Gifford Pinchot was one of the most influential advocates of environmetnal conservation. As the first chief of the reconstituted Forest Service and President Theodore Roosevelt's closest advisor on conservation issues, he set the course of national forest policy for decades to come.
The private Gifford Pinchot has remained unknown to those acquainted with the public figure, or even with the reflective man who recounted his eventful career in his autobiography, Breaking New Ground. In his diary we read of his daily interactions with conservation greats John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, his impressions of fellow forester Bernhard Fernow, his work with botanist Charles Sargent and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, his dealings with Henry Wallace, Harold Ickes, Henry Gannett, and George Vanderbilt. The diaries of Gifford Pinchot show real people making conservation happen despite seemingly endless obstacles.