ten years. In 1910, Graves became the second head of the Forest Service after Pinchot was fired by Taft - Graves served in the role for ten years (spending some time in 1917-18 as a military officer). In 1923 he again took over leadership of the Forestry School, serving until 1939.

Per the Forest Service history linked to the Dec 2023 forestry blog piece on this site:

[Graves] 10-year stint as Chief...was characterized by a stabilization of the national forests, the purchase of new national forests in the East, and the strengthening of the foundations of forestry by putting them on a more scientific basis. His great contribution was the successful launching of a national forest policy for the United States - a permanent and far-reaching achievement. During his tenure as Chief, the Forest Products Laboratory was established [see Eloise Gerry]...the Weeks Law of 1911 was enacted - allowing the Federal Government to purchase forest lands (mostly in the East); and the Research branch of the Forest Service was organized.

Graves was also a member of Charles Sprague Sargent's 1896 National Forest Commission, the report of which is in the Government Publications section. In 1900, Graves, Pinchot and five other men were cofounders of the Society of American Foresters. See the blog post on Forestry dated 12/29/23 for more on Graves place in the context of the time.

HALL, Leonard (1899-?)

Stars Upstream: Life along an Ozark River

1958. First edition. Published by U. of Chicago Press. Inscribed

Inscribed on half-title: "for Dom [Don?] Davis - fellow outdoorsman." Two sections of photographic illustrations. Foreword by Ira Gabrielson. A glowing blurb from fellow nature columnist Hal Borland on dj rear cover. VG in a VG NPCDJ

Leonard Hall is not a widely recognized name today, but he was a leader in the drive to have the Current and Jack Fork Rivers in the Missouri Ozark Mountains become the nation's first National Scenic Riverway in 1964, four years before the passage of the Wild and Scenic River Act. Hall was chairman of the Advisory Commission for the Ozark Scenic Riverways. This book is about the Current River, which, per the jacket description "has been called the most beautiful small river in America. Its backwoods valley is one of the few real wilderness areas left in the midwestern United States." That area of the Ozarks had been "cruelly exploited," primarily for timber. "Now, the conservation and wildlife services are beginning to teach the open-range grazers and woods-burners wise farming and forestry practices." In his quite laudatory Foreword, Gabrielson says the book "should be required reading for everyone interested in the future of America." Aldo Leopold had a home on the Current River and was also active in the protection efforts.

Hall was an author and the long-time nature columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and then the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He also lectured throughout the country for the National Audubon Society. He did the photography and narration for two full length documentary films, one paralleling this book. He also served on the boards of Defenders of Wildlife, the Missouri Nature Conservancy, and the Missouri Conservation Federation. His papers are held at the Missouri Historical Society.

HAMILTON, Alice (1869-1970)

Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D.

1943. Stated first edition. Published by Little, Brown & Co/Atlantic Monthly Press. Inscribed

Inscribed on ffe: "T.S. Almorth [this is a guess - hard to decipher] with the compliments of its author. Alice Hamilton." Illustrations, consisting of full-page charcoal drawings, including frontispiece portrait of Hamilton, by Hamilton's sister, Norah Hamilton. NF no DJ

I had never heard of Alice Hamilton (1869-1970) until I read the quote reproduced in the Catalogue entry on Barry Commoner (1966). So, I looked her up. Oh, my goodness. She was a physician who trained at Univ. of Michigan, in 1893. Following two internships, she decided she was not interested in establishing a medical practice and so went back to school to study bacteriology and pathology at Michigan, in Germany and at Johns Hopkins. In 1897 she became a professor of pathology at Northwestern University. She became a resident and member of Hull House, the settlement house founded by Jane Addams - she became Addams' personal physician and taught English and art as a volunteer. (She also directed the men's fencing and athletic clubs and operated a well-baby clinic).

While at Hull House, she was exposed to poor and working-class people who's health was impacted by exposure to industrial toxins such as lead and carbon monoxide. She began to study the issue and realized that, while there was some work being done in Europe, it was not an issue being studied in America. She published her first paper on the issue in 1908. In 1910 she was appointed as a medical examiner to the newly formed Illinois Commission on Occupational Diseases and authored the Commission's report - leading to the first worker's compensation laws in Illinois, Indiana and beyond. By 1916, she'd become the leading authority on lead poisoning - she testified in 1925 against the use of lead in gasoline due to risks to both people and the environment. She studied other toxins as well, issued research considered to be landmarks of the field, led commissions, and spearheaded work which saved workers at munitions plants during WWI, among other things. She essentially pioneered the studies of occupational epidemiology and industrial hygiene in America.

In 1919 she moved out of Hull House (although she returned every spring until Addams died in 1935) to become the first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard. Per Wikipedia (from which the info for this entire entry has been drawn): "Her appointment was hailed by the New York Tribune with the headline: "'A Woman on Harvard Faculty - The Last Citadel Has Fallen - The Sex Has Come Into Its Own.' She commented, 'yes, I am the first woman on the Harvard faculty - but not the first one who should have been appointed.'" She never received a promotion to full professor, was not allowed to enter the Harvard Union or Faculty Club, or march with the male faculty at graduation.

In her spare time, she was active in the suffragette and peace movements - fighting for civil liberties, birth control and protective labor legislation for women. She was the only woman member of the League of Nations Health Committee and served as president of the National Consumer League from 1944-49.

Hamilton died in 1970 at the age of 101. Less than three months later, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Being a bit of a slacker, Hamilton did not publish many books - only the first textbook on the subject of industrial toxins in 1925, a follow-up in 1934, and this autobiography in 1943.

Douglas, Marjory Stoneman (C)

Douglas, William O. (C)

Dubkin, Leonard (C)

Eiseley, Loren (C)

Goin, Olive Brown (C)

Grange, Wallace Byron (C)

Graves, Henry S. (C)

Hamilton, Alice (C)

Darling, J.N. "Ding"

Fosburgh, Pieter W.

Gabrielson, Ira N.

Graham/Van Dersal

Fryxell, Fritiof

Dobie, Frank

Hawes, Harry Bartow

Ickes, Harold L. (C)

Kellogg, Charles (C)

Kent, Rockwell (C)

Kerr, Robert S.

Krutch, Joseph Wood (C)

Marshall, Robert (C)

Leopold, Aldo (C)

McFarland, J. Horace (C)

Murie, Margaret and Olaus (C)

Nadeau, Remi A.

Olson, Sigurd F. (C)

HAWES, Harry Bartow (1869-1947)

Fish and Game: Now or Never

1935. First printing. Published by D. Appleton-Century. Inscribed to no specific person

Inscribed below frontispiece: "Yours for Wild Life Restoration/Harry B. Hawes." Intro of 4.5 pages by former Senator from CT Frederic C. Walcott. Illustrated with line drawings on each facing page opposite chapter headings by William H. Foster, described as the editor of The National Sportsman. Also illustrated with some b+w photos. Seemingly unread, with some page edges still attached. Blue boards, text block edges rough cut. NF+ in a VG+ NPCDJ

Harry B. Hawes was a former U.S. Senator from Missouri who was among the most active legislators of the time working on wildlife and habitat conservation. From the author description on the rear flap of the dj: "He is the author of the "Duck Stamp" Law and the "Black Bass" Law, and introduced and directed passage of the Upper Mississippi Wild Life, Fish and Game Refuge Law. He has served as a member of the U.S. Migratory Bird Conservation Commission and the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Conservation of Wildlife Resources, also as Chairman of the National Committee on Model State Game and Fish Administrative Law of the International Association of Game, Fish and Conservation Commissioners; and the Pollution Study Commitee of the American Fisheries Society. In 1931 he was awarded the Outdoor Life annual award for distinguished service in Wild Life Conservation."

HOGNER, Dorothy Childs (1904-1989)

Conservation in America

1958. Stated first. Published by J.P. Lippincott. Inscribed to an acknowledgee

Written for a teenaged audience. Illustrated by author's husband, Nils Hogner. Inscribed on second fe to Conn Light and Power President Sherman Knapp, who is thanked in the Acknowledgements. "For Mr. Sherman R. Knapp/Feb 1958/With appreciation for your kind assistance. From Dorothy Childs Hogner and Nils Hogner." The inscription is accompanied by a drawing of a power pole and lines, presumably by Nils. The book covers land and water issues "in the age of nuclear power." Hogner was a prolific author of about 50 books, publishing in every decade from the 30s through the 70s. She wrote non-fiction for youth, many nature-themed, along with travel and gardening books. NF in a VG NPCDJ

ICKES, Harold L. (1874-1952)

The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon

1943. First. Published by Reynal and Hitchcock, New York. Inscribed to prominent Filipino diplomat

Inscribed on ffe: "To the Honorable Joaquin M. Elizalde, with my best[?] regards. Harold L. Ickes." Elizalde (1896-1965) was a Filipino diplomat and businessman who served in the U.S. House of Representatives as Resident Commissioner of the Philippines from 1938-44, holding a non-voting seat. When the Philippines was recognized as an independent nation in 1946, he became its first ambassador to the U.S., serving in that role until 1952. VG in a G NPCDJ

Harold Ickes was the high-profile and highly influential Interior Secretary for the entirety of FDR's administration, the longest tenure of anyone to have held the office, in addition to being a major New Deal administrator as head of the Public Works Administration. As Interior Secretary he expanded Yosemite by buying out the last commercial logger in the park, and spearheaded the establishment of Kings Canyon NP, in part by commissioning Ansel Adams to document the area's beauty.

Ickes was also a civil rights champion, having served as head of the Chicago NAACP. He desegregated the National Parks in 1941. He also organized and emceed the famed Marian Anderson Lincoln Memorial concert after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to perform at DAR Constitution Hall due to her race.

Ickes was famously combative and incorruptible, earning the nickname "Honest Harold" as head of the PWA due to his budget management and opposition to corruption. In addition to his twelve years in FDR's cabinet, he also served under Truman for a year, resigning in a dispute over Truman's decision to nominate oilman Edwin Pauley to be Navy Secretary [see Robert Jay Wilder's Listening to the Sea (1998), inscribed to Pauley's son Stephen and referring to Edwin Pauley by name. Both of the Pauley's ultimately made notable environmental contributions].

Ickes was indeed a curmudgeon - a most excellent one. When Thomas Dewey, whilst campaigning against Truman, promised to fire Ickes if elected, Ickes responded with a widely printed conditional letter of resignation which read in part: "Hence, I hereby resign as Secretary of the Interior effective if, as and when the incredible comes to pass and you become the President of the United States. However, as a candidate for that office you should have known the primary school fact that the Cabinet of an outgoing President automatically retires with its chief."

JOHNSON, Robert Underwood (1853-1937)

Remembered Yesterdays

1923. First. Published by Little, Brown & Co., Boston. Signed with ownership sig of Rosamund Gilder, daughter of Richard Watson Gilder

Johnson's autobiography. Signed on title page. Ownership sig and address (24 Gramercy Park) of Rosamund Gilder, daughter of Richard Watson Gilder, the long-time editor of Century magazine until his sudden death in 1909, when he was succeeded by Johnson. Rosamund Gilder was a prominent theater critic, editor of Theatre Arts Monthly, head of the Int'l Theater Institute, producer, and author of books and articles. She won a Tony Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work. The book contains a brief margin comment from her on p 92, which page includes a poem by her. The marginalia is faint but reads: "I do not think Charles had anything to do with it." A response to Johnson writing that Rosamund's brother Charles de Kay organized the Society of American Artists. The numerous illustrations include a full-page plate with a portrait of Muir with his handwritten "To my friend Robert Johnson, John Muir" reproduced below. Chapter IX "Men and Women of Distinction" contains section about, among others, John Burroughs, Theodore Roosevelt, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. Forest green boards with Johnson's facsimile sig on front cover in gilt, faded but legible. Spine lettering quite faded, to near illegibility. Front board showing early signs of separation. Text block solid and clean with no foxing. G no DJ

As discussed in the John Muir EC History Chapter and elsewhere herein, RUJ not only pushed Muir to write, and published many of his articles in Century, but also lobbied conservation issues tirelessly at the highest levels. He was among the most important environmental advocates of his time, whose suggestion to Muir regarding a defense organization for the Sierras was a key to the formation of the Sierra Club. Muir dedicated his book The Yosemite (1912): "Affectionately dedicated to my friend Robert Underwood Johnson/Faithful Lover and Defender of our Glorious Forests and Originator of The Yosemite National Park."

The section of the book about RUJ's work with Muir (pp 278-318) is an enjoyable read, as is the brief personal sketches in the following chapter, particularly the one about Burroughs. A link to an online copy of the book: #11 - Remembered yesterdays / by Robert Underwood Johnson - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library

KELLOGG, Charles (1868-1949)

Charles Kellogg: The Nature Singer: His Book

1929. Signed limited first edition. Published by Pacific Science Press [Publishers and Importers], CA. Signed Limited Edition

First one thousand volumes numbered and signed. This is number 520, with that number handwritten. This is one of the more wacky and whimsical books in the collection. Covered with very unusual DJ made of some sort of paper-thin minimally pulped wood, upon which is printed a portrait photo and black ink text. Laid in is a note on a sheet of the same paper 5"x5.5" with Kellogg's name and address embossed. The typewritten note reads: "Thank you for your kind interest. I am sending you a copy of my book. Should you choose to keep it please forward $3.00 to the above address. Faithfully yours," and it is signed in pen by Kellogg and dated Jan 24, 1930. Green boards, gilt lettering, spine somewhat faded but in quite good shape, as is the DJ. Also laid in is a newspaper clipping by then prominent LA Times journalist Lee Shippey (1884-1969) about Kellogg and his book.

Kellogg is a singular figure, clearly an environmentalist of note credited with helping to save the California Redwoods - and a man who was friendly with both John Burroughs and John Muir. What Kellogg was primarily known for however, was the ability to imitate any animal flawlessly and indeed to speak with animals and especially birds in their language. He also was also by all accounts able to use tonal pitches to extinguish flames. He had a long and highly successful vaudeville career as "the nature singer," both in the U.S. and internationally - and he also had a recording career as a more traditional singer as well.

Kellogg was born in a remote mining camp in the High Sierras. His mother died in infancy and his father was absorbed with business, including a store at the camp, so Kellogg was raised by a Native American woman and a Chinese cook named Moon. He spent most of his boyhood either alone in nature or with Native American tribes of the area. He was sent east at 15 for formal schooling, then embarked on his vaudeville career.

Kellogg was passionate about the California wilderness and especially the redwood trees. He was a skilled inventor and craftsman, and he built a log mobile home out of a single hewn redwood trunk. It weighed three tons. He mounted it on the strongest chassis of the day and drove around, at a maximum speed of about 3 mph, in part campaigning to save the redwoods. The "Travel Log," as he named it, is now on display in the visitors center at Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Kellogg has chapters in his books about his time with both Muir and Burroughs - he writes of accompanying Burroughs and his son Julian for an extended trip to the island of Jamaica in the West Indies. The trip receives brief discussion in Renehan's biography but omits any mention of Kellogg. He also writes of meeting up with Muir after a 111 mile walk from Sonoma to Yosemite including through Hetch-Hetchy, the potential damming of which he discusses with Muir.

Shippey's article about Kellogg referred to above is interesting. He clearly admires Kellogg and his extraordinary talents, but he does not feel the same about his writing ability: "He is one of the physical and vocal wonders of the world, but he doesn't know what coherence is when it comes to writing." According to Shippey, one of the greatest larger-than-life American adventurers, soldiers, scouts and conservationists of all time, Major Francis Russell Burnham, credited Kellogg with being "the man who saved the redwoods." The story of Major Burnham is beyond the scope of this work, at least for the present time, but please please please go read his Wikipedia entry. Jaw-dropping!

KENT, Rockwell (1882-1971)

Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska

1920. First edition. Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. Inscribed

Inscribed: "To Beatrice Breeze, with my homage that she can endure so long the Wilderness that is Arlington. Rockwell Kent/December 1925." Yellow boards with large black ink picture on cover by Kent of rainbow and mountains. Introduction by Dorothy Canfield [Fisher]. VG+ no DJ

Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska

1920. First edition, later printing (presumably before 1930). Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. Inscribed

Inscribed by Kent using the dedication, which reads 'To old L.M. Olson and young Rockwell Kent of Fox Island this journal is respectfully dedicated, below which Kent handwrote: "and to my dear friend Ned T..... [Illegible due to handwriting, not condition] this copy is affectionately inscribed. Rockwell Kent/San Rafael/April-May 1950." As the copywrite renewal of 1930 is not indicated, and nor is the second preface of 1930, this copy is presumed to have been printed in 1920's, notwithstanding the date of inscription. Buff cloth boards with gilt lettering (no picture). Separate undated gift inscription from (illegible) prior owner on second fe. Early signs of separation of spine. G+ to VG-

Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska

1970. Signed limited edition (of 1550) containing previously unpublished material. First edition thus. Published by The Wilderness Press. Signed

#430 of 1550 copies (of which 1500 were for sale). Per the title page "Including extensive hitherto unpublished passages from the original journal." Contains a "second preface" dated 1930 and a "third preface" dated 1970. On the page after the prefaces is a short passage by Kent, not contained in either of the prior two editions, relating the circumstances of a 1919 NYC gallery showing of the pictures later published in Wilderness, wherein the critic chosen to write the catalogue Intro was "so pleased" with the letter Kent wrote him about the pieces that the critic chose to publish it instead of a new Intro, as an "Imaginary Letter." Kent describes this as his first published work. The letter is reproduced on the following two pages. Interestingly, the Introduction by Canfield is omitted but is shown in the Table of Contents, which misnumbers the other prefaces as well. Blue cloth boards with small sticker on front partially recreating the original cover. Silver gilt spine lettering slightly faded. Publication info, and signature, are found at the end of the volume. In slipcase, presumably as issued, somewhat worn. NF+

Rockwell Kent was an artist, illustrator, architect, bookmaker, cartoonist, designer, farmer and political activist, among other things. An early American Modernist, he was hugely prominent throughout the first third of the 20th century and remains a celebrated artist today. Kent, like so many others, was hugely influenced by Emerson and Thoreau and spent much of his life in wilderness and other natural settings. Wilderness was his first book, recounting a six month stay with his son on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay, Alaska. The text consists of his unedited contemporaneous journals, augmented with a few letters sent to friends during the period, all highlighting his artwork from during his stay. The book was described by one London critic as "easily the most remarkable book to come out of America since Leaves of Grass was published." [New Statesman, July 31, 1920]. In his book about the Alaskan conservation movement [which to date I have not read], Douglas Brinkley has included a chapter on Kent, and the Alaska State Historical Society lists Wilderness as among the most important books published about the state.

Kent also spent extended periods in Winona, Minnesota, Newfoundland, Vermont, Tierra del Fuego, Ireland and Greenland. In 1927, he bought Asgaard, a large homestead in New York's Adirondack Mountains, where he lived the balance of his life. Kent is not generally recognized as an environmentalist in the traditional sense, but his artwork and books reflected his love of and inspiration from the wilderness. Kent was a political and peace activist, a radical socialist from an early age who embraced the Soviet Union (to the extent of donating several hundred of his works to the "Soviet people.") He was an American patriot too, creating works celebrating American freedom, democracy and the important role immigrants have played in forging American culture and identity, but his extreme progressivism, particularly during the Cold War, overshadowed his artistic legacy during the later period of his life and until recently.

Dorothy Canfield [Fischer] (1879--1958), who wrote the Intro to the original edition, was a pretty extraordinary woman. She was a best-selling author of numerous fiction, non-fiction and children's books - the latter under the nom de plume Sally Scott. She was an active social worker, particularly in Europe during and after WWI. As an educational reformer, she was a leader in bringing the Montessori Method to the US, presided over the first adult education program, and spent years promoting increased educational opportunities for incarcerated persons. While she has been accused (without direct evidence) of having been a eugenicist, she is also credited with having written the first modern best-selling novel to criticizing racial prejudice. She also served as a trustee of Howard University, and as the head of a committee which sponsored financial and emigration assistance for Jewish educators, professionals and intellectuals between the wars. She served on the Book of the Month Club selection committee for 26 years..

KERR, Robert S. (Senator) (1896-1963)

Land, Wood & Water

1960. First edition, early printing. Published by Fleet Publishing, New York. Inscribed presidential presentation bookplate signed by Lyndon Johnson, who wrote the Introduction.

Bookplate on ffe with presidential seal on top presenting the book to the Chicago Public Library, signed by Johnson. Laid in is a reproduction of a letter from Johnson transmitting the book to Ralph G. Newman (1912-1998), legendary book dealer and president of the Chicago Public Library. The two-paragraph letter reads in part: "I think you have done a great public service for your area in establishing an environmental and ecology collection in your library and Bob Kerr's book is one which should certainly be in it. I am happy to autograph the enclosed bookplate for LAND, WOOD & WATER." Johnson wrote the three-page Introduction to the book while he was majority leader of the senate. Newman apparently decided to keep the book for his personal collection rather than passing it on to the library, either or at the time or later, when he donated a large number of books to the institution. NF in a VG PCDJ.

Robert Kerr was an oilman who founded the company that become oilfield services giant Kerr-McGee. He was clearly no David Brower, more of a conservationist in the Pinchotvian sense of the word. That said, he was an influential and effective governor and three-term senator from Oklahoma who was a strong proponent of federal public works and investment. He is best known for the Arkansas River Navigation System in northeastern Oklahoma. The focus of the book is on water policy. He writes that his father always said you need "land, wood and water." One must note the irony that Kerr-McGee was the major villain in the case of Karen Silkwood, who worked for the company and was on her way to blow the whistle on safety issues at its plutonium plant when she was killed in a car crash. But in fairness, that occurred in 1974, eleven years after Kerr's death.

KRUTCH, Joseph Wood (1893-1970)

Henry David Thoreau

1948. First printing. Published by William Sloane Associates. Provenance - Eleanor Roosevelt, with her bookplate and estate sale tag

With Eleanor Roosevelt's bookplate on fpd and tag (#3033) from her estate sale. Part of the "American Men of Letters" series. Green cloth boards, gilt lettering. NPCDJ in good shape save a one-inch gash to center right edge of front cover - whatever caused it marred the actual cover as well. Otherwise very clean. G+

The Twelve Seasons: A Perpetual Calendar for the Country

1949. First printing. Published by William Sloane Associates. Signed and dated in year of publication.

Signed on ffe "Joseph Wood Krutch/Redding Oct 1, 1949." Illustrated chapter headings by distinguished printmaker Armin Landeck. Somewhat faded two-tone gray cloth boards, gilt lettering. Otherwise unmarked. VG in VG PCDJ.

The Desert Year

1952. First edition, fourth printing (1956). Published by William Sloane Associates. Signed

Signed on ffe. Winner of the John Burroughs Association Medal for best nature writing of the year. VG+ in VG- NPCDJ.

If You Don't Mind My Saying So: Essays on Man & Nature

1964. First. Published by William Sloane Associates. Inscribed

Inscribed on ffe: "To the Max Friedmans after a delightful visit/Joseph Wood Krutch/Tuscon 1965." Foreword by John K. Hutchens (1905-1995), author, book critic and long-time judge of the Book of the Month Club. NF in VG NPCDJ.

Krutch was a critic and Columbia English professor who was inspired to publish his first nature book, The Twelve Seasons, by his work on his biography of Thoreau. When he relocated from NYC to Tucson for health reasons in 1952 he won "renown as a naturalist, nature writer and early conservationist. Like Aldo Leopold, who greatly influenced him, Krutch believed that human beings must move beyond purely human centered conceptions of "conservation" and to learn to value nature for its own sake." [From Wikipedia entry on Krutch].

LEOPOLD, Aldo (1887-1948)

Report on a Game Survey of the North Central States

1931. Assumed first edition. Published by The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute. Inscribed to conservationist Sam G. Anderson

Inscribed on ffe: "Sam G. Anderson/Who practices what is here preached/Aldo Leopold." Anderson was a nationally known wildlife conservationist and lawyer who served on the Federal Migratory Bird Advisory Board. Green and black cloth covers. Small ink mark on cover. Former owner's small sticker on fpd (not Anderson) and another former owner's even smaller embossed stamp on ffe above inscription. Pages beginning stages of separation. G+

Game Management

1933. First edition, first or early printing. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York and London

Drawings by Allan Brooks. Lacks "A" on copyright page which would indicate first printing (per McBride), but has owner's sig dated Aug 1933 on ffe, which is year of publication. Also has publisher's colophon on copyright page. Perhaps it had multiple printings in its first year of publication. Brown cloth boards showing very little wear, with gilt design on cover and gilt lettering on red field on spine. No other markings, no foxing, no dj. VG+ no DJ.

"This book revolutionized wildlife management in New Deal America... many passages were literary art... the Biological Survey used the text to help the new Roosevelt administration scientifically address wildlife management on public lands." (Brinkley RH p. 274).

"The Ecological Conscience"

1947. Pamphlet. Offprint from Sept 1947 Bulletin of the Garden Club of America, which contained the text of an important address Leopold gave at the club's June 1947 conservation meeting in Minneapolis.

Octavo pamphlet with single vertical fold with staple-bound spine. Consists of pages 45-53 from the Bulletin. Signs of handling and straightened folds to lower right corner. G+

This address was one of four that were the principal building blocks upon which Leopold's capstone essay, "The Land Ethic," from A Sand County Almanac (1949) were drawn. This essay contains, with somewhat different wording, the passage from "The Land Ethic" which is almost certainly the most frequently quoted passage from Leopold's work.

Starting with "The Land Ethic" as described by Curt Meine, Leopold's biographer: "...it continues to grow in importance. Students read it. Journalists quote it. Environmentalists live by it. Supreme Court justices cite it. Scholars criticize it.... In short, 'The Land Ethic' has helped lead a generation in reassessing its relationship to the natural environment. 'The Land Ethic' is also Aldo Leopold's most enduring expression of his personal convictions.... 'The Land Ethic' was first published in Part III of A Sand County Almanac, 'The Upshot.' It is the climactic essay of this third section - in effect the upshot of 'The Upshot.' It is a summary piece in which the issues raised explicitly and implicitly throughout the book are finally distilled." (pp. 172-3 - The quotes from Meine herein are from https://curtmeine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/1987-building_the_land_ethic.pdf).

Meine describes "The Ecological Conscience" as "one of the most forcefully worded of [Leopold's] career." (p. 180). While Leopold uses the phrase "The Ecological Conscience" as a section title in "The Land Ethic," he does not define it there. He does, however, in this essay: "I need a short name for what is lacking; I call it the ecological conscience. Ecology is the science of communities, and the ecological conscience is therefore the ethics of community life." (p. 45). In short, Leopold argues that a relationship with the land based purely on economics and self-interest is doomed to long-term failure.

As discussed below in connection with A Sand County Almanac, Leopold's most famous passage is:

The key-log' which must be moved to release the evolutionary process for an ethic is simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." (SCA pp. 224-5).

In this essay, this passage appears in preliminary form:

The practice of conservation must spring from a conviction of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the community, and the community includes the soil, waters, fauna and flora, as well as people. (p. 52)

In short, "The Ecological Conscience" represented a late and important development in the evolution of Leopold's thinking on conservation ethics.

A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There

1949. First edition. Published by Oxford University Press, New York. Inscribed by Leopold's daughter in year of publication

Inscribed on ffe: "To the Rogers/Christmas 1949/with best regards from Estella." With a hand-drawn holly sprig. A copy of a 2013 email correspondence from Estella confirms it was from her (not her mother, Leopold's wife, also Estella). The book was published posthumously. Blue cloth boards with silver gilt lettering and design. No other markings. VG+ in a G+ DJ.

Leopold is best known for his masterpiece A Sand County Almanac, which was published posthumously after he died from a heart attack while helping a neighboring farmer fight a brush fire.

Leopold writes: "All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.... The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species. A land ethic of course cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of these 'resources,' but it does affirm their right to continued existence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a natural state. In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies a respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such. [SCA pp. 203-4].

Leopold's best-known quote, which sums up his views admirably, is buried at the end of a paragraph near the end of SCA: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. [SCA pp. 224-5]. (See "The Ecological Conscience" (1947), above.)

See also the essay above, "The Ecological Conscience" (1947).

Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

Edited by Luna B. Leopold

1953. First edition. Published by Oxford University Press, New York.

Rust cloth boards with embossed design to cover and gilt lettering to spine. NF save bookplate on fpd, in a VG NPCDJ

In a history of the American environmental movement, Aldo Leopold must be placed at the very top of the pantheon, along with Thoreau, Marsh, Muir and Carson and few others. He represents in many ways the bridge between the conservation/preservation-minded approach and the more holistic ecological approach to environmentalism. He gave voice to a new environmental ethic emphasizing the interdependency of all elements of the natural world, with humankind being but one element of it. He also co-founded The Wilderness Society (along, among others, his friend Bob Marshall and Robert Sterling Yard) in 1935.

[See also Curt Meine's 1988 Leopold biography in References and Aldo Leopold: The Man and His Legacy (1987) in Anthologies, the latter containing essays from the Aldo Leopold Centennial Celebration]

MARSHALL, Robert "Bob" (1901-1939)

The People's Forests

1933. Likely first edition. Published by Harrison Smith and Robert Haas. Inscribed by Marshall (based on my own handwriting analysis)

Publisher had varied first edition issue points per McBride so cannot definitively ascribe as such. Inscribed on ffe "To Jo, From Bob." I found a sample of Marshall's handwriting online at the Bancroft Library at Cal. It appears to be identical, including a distinctive "T" and "o", and the word "from". Very sure he wrote it but not expert-confirmed. Faded green cloth boards, spine nearly to illegibility. Former owner's stamp (not Jo) on fpd. G

Doonerak or Bust: A Letter to Friends about an Arctic Vacation; and

North Doonerak, Amwak and Apoon

1938/1939. First editions. Two privately published memoirs. Second volume with letter of transmittal from Marshall's secretary.

Two softcover books professionally bound, each of about 40 pages, each with a photo (one tipped in) and a one-page map. Second volume contains a typed, signed letter from Marshall's secretary, Dorothy H. Sugarman, dated 8/17/39, reading: "Dear Dr. Warburg: During his travels through the Arctic this summer Bob Marshall again kept a diary for the enjoyment of his friends. It is my pleasure to send you the enclosed account. Sincerely yours, [Signed], Secretary." Marshall died of heart failure less than two months later, at the age of 38. Purchased in a custom, worn slipcase. NF

Arctic Wilderness

1956. First edition, second printing. University of California Press, Los Angeles and Berkeley

Forward by A. Starker Leopold. Pristine folded map tipped in at rear. Photo illustrations. Published posthumously. Light blue boards sun-faded at edges and spine. Interior immaculate. G+ to VG-

Marshall is considered one of the principal founders of the wilderness preservation movement, along with Aldo Leopold, Arthur Carhart and Robert Sterling Yard. He was a founder, and the primary early funder, of The Wilderness Society. Marshall started his career as a forester with the U.S. Forest Service. Becoming wealthy upon the death of his father, he used his freedom to explore wilderness areas. [Marshall's father, a prominent constitutional lawyer, conservationist and human rights activist, was instrumental in securing "forever wild" status for the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves in New York State.] He then served as chief of forestry at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and later as head of recreation management in the Forest Service, both under FDR. He fought for and ultimately drafted the 1939 regulations allowing the Secretary of Agriculture to designate large areas of roadless land that were under federal management as wilderness or wild areas. Those regulations were ultimately solidified and many of the designated areas permanently protected by the Wilderness Act of 1964. Today the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area of Montana is the fifth largest in the continental U.S..

MCFARLAND, J. Horace (1859-1948)

Roses of the World in Color

1936. Published by Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York. With handwritten ALS by Alice Eastwood laid in.

This book is in the Collection due to the importance of its author, and the laid-in note from Alice Eastwood, not the contents of the book itself. I believe this is McFarland's only published book. And it is actually a most attractive addition. Salmon-colored cloth boards containing a very beautifully illustrated book printed on coated paper, with copious illustrations of roses in full color. Book is G+ to VG-. Binding showing signs of sag due to heaviness of text block. Some shading/offsetting to fe's but text block overall quite sound. Light pencil notes to last fe.

The note from Eastwood is on California Academy of Sciences letterhead and is contained in a slit envelope addressed to a G.F.(?) Saunders of Pasadena, dated April 13, 1949, and reading in its entirety: "My dear Mrs.(?) Saunders: According to an account of a journey in Peru + Chile, almost all the plants flower during our winter and spring. Colletia will be in bloom there now, without doubt. I have found no definite time for C. Cruciata but it is probably the same as the others. We have three species which were collected in Chile in November. Yours truly, Alice Eastwood." Included with the letter is a clipping of a letter to the editor that Mrs. Mira Saunders sent to a magazine, likely Horticulture, discussing the timing of the blooming of the plants and specifically referencing Eastwood's letter.

Mcfarland (1890-1987), a newspaper editor from Harrisburg, PA, served for 20 years as head of the American Civic Association, of which he was a founding member. The ACA was an important force in advocating for city beautification projects, city parks and national parks, including preserving Niagara Falls. In 1908, President Roosevelt convened the seminal National Governor's Conference on Conservation, organized by Gifford Pinchot. Reflecting the division at the time between the conservationists (read: wise use) vs. the preservationists, Pinchot excluded the latter (i.e. Muir) from the Conference. McFarland was one of the few preservationists invited, and he made a rousing speech. From Huth (pp 187-8 of Bison edition of 1990):

The Conference was solemnly opened by the President with a speech which demonstrated his broad understanding of the scope of the conference. Then one meeting after another rolled on smoothly, and by the time of the fourth session there was no longer any doubt that the conference was to become the foundation stone of future conservation policy. The subject for discussion at this session was land resources. After the speaker of the day had discussed problems of irrigation and the meeting had been opened for general discussion, the chairman announced a change in the program. He said that Mr. McFarland would have the floor, but he did not announce the subject of his talk. Why McFarland was given the floor at this time is difficult to understand; certainly his subject had nothing to do with the current discussion. It may have been that the speaker had to be fitted in somewhere and this session seemed as a good as any. McFarland's address was short but so dynamic that it must have had an extraordinary effect. All the previous speakers had talked facts and had brought forth weighty figures based on sound commercial and scientific knowledge, but here was a speaker advancing ideas about intangible values: "I would urge this assembly to consider the essential value of one of America's greatest resources - her unmatched natural scenery." McFarland pointed out that it was all very well to discuss the possibilities of conservation, but to him "the true glory of the United States must rest, and has rested, upon a deeper foundation than that of her purely material resources. It is the love of the country that lights and keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism. And this love is excited primarily by the beauty of the country." Continuing his speech, McFarland did not mince his words; he spoke of the "all too common unnatural scenery of man's careless commercial filth!" The iron manufacturers could get away from the ugliness they had created, but the working man had to live in the squalor of ugly and unhealthful cities. Although Andrew Carnagie sat in the audience, the speaker did not hesitate to mention that this gentleman found "the scenery about Skibo Castle much more restful" than his place of business. One sentence was addressed to Gifford Pinchot: "Hetch Hetchy Valley of the Yosemite region belongs to all America and not to San Francisco alone." The speaker closed with these words: "We have for a century...stood actually, if not ostensibly, for an uglier America; let us here and now resolve, for every patriotic and economic reason, to stand openly and solidly for a more beautiful and therefore a more prosperous America."

How the speech was accepted is not known, except for the reaction of one person, the aged George Wilson, then the Secretary of Agriculture. Wilson went to McFarland after the meeting and said: "Those are good words, my boy. The world will forget what the rest of us say here, but the women and the children will read and remember those words." [Some men do too!] McFarland had indeed put a great idea on record, and in time, like those other previous suggestions made at the conference, it was incorporated in the code of conservation policies accepted by the nation.

That speech alone would justify the inclusion of this particular book about roses in the Collection.

McFarland received the Audubon Society's highest honor, the Audubon Medal, in 1969. In 1980 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, by President Carter.

MURIE, Margaret (1902-2003) and Olaus (1889-1963)

Two in the Far North

1962. Stated first edition. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York

Authorship of this book is credited solely to Margaret, with Olaus providing the illustrations. Octavo. Green cloth boards. Rough cut text block at outer edge. Unmarked save a stamp at the top of the ffe reading "Reading Program Materials/The L.W. Singer Company/PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE." It was apparently removed. NF in G+ NPCDJ.

Wapiti Wilderness

1966. Stated first edition. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Inscribed by Margaret to a couple, noting the inscribed book as the gift of John McPhee

Inscribed on second fe "To Norman and Irene Young/Best wishes - Margaret E. Murie/A gift to you from Jack McPhee." Octavo. Brown cloth boards. Rough cut text block at outer edge. Otherwise unmarked and unfoxed. The book was published after Olaus' death by Margaret using Olaus' notes and her writings. NF in VG+ to NF PCDJ.

Margaret Murie, known as Mardy, was, per a Sierra Club remembrance upon her death, "known to many as the 'Grandmother of the Conservation Movement.... A passionate advocate for wild places and a prolific writer, 'Mardy' played a critical role in protecting America's most cherished wilderness lands and inspired generations of conservationists.... [and was] inspirational to such figures as David Brower and Howard Zahniser.... Her activism has been widely recognized. At the signing of the Alaska Lands Act, Murie was personally commended by then-President Jimmy Carter. Three years later, she was awarded the Sierra Club's John Muir Award. And in 1998, former President Bill Clinton bestowed upon her the Medal of Freedom for her tireless dedication to the cause of preserving Nature - what she once called 'omnipotence at work.'" [https://web.archive/web/20080309103724/http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2003-10-20.asp].

Olaus Murie was a hugely influential naturalist and wildlife biologist who is known as the "father of modern elk management," focusing on the importance of a proper predator balance. He performed large scale observational fieldwork throughout North America, particularly in the far North and in the Tetons of Wyoming, where he and Margaret lived for many years. In addition to working at the U.S. Biological Survey (now Fish and Wildlife), "Murie advocated on behalf of wildlife conservation and management. With his wife...he successfully campaigned to enlarge the boundaries of the Olympic National Park, and to create the Jackson Hole National Monument and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. During his career, Murie held many respected positions within environmental organizations. He served as president of The Wilderness Society, The Wildlife Society, and as director of the Isaak Walton League." [From Olaus' Wikipedia page].

NADEAU, Remi A. (1920-2016)

The Water Seekers

1950. Stated first edition. Published by Doubleday. Garden City. Signed.

Signed by the author in the year of publication. Separate gift inscription below to an indecipherable recipient from Ed and Hazel Leakey. An early and prescient book about the ongoing water shortages in the Southwest and the future implications for the rest of the country and the world. Nadeau, a great-great grandson of one of the pioneers of Los Angeles development, was a professional writer and PR executive who was also a widely read historian focused on the state of California. NF in a VG+ NPCDJ

OLSON, Sigurd F. (1899-1982)

The Singing Wilderness

1956. First edition, 13th printing (1973). Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Inscribed to Minnesota lawyer and environmental leader Richard Flint.

Olson's first book, inscribed on ffe: "Dear Dick: - This book carries the essence of what we were all fighting for, places where the ancient music of the wilderness can always be heard. Sincerely, Sig// Sigurd F. Olson// 7/22/76." As Olson's handwriting is fairly challenging to read, a note on the facing page has been tipped in with the letterhead of Carol Crain Flint reproducing the inscription. Also laid in is a two-page clipping from the Minneapolis Star by Jim Klobuchar (father of Senator Amy) paying tribute to Olson following his death. Illustrated with 38 line drawings by Francis Lee Jacques. NF in a NF PCDJ.

Richard Flint was a lawyer who had once worked as a Boundary Waters canoe guide. He helped write and lobby for the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act in 1971. He was also instrumental in the passage of the Minnesota Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1973 and the federal Wilderness Act of 1978. He was an early leader of several organizations including the local Sierra Club chapter and the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness.

Open Horizons

1969. Stated first edition. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Lengthy personal inscription.

Inscribed on ffe: "For Robert L. Parker, Who I have come to know as Bob, fly fisher extraordinaire [or 'fly fishes extraordinary'], with a love of a quiet Bay. And rocks and the flash of a striking bass, but most perhaps the joy of quiet and solitude. May your days have many such moments. Sincerely, "Sig". Sigurd F. Olson/Bass [or Boss] Wood/6/30/69." Black and white illustrations at each chapter heading by Leslie Kouba (1917-1998). Per the front cover of the dj: "One of America's most beloved naturalists, author of..., writes his autobiography in nature." Spine mildly toned. VG+ in VG NPCDJ.

Wilderness Days

1972. Published by Knopf. First edition, of which 350 were specially bound and signed by Olson - this is #14.

Winner of the John Burroughs Medal. Brown cloth in a brown cloth slipcase as issued adorned with full-color photos, as issued. Gilt lettering on spine is slightly faded. Illustrated with full color photos by Dr. J. Arnold Bolz. Additionally, each chapter heading has a black and white illustration by one of Bob Hines, Leslie Kouba or Francis Lee Jaques. Kouba (1917-1998) was an artist, author and outdoorsperson who specialized in waterfowl paintings. He is credited with being among the artists of the 1970s who popularized wildlife art. Spine slightly faded, else F.

Sigurd Olson was a critical and beloved (and beloathed) wilderness advocate and author who helped draft the Wilderness Act of 1964 and was a key figure in the protection of the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs NP, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and Point Reyes National Seashore in CA. Jim Klobuchar in his aforementioned tribute to Olson describes him as "the flint and the soul of the conservation movement in America, both warrior and missionary. He was revered by millions who read his works and...they were aroused by his summons to save that fragile treasure."

Olson was VP of The Wilderness Society from 1963-7 and president from 1968-71. He was also VP and then president of the National Parks Association from 1951-9. He served as a consultant to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall on wilderness and environmental issues. He was a wilderness ecologist for the Izaak Walton League from 1948 until his death. Four of the five largest conservation organizations in the US gave Olson its highest award, the three aforementioned and the Sierra Club.

Olson was a professional canoe guide in the Boundary Waters region, in addition to being a teacher of biology, ecology and natural history. The publisher's description on his first book describes him as "quite possibly the most famous woodsman of our day." He lived most of his adult life in Ely, Minnesota near the edge of the Boundary Waters. At times he was jeered or hanged in effigy there on account of his environmental advocacy, which residents of the historically iron-mining town blamed for local economic woes.

"Sigurd's large and at times almost worshipful following derives in part from personal charisma, but especially from the humanistic philosophy that he professed in nine popular books.... He had a way of writing and speaking about the natural world that touched deep emotions in his audience, and many responded with heartfelt letters.... Sigurd Olson believed that the psychic, as well as physical, needs of humanity were rooted in the Pleistocene environment that dominated the evolutionary history of our species. This, combined with his single-minded focus on spiritual values, distinguished him from other leading philosophers of the wilderness preservation movement." [Olson's biographer David Backes, from listeningpointfoundation.org].

OSBORN, Henry Fairfield (1857-1935)

Save the Redwoods: Sequoia - the Auld Lang Syne of Trees [Pamphlet]

1920. Original pamphlet. Offprint of a 1919 Natural History magazine article. Seemingly published by the Save the Redwoods League. With TLS from Sierra Club President and Muir's literary executor William Frederic Bade seeking support for the campaign to save the redwoods.

Large octavo-sized, 16-pages plus title page, including several full-page photos, maps, etc. Cardstock wraps around coated paper contents. Photo of redwoods by Edward L. Ayer pasted onto cover, as issued. Some spotting and folds to cover and minor discoloration within, but all-in-all in excellent shape for an item such as this. NF

Laid in is a membership solicitation card and addressed envelope to Robert G. Sproul of UC Berkeley, Secretary and Treasurer of the Save the Redwoods League. Also laid in is a 10/7/1920 typed letter on Sierra Club letterhead reading in full: "My dear Mr. Stanton: Through the courtesy of Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn and the Save the Redwoods League we are enabled to send you a copy of the enclosed pamphlet which presents the facts of a situation whose urgency it is difficult to overstate. To save a forest of primeval Redwoods is a purpose that appeals to the noblest aims and traditions of the Sierra Club.// We are enthusiastically and earnestly committed to the task as an organization. But we wish to offer a chance also to each member individually. If you have not already joined the League and feel that you can help with your membership fee and influence, lose no time in coming to the rescue of the last survivors of the noblest race of trees on earth.// In the comradeship of a great cause,// Cordially yours, William Frederic Bade//President." [hand-signed]

The board of the Sierra Club at that time numbered eight directors including Bade and William Colby. Honorary Vice-Presidents included Henry S. Graves, Robert Underwood Johnson, David Starr Jordan, J. Horace McFarland, Stephen T. Mather and Enos Mills, along with one James Bryce of London. The club's editorial board included Bade, Colby, Marion R. Parsons, Francis P. Farquhar, and others. Per a table inserted in the text of the article, the Save the Redwoods League Council numbered 20 members including Colby, Madison Grant, Graves, Mather and Osborn.

Henry Fairfield Osborn was at the nexus of the upper-crust New York-based conservation community around the turn of the 20th century (notwithstanding the date of this particular publication, he is more properly associated with the Progressive Era, covered in the preceding chapter of the Catalogue). Academically gifted, with degrees and expertise in paleontology, archeology, zoology, embryology, comparative anatomy and geology, he served as president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years and president of the New York Zoological Society for 16 years. Osborn oversaw massive fossil collection efforts. He described and named T-Rex and Velociraptor, among others. His greatest fame was as a science administrator - his "greatest contributions to science ultimately lay in his efforts to popularize it through visible means." [Wikipedia entry on HFO]. The dinosaur exhibits and famed dioramas at the AMNH, for example, are part of his legacy. He was a Boone and Crockett Club member, a member of the American Philosophical Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sadly, Osborn was a classic eugenicist, believing in racial superiority and sometimes attempting to imbue that belief system in the museum's exhibits and educational programs. He endorsed and indeed wrote prefaces for his close associate Madison Grant's book on the "great race" which, as described in the entry on Grant elsewhere, Hitler considered his "bible."

To his credit, HFO was William Beebe's mentor and chief promoter - Beebe's remarkable career and accomplishments were made possible in large part through Osborn's support. HFO's son Fairfield Osborn was an influential EC movement writer himself - see his entry below.

[SEE MORE ON OSBORN IN THE EC HISTORY CHAPTER COVERING THE PROGRESSIVE ERA - 1890-1915]

Osborn, Henry Fairfield (C)

Johnson, Robert Underwood

Osborn, Fairfield (C)

Peattie, Donald Culross (C)

Peterson, Roger Tory (C)

Phillips, John C. (C)

Rolfe, Mary A.

St. Barbe Baker, Richard (C)

Scoville, Samuel Jr. (C)

Sears, Paul B. (C)

OSBORN, Fairfield (1887-1969 - full name is Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr.)

Our Plundered Planet

1948. Stated first edition. Published by Little Brown. Inscribed

Stated first edition, published March 1948. Inscribed on ffe: "To Bernice, with great affection and great appreciation/Fair/May, 1948." Published simultaneously in Canada by McClelland and Stewart. Blurbs by Eleanor Roosevelt, Aldous Huxley and Robert Maynard Hutchins, among others. Below the title on the dj cover: "With disturbing clarity this book points out that we are more likely to destroy ourselves in our persistent and world-wide conflict with nature than in any war of weapons yet devised." This had to have been a provocative statement less than three years after the end of WWII and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The book was published in the same year as William Vogt's Road to Survival (see below), which explored similar terrain. Page block foredge rough cut. NF in a NF- NPCDJ.

The Limits of the Earth

1953. Uncorrected advance proof. Published by Little Brown. Warmly inscribed to paleontologist Childs Frick.

Inscribed: "To Childs - The first friend who made me try to write a book! Fair" below which "(Note: the more the people, the less the animals. August 9, 1953.)" Plain wrappers, bound at top margin with string through two punch holes, publisher's review slip affixed to front wrap. Childs Frick (1883-1965), son of Henry Clay Frick, was a paleontologist. He was an AMNH trustee and collected hundreds of thousands of mammal fossils -particularly from the American west - which were donated to the museum. He likely worked with Osborn's father, Henry Fairfield Osborn (see above), long-time museum president. The reference to the book in the inscription is almost certainly to Osborn's first book Our Plundered Planet. This was his second book. Henry Clay Flick was a steel, coke and railroad magnate who was also a significant art collector and patron. Printed on recto only. Lightly thumbed, else fine.

Fairfield Osborn (full name Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr.) was the son of Senior (see above). He spent second half of life devoted to environmental causes, particularly the New York Zoological Society (now The Wildlife Conservation Society) of which he was Secretary for five years and President for 28 years, including when this book was published. "Osborn wrote Our Plundered Planet, and when published in 1948 it became very influential in the early Environmental movement and helped spur a Malthusian revival of the 1950s and 60s. He is also remembered as an early opponent of pesticide use, for producing several films dealing with endangered species, flood control and water resources, as well as for his second book, The Limits of the Earth...." [Wikipedia entry on Osborn].

PALMER, E. Laurence (1888-1970)

Fieldbook of Natural History

[Photos]

1949. First edition. Published by McGraw Hill. Signed.

Signed on title page. A "complete library of natural history" with over 2,000 subjects in astronomy, botany, zoology and geology, each with its own sketch or photo. Decades later it "remains a classic reference for students of nature," per a Cornell University memorial piece published upon his death. Sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation and part of the Whittlesey House Field Guide Series, a unit of McGraw Hill. Much of the material had previously appeared in special inserts in Nature Magazine, where Palmer served as director of education. VG in a G DJ

Ephraim Laurence Palmer was a prominent science educator and a surprisingly important conservationist. Per the Cornell piece, "he was known throughout the country and abroad for his tireless efforts to promote field study and preservation of natural areas.... He promulgated concern for relevance and preservation of our environment decades before the current popular appeal for these issues." He served as director of conservation education at the National Wildlife Federation from 1950-56 and was a director of the National Audubon Society from 1946-50. He was also known for his weekly radio show, This Week in Nature, in the 1940s and 50s. As an educator, he served as president of a number of national programs. He also directed nature study programs for the Boy Scouts for over 30 years, earning several awards for his service. An interesting, albeit unrelated fact - his son joined the Weather Underground and served prison time for attempting to firebomb a bank in NYC.

PEATTIE, Donald Culross (1898-1964)

An Almanac for Moderns

1935. First edition. Published by G.P Putnam's Sons. Signed.

Signed on ffe. True first - not a 1938 Limited Edition Club edition. Illustrated with woodblock drawings by Lynd Ward (1905-1985), a celebrated and influential artist known for his woodcut engraving illustrations and wordless novels. [He also illustrated a personal favorite I read often to my children when they were young - The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, by Hildegarde Smith]. Almanac is organized as a series of daily journal entries, covering one year, starting from the first day of spring. NF no DJ.

Flowering Earth

1939. First edition. Published by G.P Putnam's Sons. Inscribed.

Inscribed on ffe: "For Marion Peter, Affectionately, Donald Peattie." The book traces the development of plant life from the development of the first microorganisms to modern flora. Laid in is the Foreword by botanist and author Charles B. Heiser cut from a 1991 Indiana Univ Press edition of the book describing Peattie as a "poet-naturalist" and concluding: "That is how the book should be read - as a contribution to understanding and appreciating nature. As such, it is as fresh today as it was the day it was written." NF no DJ.

American Heartwood

1949. First edition. Published by Houghton Mifflin. Inscribed.

Inscribed on half-title, incorporating the printed title: "This is Barrett Yeager's copy of [American Heartwood] cordially inscribed by Donald Culross Peattie." Woodcut illustrations within and an attractive full pictorial dj by David Hendrickson. A history of America told through its trees, and a prelude to Peattie's Sylva, the first volume of which is pitched on the rear dj flap. Small tag of Tecolote Bookshop of Santa Barbara, CA on rpd. VG in a VG NPCDJ.

Donald Culross Peattie was a botanist, naturalist and author who was described by Joseph Wood Krutch as “perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers” during his career. He was known for being scientifically precise in his writings, while still being poetically and philosophically minded. He wrote nearly 40 books, including some travel books and books for children.

Peattie worked as a botanist with the U.S. Dept of Agriculture and then as a nature columnist, before turning to writing full time. He was active in efforts to protect the Indiana Dunes, an area in northwest Indiana on Lake Michigan that in 2019 became a national park, the first in the state.

Peattie has been accused of harboring racist views, based in part on the following quote from An Almanac for Moderns: “Every species of ant has its racial characteristics. This one seems to me to be the negro of ants, and not alone from the circumstance that he is all black, but because he is the commonest victim of slavery, and seems especially susceptible to a submissive estate. He is easily impressed by the superior organization or the menacing tactics of his raiders and drivers, and, as I know him, he is relatively lazy or at least disorganized, random, feckless and witless when free in the bush, while for his masters he will work faithfully." [p. 114 - which ironically enough is the entry for July 4th].

From a 2014 article in the Christian Science Monitor by Danny Heitman:

But soon after his death, Peattie’s writing faded from public view. These days, few people know about him. His style, sometimes self-consciously poetic and a little florid, can seem faintly antiquarian to the contemporary ear.

“There is always a quality in Peattie’s prose that it might be tempting to call formality,” Verlyn Klinkenbourg, one of today’s best commentators on the natural world, observed not long ago. “Really, it is a kind of honorific poetry, a sense of rising to his subject.... We do not write like this any longer.”

But more recent writers have learned from Peattie’s deeply attentive vision of nature. Michael Pollan and Bill McKibben count him as an influence. “Peattie,” said Robert Hass, “is one of the classic American nature writers of the mid-twentieth century.”

PETERSON, Roger Tory (1908-1996)

A Field Guide to Western Birds

1941. First edition, later printing. Published by Hougton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York.

Pale blue boards. Black and white illustrations. Unmarked, solid text block. No. 2 of the Peterson Field Guide series. VG+ in VG PCDJ with chips to top and bottom of spine.

Wild America [Link]

[Co-authored by James Fisher (1912-1970)]

1955. Stated first printing. Published by Houghton, Mifflin. Signed by both authors.

Signed by Peterson "With best regards." Ownership sig dated 1956 (Jessie B Kittridge) below. The fpd and ffe constitute a double-page map of the route. VG in a G+ NPCDJ

Wild America is a classic - an account of Fisher and Peterson's 100-day, 30,000 mile trip from Newfoundland, around the edge of the U.S, (except the border with Canada), with a dip into Mexico. and up to Alaska, ending at the Pribiloff Islands. They focused on the wild places - preserved areas such as National Parks, Seashores, wildlife reservations and the like. Fischer and Peterson were friends who had done extensive ornithological travel together in the U.K. and around Europe while Peterson was living in England. Peterson recounts in the Prologue that he had the idea of introducing Fisher to the wonders and wildlife of North America.

James Fisher at the time was a well-known naturalist in Britain due to his regular BBC broadcasts - he ended up doing over 1000 - and his many books on natural history. Peterson and Fisher coauthored another book together in 1964 - 'The World of Birds.' (Notably, Fisher was also considered to be among the leading authorities on Gilbert White (Selborne (1789)).

The description of Wild America on its rear cover is written from a European perspective, and presents perhaps the most optimistic take on things I've read since embarking on this Collection and website:

Most Europeans, when they cross the Atlantic, see only...symbols of industrial America. Rarely do they glimpse another facet of the great continent, an idealistic side represented by National Parks, National Forests, Fish and Wildlife Service Refuges.... James Fischer, England's leading popularizer of natural history...saw all these.... In retrospect, he wrote: 'Americans show us too little of their earthly paradise, and publicize too little their determination to share it with wild nature. Never have I seen such wonders or met landlords so worthy of the land. They have had, and still have, the power to ravage it; and instead have made it a garden.'"

The enduring regard for Wild America is reflected by the fact that there are two books that have been added to the Collection which retrace the original journey (Lyn Hancock (1986) and Scott Weidensaul (2005)). Peterson wrote the Foreword in the Hancock book in which he describes a number of copycat journeys, many by folks trying to top Peterson and Fisher's bird list count from the trip (572 excluding Mexico).

Indeed, Peterson writes in the Hancock Foreword of plans to write a new book himself, to be entitled 'Wild America Revisited,' with his wife Ginny (see more below) based on their recreation of the journey. Peterson notes that he would have done so with Fisher, but he had been killed in a car crash "on the M1 highway while driving much too fast to his home in Ashton after a late evening with friends at his London club." Peterson describes himself as "deep" in the 'Revisited' project, with the expectation that he would publish "after a suitable lapse" and after he and Ginny put "the finishing touches" on the book. However, it does not appear that it was ever published.

Roger Tory Peterson: The Art and Photography of the World's Foremost Birder

1994. Likely first. Published by Rizzoli, New York. Inscribed to Peter Matthiessen, with his bookplate

Dark blue cloth boards. Crisp gilt lettering on spine. Lavishly illustrated. Inscribed on title page: "To Peter - With best wishes - Roger Tory Peterson." PM's bookplate on fpd. No other markings. NF in NF NPCDJ.

"Roger Tory Peterson was an American naturalist, ornithologist, illustrator and educator, and one of the founding inspirations for the 20th-century environmental movement." [Intro to Wikipedia entry on RTP]. Peterson is credited with essentially inventing the modern field guide. His first book, A Field Guide to the Birds (1934), sold out its first printing in one week, and has continued to sell, over five editions. He developed the Peterson Identification System as a practical method for field identification of animals and plants - it focused on allowing observers to identify specimens from a distance, rather than having to shoot them. "As such, it both reflected and contributed to awareness of the emerging early environmental movement." [Wikipedia entry on the Peterson Identification System - which notes that the system was also used to identify aircraft, friendly vs. enemy, in WWII after RTP enlisted with the Army Corps of Engineers during the war. Peterson's system, essentially a pictorial key based on visible rather than technical features, has become universally accepted.]

In poking around about Wild America above, I came across an interesting article by Brooke Chilvers in Gray's Sporting Journal dated 4/19/22 entitled "Roger Tory Peterson - the Book, the Man, His Wives." According to Chilvers, RTP had a first, short-lived marriage before wedding Barbara Coulter, a "well-born, well-educated" woman who "is widely credited with making possible his incomparable success." They announced their divorce after 33 years. The same year, Peterson married Virginia, an acquaintance of twenty years, who was twenty years younger, and who herself had been divorced just days earlier. They were married twenty years. Chilvers concludes in her piece that "despite Barbara and Virginia's incredible devotion and hard-earned accolades, I found no online recognition of their work; not even obituaries. They seem to have disappeared from the record." Leaving aside the misuse of "accolades" given the context, it is an interesting perspective.

PHILLIPS, John C. (1876-1938)

American Waterfowl: Their Present Situation and the Outlook for Their Future

1930. First edition. Co-authored with LINCOLN, Frederick C. (1892-1960). Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York. With note of transmittal laid in on Mrs. John C. Phillips' letterhead

Blue cloth boards with dark blue spine. Note on 3.5"x5.5" notepaper with Mrs. John Phillips' name and location (Small Point Beach, Maine) reading: "Dear Marley(?) - I think this may interest you. Keep it all winter if you like. If I find that I have another copy I shall make you a present of it. [Illegible], E." The book is essentially a conservation manifesto, a prime example of sportsmen decrying the loss of game and habitat. Tissue-guarded frontispiece. VG in G DJ.

Lincoln was a highly influential ornithologist who directed the Bureau of Biological Survey's bird banding program from 1920-1946.

Great Wenham Pond (By Phillips only)

1938. Limited edition. Published by The Peabody Museum, Salem

Edition limited to 100 copies on Hurlbut Permanent Paper, of which this is number 58, and 400 copies on a different (presumably inferior) paper. Published posthumously, shortly after Phillips death (his forward is dated April 1938). Tipped in on fpd is a note reading: "It was 'Dr. Phillips' wish that this book should be sent to you with Christmas greetings." On facing pages is a tipped-in obituary (seemingly from Boston Globe or NYT). Green boards with full-page colored leaf patterns. VG in a custom gray cardboard-y slipcase, presumably as issued.

Phillips was a sportsman, ornithologist and scientist who traveled widely, from Greenland with Peary to Japan and southern China to the Blue Nile. His work originally focused on hunting but later gravitated towards genetic issues in wild animals, species protection and environmentalism. According to one of the obituaries tipped into the latter volume, he was associate curator of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, president of the Peabody Academy of Sciences, chair of the Massachusetts conservation council, a trustee on a council for public reservations and, for six years, president of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Association. "Dr. Phillips gave wide tracts of land in Boxford, Wenham and Rockport in recent years to the state for conservation areas and for preservation of wild birdlife." Phillips lived in Wenham - he clearly loved the pond and the area - in the forward he discusses an apparent controversy over a proposal to provide drinking water to local municipalities from the pond, which he opposed. He also had a distinguished war record, serving in the medical corps and ultimately commanding a field hospital with the rank of Major.

POUGH, Richard H. (1904-2003)

Audubon Bird Guide: Eastern Land Birds

1946. First edition, early printing. Published by Doubleday & Co. Signed

Signed on title page. Center bound insert of widely praised full color illustrations by Dan Eckelberry. The first of three bird guides Pough wrote for the National Audubon Society, where he worked as a research associate. Distinguished by the naturalistic illustrations, as opposed to Peterson's more formal, stiff illustrations in his pre-1980 guides. Pough also wrote detailed behavioral notes and addressed the importance of conservation measures - in the Foreword he includes a long discussion on the need to preserve habitat. He decries the practice of shooting non-game birds of any kind for sport and, critically, he explicitly warns of the dangers to ecosystems of "the new insecticides, rodent and weed poisons." (p. xxxiii). Maps for endpapers and frontispiece. Ownership stamp of Wilfred D. Crabb, an FWS wildlife biologist. Blurbs by John Kieran, Ding Darling, Donald Culross Peattie and Robert Cushman Murphy. NF in a G NPCDJ with chips missing from upper and lower spine ends and one corner.

Richard Pough is not a household name today but was among the most important land conservationists of the 20th century. He was a pioneer in achieving widespread permanent land conservation using private capital and resources; he founded the Open Space Institute and was the founding president of the Nature Conservancy, among other things. He was also the uncredited co-author with Charles Little of Stewardship (1965 - listed under Open Space Action Committee, above), he also wrote the Intro to Peter Matthiessen's seminal Wildlife in America (1959).

Pough seems to have been a master in persuading wealthy patrons (generally female) to fund major land conservation initiatives. His first success was the preservation of the Hawk Mountain Preserve in Pennsylvania. He had gone there on a hike and saw 118 dead hawks. He persuaded Rosalie Edge (later of Emergency Conservation Committee fame - see 1916-62 EC History Chapter) to lease and then buy 1,400 acres of Hawk Mountain. Edge, who has been described as the most militant conservationist of her time, hired a warden to oversee the property - the hawk shooting stopped.

Pough worked for the National Audubon Society from 1936-48, where he campaigned against harvesting of protected bird species. He was interviewed for a Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker warning of the dangers of DDT in 1945 - the same year DDT was approved for general sale in the US and 17 years before Rachel Carson's more effective anti-DDT effort, Silent Spring (1962).

In 1948, he moved to the AMNH as chairman of the Department of Conservation and General Ecology - he oversaw the creation of the Hall of North American Forests, with its extraordinary dioramas showing various environments.

Pough joined the Ecologists Union, which was dedicated to preserving endangered habitats. He persuaded them to change the name to the Nature Conservancy (as existed in the UK) and he persuaded Lila A. Wallace from Readers Digest to set up the Land Preservation Fund, the conservancy's primary conservation vehicle. He was elected the Nature Conservancy's founding president, serving until 1956. He was also active in the campaigns to stop the Echo Park Dam (see This is Dinosaur (1955 - Anthologies) and Robert Moses' plan to extend an expressway through Van Cortland Park and the Bronx.

In the 1960s he established the Natural Areas Council and the Open Space Institute (f/k/a Open Space Action Committee), funded by a donation from 3M heir Katharine Ordway. He also served as president of Ms. Ordway's Goodhill Foundation until 1984, deploying $55 million towards land conservation purchases. The OSI (see Stewardship (1965 - under OSAC as author) sought to persuade NY metro area private landowners to donate land or create permanent conservation easements, a very successful approach that continues to be actively employed nationwide today.

All in all, Pough was the prime mover in the conservation of millions of critical acres. He received the Audubon Medal in recognition of his conservation work in 1981.

Don Eckelberry (1921-2001) was "one of the country's foremost bird painters" per his 1/28/01 NYT obit, as well as being a committed conservationist. He worked briefly at the National Audubon Society, where he met Pough, leading to their collaboration on the three Audubon bird guides, of which this is the first. He spent most of his career as a freelance artist, widely considered among the finest of ornithological artists. Per an article about Eckelberry by Tony Angell on the website of Drexel University's Academy of Natural Sciences, Roger Tory Peterson himself said: "Don Eckelberry reigns supreme...the best mastery of bird depiction of any of his peers." [https://ansp.org/research/fellowships-endowments/eckelberry/biography/]. Among his other conservation work, he was one of the prime drivers in the protection and creation of the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad, which happens to be where William Beebe's tropical research station is, and where Beebe is buried.

ROLFE, Mary A. (1881-1974)

Our National Parks: Book One [of two]

1927. First. Published by Benjamin H. Sanborn & Co., Chicago. Inscribed

Inscribed on verso of ffe: "To Miss Snyder, with all good wishes - Mary A. Rolfe." Written for a fifth and sixth grade audience, presumably as part of a social studies curriculum. After the preface is a full-page introductory "personal message" from Stephen A. Mather, then the Director of the NPS. Liberally illustrated with over 100 indexed b+w photos, and four colored illustrations including the frontispiece, a view from RMNP, along with reproduced lithographs including two of scenes from Zion NP and one from Grand Canyon NP. Olive buckram boards with a color image of a tree on a cliff by a lake pasted on the cover, with a small tear. Front and rear endpapers show a map of the US with all of the NPs shown. Bumping and rubbing to edges and slight bow to front board. VG no DJ (as issued?).

Mary A. Rolfe, described on the title page as a former government lecturer in geology at Yellowstone NP, was a trained scientist who taught at both the high school and university level before traveling to France as a YMCA secretary. She spent over a year there, working with refugee children and injured men, among other activities. After returning she worked at the YMCA for a couple of years before going to work as the second female ranger in Yellowstone NP during the summer of 1921, where her activities included lectures. That fall she left to become the dean of women at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State). She returned to Illinois in 1927, the year this book was published.

Our National Parks follows two families' cross-country round trip, stopping at each NP along the way. Rolfe notes in her Preface, which is written for parents and teachers, that "[a]s the pupil reads he will aquire (sp?) a continuously growing knowledge of how rocks and water, frost and snow, wind and rain, and the rise and fall of land have worked together to form these regions of great natural beauty..., of how trees live and bear fruit and shelter birds, of how man in his carelessness destroys them, and of Nature's efforts to rebuild them." (p. vi).

ROOSEVELT, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)

Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1932-1945

[Photos]

1946. First. Published by Houghton Mifflin. With a long inscription by "K.A." - apparently Konrad Adenhauer, the German statesman

Edited by B.D. Zevin, with a Foreword by Harry Hopkins, FDR's closest advisor. With an inscription in German on the ffe, followed by the initials K.A. Per seller, based on handwriting analysis, it appears to have been written by Konrad Adenhauer, who served for 14 years as the first chancellor of West German after WWII (1949-63). While it is written in script in an older style of German writing, a friend who is a native German speaker translates it as follows: "Who is busy all week with toys must have some worthy literature for the few hours of leisure. This book is for my "little brother" with 1000 good wishes. K.A." I believe it would be understandable to a German speaker. More to come when I find one. 62 addresses of FDR's, ranging from inaugural addresses to fireside chats - with a definite focus on WWII and, to a lesser degree, the economy. Sadly, not much focus on FDR's conservation agenda. Illustrated with seven b+w photos. Red cloth boards, rear board beginning to separate and with a dampstain across the bottom extending up less than one inch, not affecting text block. Fair no DJ.

Editor B.D. Zevins (1901-1984) built World Publishing Co into one of the country's leading book publishers in the period before and after WWII. He was also co-founder and president of the Cleveland Council on Human Relations.

Konrad Adenhauer is credited with leading West Germany back into the community of civilized nations,

Frankling Delano Roosevelt was arguably the most important environmental president save Teddy Roosevelt, notwithstanding that FDR's record had its blemishes, principally related to an inordinate fondness for the indiscriminate building of dams and, to a lesser degree, roads in scenic places. Much more on the conservation legacy of FDR and the New Deal in the 1916-62 EC History chapter.

ST. BARBE BAKER, Richard (OBE) (1889-1982)

Green Glory: The Story of the Forests of the World

1948. First printing. Published by Lutterworth Press, London

Green cloth boards, lightly stained. Otherwise unmarked and unfoxed. G+ in a G+ NPCDJ.

Sir Richard St. Barbe Baker was a prominent international conservationist, forester and author who founded the International Tree Foundation (initially called Men of the Trees). He worked around the world, including in the U.S., where he championed preservation of the Redwoods and studied the effects of deforestation on the creation of the dustbowl and other desertification, among other things.

Interestingly, he claims in the book that, following his two-year study of the latter topic, he had a meeting with FDR in 1932, during FDR's initial election campaign, where St. BB discussed some of his ideas to address the dustbowl and, as he tells it, help address the massive unemployment of the time. "At that moment, like a flash, Roosevelt caught the idea which later brought the Civilian Conservation Corps. into being." (p. 62).

Hans Huth rebuts this claim in a footnote to his classic Nature and the American (1957 - See References). The footnote reads: "A hitherto unpublished letter to the Editor of Time from President Roosevelt's secretary and authorized by the President does not mention Richard St. Barbe Baker as the originator of the idea of the Civilian Conservation Corps. After elaborating on the theme of conservation and stating that no one 'alive today can claim to have originated the ideal,' the letter states that the President 'cannot find that the idea of the Civilian Conservation Corps was taken from any one source. It was rather the obvious conflux of the desire for conservation and the need for finding useful work for unemployed young men.' (Letter from Miss M.A. LeHand, private secretary to President Roosevelt; quotation permitted by courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.)" (p. 227, note 19).

That said, Brinkley in Rightful Heritage (2016) writes that "in the main, FDR's conservation corps came from an amalgam of influences, the most important being his forestry experiments on his own land..., his fondness for German forests, the [Temporary Emergency Relief Administration] work..., his erudite conversations with Pinchot, his activism with the Boy Scouts of America, and his relationship with the British silviculturist Richard St. Barbe Baker (with whom FDR had dined in Albany before the [DNC] in Chicago." (RH pp. 150-1).

That's fun stuff!

SCOVILLE, Samuel Jr. (1872-1950)

Everyday Adventures

1920. First printing. Published by The Atlantic Monthly Press, Boston. Gift inscription from Rachel Carson at age 14

Inscribed on ffe: "To Miss Marguerite E. Howe/From Rachel Louise Carson/August 23, 1921." Light green cloth boards with darker green intricate natural scene on front boards, very light discolorations. Dark green spine with gilt lettering. Some offsetting to fpd and ffe, otherwise unmarked and unfoxed. VG no DJ.

Scoville was a lawyer, naturalist and author who published numerous books about nature for young readers, as well as several ornithological articles.

SEARS, Paul B. (1891-1990)

Deserts on the March

1935. Stated first edition. Published by University of Oklahoma Press, Norman

An enormously influential book. Per Sears' Wikipedia page, this was "one of the first books to communicate ecological principles to the general public," and has gone through eleven printings of its four editions, including a 1988 reprinting of the first edition in Island Press' Conservation Classics series. Written during the dust bowl years, Sears writes of the increasing desertification of landscapes due to human intervention and mismanagement - a phenomenon which continues today. Per the description of the book on the rear DJ cover: "...he unfolds this picture of the earth's decline, of stricken forests and prairies and silted streams in North America, of man's epic struggle to win an immediate living from the soil regardless of future, terrifying changes in nature." The opening paragraph of a 1937 NYT review of his next book opens: "After his 'Deserts on the March' Paul B. Sears can be sure of an audience for anything he cares to write." Per seller, the first edition is scarce. NF in a VG NPCDJ.

Sears was an important ecologist, and not just because of this book. Early in his career he published an innovative series on the vegetation in Ohio using the concept of "witness trees" which were known to have existed from initial land surveys of the area. Per Wikipedia, his work is still widely cited by plant ecologists today. He also pioneered the study of forest pollen as a clue to past ecological history. In 1935 when this book was published, he was head of the botany department at the University of Oklahoma. He also taught during his career at Ohio State, University of Nebraska, Columbia, and Oberlin College. In 1950 he was named chair of the new and innovative multidisciplinary graduate program in Conservation at Yale, which was initiated and initially funded by the Conservation Foundation, headed by Fairfield Osborn. One of the students at the program was Estella Leopold, daughter of Aldo Leopold, who inscribed the copy of A Sand County Almanac in the Collection. In 1965 he was named Eminent Ecologist by the Ecological Society of America.

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

Palmer, Laurence E.

Pough, Richard

Sheldon, Charles (C)

Squier, Emma-Lindsay

Stegner, Wallace

Story, Isabelle F. (C)

Teale, Edwin Way (C)

Thane, Eric (C)

Trefethen, James B. (C)

Vogt, William (C)

SHELDON, Charles (1867-1928)

The Wilderness of Denali: Explorations of a Hunter-Naturalist in Northern Alaska

1930. First edition. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York and London

Green boards with light staining to bottom edge but otherwise like new. Large two-color folding map, in pristine condition, tipped in at rear of volume. Unmarked and unfoxed. Rough-cut edges. Tissue-guarded frontispiece. Front cover of DJ preserved and laid in. VG++

The book was published posthumously and consists of Sheldon's journals from his extensive time around Denali, edited by C. Hart Merriam and E.W. Nelson and with a nine-page intro by Merriam. Sheldon was the prime mover for the creation in 1917 of Mount McKinley (now Denali) National Park in Alaska - he is known as the "father of Denali National Park." There are a handful of NPs for which specific individuals receive primary credit - Grinnell for Glacier, Muir for Yosemite, Mills for Rocky Mountain, etc. Denali has Sheldon, who used the influence of the Boone and Crockett Club to move the bill forming the park through Congress. Sheldon himself personally delivered the bill to President Woodrow Wilson for signing.

Sheldon was best known as a big-game hunter, described by Grinnell (per CHM's intro) as "notwithstanding his attitude of self-effacement he was our most famous big-game hunter." Writes CHM: "Choosing his hunting grounds in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the continent; possessed of physical strength and endurance almost beyond belief, of unbounded enthusiasm, of powers of observation second to none, and endowed with a conscience intolerant of exaggeration, the accounts of his hunts about in vivid descriptions of localities not previously explored, while his circumstantial studies of the habits of animals rang among the most valuable of the contributions thus far made to the life histories of many species - particularly the mountain sheep, caribou, moose, grizzly bear, and wolverine."

About Sheldon, worldhistory.us writes: "[The creation of Denali NP] remains a monument to its chief architect, Charles Sheldon. Throughout his adult life he campaigned for the protection of migratory birds, forests, parks, and limits on hunting. At one time or other he served on the board of directors of the Boone and Crockett Club, National Parks Association, American Forestry Association, National Recreation Committee, National Geographic Society, and served as Chairman of the Commission on the Conservation of the Jackson Hole Elk. He was a member of such disparate groups as the Explorers Club, American Ornithological Union, Washington's Cosmos Club and the New York Zoological Society."

[SEE MORE ON SHELDON IN THE EC HISTORY CHAPTER COVERING THE PROGRESSIVE ERA 1890-1915]

SQUIER, Emma-Lindsay (1892-1941)

The Wild Heart

1922. Second printing, in the month after first. Published by Cosmopolitan Book Corp. Inscribed

Humorously inscribed on ffe: "To the excellent lady from Illinois, with best wishes and sincere gratitude for all favors received from a reprehensible woman from Seattle, Emma-Lindsay Squire." Former owner's sig on fpd "Cora E. Hughes." With an eleven-page Introduction by Gene Stratton-Porter. Illustrated by Paul Bransom. Squier's first book, a collection of stories about interactions between wildlife and people, which is said to have been quite popular in her day. The fact that it went to a second printing in the space of a month bears that out, but otherwise evidence is scant beyond unsupported statements in a couple of ancillary websites. Squier has neither a Wikipedia entry nor a NYT obit, although two of her subsequent books got reasonably positive reviews in the NYT.

Squier was a reporter with the Los Angeles Times and wrote articles for a number of magazines. Later she published books on Native American myths which she collected, and on her travels and adventures in Mexico, among other things. She died at age 48 in Saranac Lake, NY of tuberculosis.

Illustrator Paul Bransom (1885-1979) is described in his NYT obit as the "dean of animal artists." He was self-taught, having dropped out of school after eighth grade and become an apprentice draftsman at age 14 at the US Patent Office. By age 17 he was living in NYC, where in the next few years he married a Broadway actress, illustrated Saturday Evening Post articles, took over an ongoing comic strip in the Evening Journal, illustrated Jack London's Call of the Wild (not in the Collection) and other authors including Marlin Perkins (long-time host of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, which I watched religiously as a child every Sunday night at 7 pm, right before Wide World of Disney). William Hornaday provided Bransom with a studio in the Lion House at the Bronx Zoo for many years.

STEGNER, Wallace (1909-1993)

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West

1954. First. Published by Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

Introduction by Bernard DeVoto, to whom the book is dedicated. With fold-out monotint panoramic of the Grand Canyon, by William H. Holmes reproduced from Clarence Dutton's Tertiary History of the Grand Canon District (1982), before title page. This influential biography of Powell focuses on Powell's career, his vision and his accomplishments as an explorer, scientist and administrator, rather than on his personality. As discussed elsewhere on this site, Powell's ideas regarding development of the American West, and his relationships with the Native peoples of the area, were in many ways far ahead of their time. Unmarked and unfoxed, in excellent condition. NF in a VG DJ.

For further info related to this entry, please see the blog post of 7/17/24.

The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard DeVoto

1974. Stated first. Published by Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY. Signed

Signed of half-title. Small round "Signed" sticker on DJ front cover. The title refers to Bernard DeVoto's long running column in Harper's Magazine, entitled The Easy Chair. Two-tone vertically split brown boards. Page edges rough cut. VG+ in VG- PCDJ.

Stegner is a literary giant and I suspect does not really need me to tell you about him. So very briefly, he has been called "The Dean of Western Writers," he has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He was a professor at Wisconsin, Harvard and Stanford, where he founded the creative writing program - students included Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry and Larry McMurtry, among many others. He not only wrote about environmental issues - but he was also at times an activist as well. For example, in 1962 he co-founded the Committee for Green Foothills, dedicate to preserving the natural spaces of the Bay Area. Stegner served as special assistant to JFK's Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and served on the board of directors of the Sierra Club.

In 1961, Udall spoke at the Seventh Wilderness Congress in San Francisco. He had prepared his own remarks but ultimately discarded them, deciding instead to read a six-page letter from Stegner, known as the "Wilderness Letter," in which Stegner argued not just for the importance of wilderness as a resource, but that the idea of wilderness, which he called "a resource in itself." Udall's remarks were broadcast on radio, and the letter subsequently printed. "The letter quickly became celebrated as the essential explanation and defense of wilderness, not just of its usefulness, but of its philosophical necessity to the character of the American land and people." Stegner later wrote: "The labor of an afternoon...[had] gone farther around the world than other writing on which I have spent years." [This paragraph and the quotes therein are from https://stanfordmag.org/contents/what-the-wilderness-letter-wrought]

The Wilderness Letter itself, along with a 1980 Introduction which Stegner wrote when the letter was republished in 1980, can be found here: wildernessletter (stanford.edu)

The Wilderness Act was passed in 1964.

STORY, Isabelle F. (1887-1970)

The National Parks and Emergency Conservation [Photos]

1933. First. Published by the U.S. Government Printing Office for the U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service.

The 32-page pamphlet describes the National Park system and discusses the challenges inherent in balancing the impact of park usage on the one hand, and preservation on the other. Story is described as 'Chief, Division of Public Relations'. Illustrated throughout with photographs. NF in stapled wrappers.

The pamphlet begins with a broad discussion of the U.S. National Park system's history in addition to the recreation vs. protection section. The last several pages consist of thumbnail sketches of each of the 22 national parks and 40 national monuments administered by NPS. (There were other national monuments administered by the Forestry Service and War Department.)

Isabelle Story was joined the National Park Service at its inception in 1917, having worked at its predecessor for two years at the Department of the Interior, and the USGS for three years before that. She worked at the NPS until her retirement in 1955. She represents an important but obscure conservation figure in a period where females struggled to achieve status and influence.

Story was unusual for her time in that she had a college-level business education. While she started at the NPS as Horace Albright’s secretary, her scope of responsibilities increased rapidly. She was instrumental in preparing critical reports and publications, earning a medal from the French government for her booklet for the 1931 Paris Exposition. She became Interior’s first division chief when she took over the Department of Publications in 1930. Per Wikipedia, in a 1934 photo of NPS administrators, of the 79 people she is the only woman.

Story traveled extensively across the NPS system, spearheaded the Department’s foray into radio by writing and producing 39 radio programs on recently created parks, and wrote pieces for other major periodicals including The New York Times. She was the first woman awarded Interior’s Distinguished Service Award.

TEALE, Edwin Way (1899-1980)

Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist's Year

1953. First edition. Published by Dodd Mead & Co., Inscribed

Inscribed on ffe: "Presented to The Woodland School Library in memory of Anne L. Smith by her pupil - Edwin Way Teale/May 4, 1955." Per the seller, the school referred to is now Woodland Elementary School in Joliet, IL. Also per seller, signed books by Teale are uncommon. As the subtitle suggests, the book takes the form of a daily journal. Illustrated with 23 full-page photos taken by Teale. F in a NF NPCDJ.

Teale was a prominent literary naturalist and photographer - perhaps the most prominent of his day. He reportedly declared himself to be a naturalist at age nine and changed his middle name to Way from Alfred at age 12. Teale was a staff writer for Popular Science early in his career, before leaving to become a freelance photographer and full-time nature writer. His best-known work is a series of four books documenting his travel by car following and documenting the change of seasons. Per the Wikipedia entry on Teale, his works are used as primary source material documenting environmental conditions across North America from 1930-1980.

Teale was a prolific author, with more than 35 books to his credit. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1966 in the General Non-fiction category, for one of the four season-chasing books, as well as a John Burroughs Association Medal and many other awards throughout his career. He was at various times president of the New York Entomological Society and Thoreau Society. When he died, he was nearly finished with his part of a book he was co-writing with Ann Zwinger - he was included as co-author when the book was published in 1982. The copy of the book in the Collection, A Conscious Stillness, is Catalogued under Zwinger and Teale's names (1982).

THANE, Eric

The Majestic Land: Peaks, Parks & Prevaricators of the Rockies & Highlands of the Northwest

1950. Stated first edition. Published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis and New York

Blue cloth boards somewhat worn. Owner's sig on ffe. Text block otherwise pristine except the first graph of the first chapter is outlined in pen. I could find no info on Thane beyond the very brief bio on the rear flap of the DJ: "Eric Thane has just received a grant from the University of Minnesota for a new research-and-writing project. He has behind him one previous book [High Border Country, 1942] and a couple of hundred articles in a variety of magazines...." According to a couple websites, 'Eric Thane' may be a pseudonym.

TREFETHEN, James B.

Crusade for Wildlife: Highlights in Conservation Progress

1961. First edition. Published by The Stackpole Co., Harrisburg and Boone and Crockett Club, New York. Inscribed by Stewart Udall to illustrator Bob Hines.

Inscribed on the ffe: "For Bob Hines, With thanks for all of his fine work for the conservation cause! Stewart L. Udall/April 1967." In pencil under Udall's name someone has written 'Secretary of the Interior' in all caps. Green boards with silver gilt design of a ram on cover and gilt lettering to spine. VG+ in a VG NPCDJ.

Udall of course was Secretary of the Interior and an important conservationist in his own right.

Bob Hines (1912-1994) was a self-taught former staff artist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the only person in the history of that organization to hold the title of National Wildlife Artist. He designed in the 1950s the first four US postage stamps depicting American wildlife and proposed and oversaw for over thirty years the formal selection process for the annual Federal Duck Stamp. The following is lifted in its entirety from the website rachelcarson.org - the site is the work of Linda Lear, the author of a biography of Carson. The copyright page of the site appears to permit such use:

Born and raised in Ohio, Robert W. Hines never took a formal art course after high school. He began as a staff artist for the Ohio Division of Conservation and Natural Resources during the Great Depression. In 1948 he accepted employment as an artist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, chagrined to find that a female biologist named Rachel Carson was his supervisor. Carson and Hines developed a congenial working relationship that evolved into a loyal friendship and an important professional collaboration.

Carson asked Hines to illustrate the third book in her trilogy on the ocean, The Edge of the Sea, a study of sea life along the Atlantic coast. Together they traveled from Maine to the Florida Keys. Hines learned first hand about Carson’s reverence for life. After Carson collected an animal and Hines drew it, she insisted that the creature be returned to the same location from whence it came.

Hines’s pencil drawings immenesly [sp?] enhanced the book when it was published in 1955. N. J. Berrill’s review in the Saturday Review concluded: "The Edge of the Sea becomes the product of two naturalists working in close cooperation, each one scientifically trained and each an artist, the one with a pen and the other with a pencil. Together they take us on a good journey."

Hines served as one of the six honorary pall bearers at Rachel Carson’s funeral in at the Washington National Cathedral in 1964. Prior to his retirement from the FWS in 1981, Hines was designated "National Wildlife Artist", the only person ever granted that distinction. His last major commission was the pencil drawings for the 50th anniversary edition of Carson’s Under the Sea-Wind, reprinted in 1991. Hines died in Arlington, Virginia, three years later. His remains were returned to his native Ohio.

(Contributed by John D. Juriga, June 2010)

Source: https://rachelcarson.org/bob-hines

Hines also illustrated Peter Matthiessen's first book, Wildlife in America (1959).

Trefethen himself is the author of several books, including a history of the NRA published in 1967, when the NRA was still a responsible organization.

The Boone and Crockett website summarizes the book as follows: "Here, in one volume, is the definitive history of wildlife conservation in America. James Trefethen is a professional conservationist who has spent a lifetime studying the history of wildlife laws and population trends. Research for this book began many years ago, when the Boone and Crockett Club commissioned the author to write a history of the Club. In the course of his investigations, Trefethen found that the men behind the first great conservation movement were the founders and members of the Boone and Crockett Club, and that the early history of B&C was in reality a chronicle of America's awakening conservation conscience." The B&C website lists the publication date of the book, which is for sale, as 1975 - which presumes a later edition.

The importance of wealthy hunters generally, and the B&C Club specifically, is discussed in more detail in the 1855-90 and 1890-1915 EC History section of this website. [Two early B&C books are in the Anthology section of this website.]

VOGT, William (1902-1968)

Road to Survival

1948. Stated first printing. Published by William Sloane Associates, New York. Inscribed

Inscribed "To Philip Jessup, With warm regards. Bill Vogt. 1 July 1948." Jessup was a prominent diplomat and lawyer active in international law. Introduction by Bernard M. Baruch. Illustrated by Stuart J. Freeman. VG in VG NPCDJ.

Vogt was an ecologist and ornithologist best known for this book, which was an "influential best seller. It had a big impact on a Malthusian revival in the 1950s and 60s." [Wikipedia entry on Vogt]. Vogt had served in a number of positions including as Chief of the Conservation Section of the Pan American Union, where he studied the relationship between climate, population and resources in Latin American countries. He argued that expanding populations and economic growth were driving environmental destruction that would take a huge toll on future generations. The book was published in the same year as Fairfield Osborn's Our Plundered Planet (see above), which explored similar terrain.

Brooks writes that Road to Survival "would shock millions of readers all over the world....[it] is subversive in the best sense of the word. It calls for nothing less than a radical change in our attitude toward the natural world." According to Brooks, Bernard DeVoto (see above) considered the book to be "by far the best book so far in this literature. It is more basic, more comprehensive, more thorough-going than any of its predecessors...and it is written with marked brilliance and drama." [pp. 245-7].

Writes Charles C. Mann in the March 2018 issue of The Atlantic magazine: "Vogt...laid out the basic ideas for the modern environmental movement. In particular, he founded...'apocalyptic environmentalism' - the belief that unless humankind drastically reduces consumption and limits population, it will ravage global ecosystems.... Vogt argued that affluence is not our greatest achievement but our biggest problem. If we continue to take more than the Earth can give, he said, the unavoidable result will be devastation on a global scale. Cut back! Cut back! was his mantra." Following the book's publication, Vogt served at various times as National Director of Planned Parenthood, Secretary of the Conservation Foundation and representative of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources to the United Nations.

Interesting postscript - the following is reproduced in its substantial entirety from the Autumn, 1951 issue of The Land magazine (see Rachel Carson section above):

WHY VOGT GOT OUT. In the course of an editorial dissertation...we said that...Road to Survival by William Vogt "cost him his job at the Pan-American Union. That was wrong, or the implication that he was fired was wrong. "You should know better than to believe everything you read in newspapers." Bill Vogt writes us from his new post as head of the Planned Parenthood League. We should, indeed, and are glad of the present chance to publish his statement of just what happened.

I did not lose my job with the Pan-American Union [writes Vogt]. I resigned. The occasion was not publication of Road to Survival (in 1948, not 1949 as you state), but of a Saturday Evening Post article on Point IV in July, 1949, which article, by the way, has proven to be a good piece of forecasting.

I was not asked to resign, indeed, I have a letter from the Director-General of the P.A.U. expressing warm appreciation of my work as Chief of the Conservation Section. I was told, however, that as long as I held the position I might not write "for general publication."

Since, in a conservation program, education seemed - and still seems - to me of equal importance with research and action on the land, such a limitation would have greatly reduced my effectiveness to the P.A.U. I have published not only articles in the United States but widely through Latin America. After giving the matter considerable thought, I resigned the following Fall. I was not forced out, nor in any discussion with P.A.U. officials was the birth control issue ever raised. William Vogt/August 21, 1951

WEAVER, Harriet (1908-1993)

The Giant Redwoods [Photos]

1946. Pamphlet. First edition. Published by Three Raccoons Press, Big Sur, CA

A small pamphlet (about 4"x6"). 15 pages plus title page, of which two are pictorial. Stiff pictorial paper wrappers. Extensive coverage, given size (approximately 4,500 works) about the Redwoods. NF

How the Sequoias Were Named [Photos]

1946. Pamphlet. First edition. Published by Three Racoons Press, Big Sur, CA

A small pamphlet (about 4"x6"). 12.5 pages plus title page, of which two are pictorial - one a portrait of Sequoia and one of his alphabet. Stiff pictorial paper wrappers. OCLC locates two other copies, per seller. NF

Harriet "Petey" Weaver served California's state park system as its first female park ranger from 1929-1950. She worked part-time, during the summers, as she was not permitted to become a full-time ranger due to her gender. She taught high school and wrote during the balance of the year. There is a really nice piece about her by a friend and former student which is worth reading at: https://www.fillmorehistoricalmuseum.org/harriet-petey-weaver

YARD, Robert Sterling (1961-1945)

National Parks Portfolio

1916. First edition. Published by the Department of the Interior

First edition of this important promotional piece, consisting of eight separate, loose pamphlets on coated paper, each covering a single NP (or in the case of the Grand Canyon, a National Monument), plus a folding four-page Intro pamphlet on the same paper stock, all contained in a folded heavy paper cover with a picture of a bighorn sheepshead on the cover. The inside of the cover contains a map of the US west of the Mississippi showing the location of all the NPs and their principal railroad connections (a portion of the same map is used for the dj of Yard's 1919 Book of National Parks, described below.) The parks covered are Yellowstone (31), Yosemite (28), Sequoia (27), Mount Ranier (24), Crater Lake (23), Mesa Verde (27), Glacier (25), Rocky Mountain (29), and Grand Canyon NM (24). Each pamphlet contains text by Yard and copious photos, the number of which is in the above parentheses. NF pamphlets in a VG paper cover with minor soiling and two spots, with small tears in spine, especially at the top. According to the NPS website, there were also cloth-bound copies produced, likely for distribution to members of Congress and other key influencers.

The Portfolio copy is undated, but the Library of Congress website contains a digitized copy of the second edition of the Portfolio, published in 1917. The introductory pieces in this first edition copy identify two 1915 events (the Pan-Pacific Exposition and the building of a hotel in Glacier) as having occurred in the year prior. That reference is removed in the second edition. According to a "Note to Second Edition" by Yard, the first edition numbered 275,000 copies and was issued in June 1916. He describes the second edition as "one of the first publications of the new National Park Service."

Although the Portfolio was published in June 1916 and the formation of the NPS not approved until August 1916, nevertheless the back of the cover has stamped upon it a National Park Service emblem showing an eagle which, according to the NPS website, was used on this publication and no others (it was used on ranger badges for three years starting in 1917). The NPS says "it seems impossible that Mather didn't discuss it with and seek approval from the Secretary of the Interior prior to publishing it."

The first, four-page folded pamphlet contains a two-page Introduction by Interior Secretary Franklin K. Lane and a one-page "Presentation" piece by Stephen T. Mather, who is identified as "Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior in Charge of National Parks." Following the formation of the NPS, Mather was named head of the agency in 1917. Neither of the introductory pieces address the question of formation of the NPS, rather Lane's piece concludes: "If Congress will but make the funds available for the construction of roads... (for all the parks are now open to motors) and for trails to hunt out the hidden places of beauty and dignity, we may expect that year by year these parks will become a more precious possession of the people, holding them to the further discovery of America and making them still prouder of its resources, esthetic as well as material." Mather writes: "The Nation must awake, and it now becomes our happy duty to waken it.... This portfolio is the morning call to the day of realization.... It is my great hope that it will serve to turn the busy eyes of this Nation upon its national parks long enough to bring some realization of what these pleasure gardens ought to mean, of what so easily they may be made to mean, to this people."

The Portfolio was printed in multiple editions into the 1930s and perhaps beyond. The sixth edition was revised by Isabelle Story (see ML).

The Book of the National Parks

1919. Second printing. Published by Charles Scribners.

Second printing of July 1919. In original dj which is complete save chips at bottom of spine and front right bottom corner, but is separated at all of the creases save the back spine crease. DJ shows partial US map showing location of NPs and rail connections to them on plain brown paper (from the National Parks Portfolio, above). Separate ownership sigs on ffe and title page. Extensive pencil markings, primarily underlines and brackets with some marginalia, to several chapters. Extensively illustrated with black and white photographs. Dedicated to Stephen Mather. G in rare original dj in fair- to poor condition.

Robert Sterling Yard was an important figure in the National Park and early wilderness protection movements. Originally an editor and publisher (including editor-in-chief of The Century Magazine, succeeding Robert Underwood Johnson in 1910), he was recruited in 1915 by his close friend Stephen Mather to publicize the need for a National Park Service separate from other agencies. Mather paid Yard's salary out of his own pocket. Their efforts (along with others), most notably Yard's National Parks Portfolio, led to the founding of the NPS in 1916. Yard and Mather had distributed the Portfolio to "270,000 opinionmakers throughout the country" per an NPS biography of Yard, including every member of Congress. Mather served as the first NPS head and Yard as head of education.

When Horace Albright was named interim NPS director after Mather had to take an extended leave following a nervous breakdown, Yard founded the National Parks Association (now the National Parks Conservation Association) with Mather's financial backing. The NPA was and is a non-profit designed to promote national parks from outside government. Yard served as the executive secretary and, originally, its only full-time employee. He edited the NPA's National Parks Bulletin from 1919 to 1936. Importantly, Yard was a strong proponent of preventing commercialization and industrialization (timber cutting and mining) in the NPs, advocating the preservation of wilderness conditions whenever possible. When Congress passed the Water Power Act in 1920 permitting hydroelectric projects on federal land, including the parks, he and Mather successfully lobbied to amend the act the following year to exclude existing parks.

Yard and Mather often disagreed on the degree of commercialization within the parks. Mather espoused luxury accommodations and various entertainment programs (such as bear shows) to lure visitors. Yard fought these measures. He also disagreed with the NPS' acquiescence to the Biological Survey's predator eradication program within the parks. In general, Yard had very high standards for proposed national parks, opposing some proposed NPs such as Shenendoah, which he thought was too recreational and lacked the necessary standards for park status.

In the late 1920s, Yard also worked with the US Forest Service on a program to separate recreational vs. wilderness preservation lands. The USFS was working on a recreation plan while also seeking to protect certain wilderness areas, while opening them to recreation (see Aldo Leopold, Arthur Carhart and Bob Marshall). Yard was secretary of a joint committee of NPA and USFS personnel seeking to bifurcate recreational vs. preservation efforts.

Yard grew increasingly convinced that wilderness was the answer and moved away from the NPA in the early 1930s. In 1935, the Wilderness Society was formed and Yard was one of the eight founding members, a group which included Leopold and Marshall. In 1937, Yard became the Society's president, secretary and editor of its annual magazine. He was the most active member of the Society in its early years, until his death in 1945. His impact was great and his legacy large.

Weaver, Harriet (C)

Yard, Robert Sterling