Rightful Heritage: The Renewal of America
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NOTES
a Hazen Bay is now part of Yukon Delta NWR.
b Originally established as Kenai National Moose Range.
c Originally established as Cabeza Prieta Game Range.
d Acreage upon establishment. Its NWR status was revoked in 1998; the site is currently under the purview of the Army Corps of Engineers.
e Acreage upon establishment. No longer an NPS unit.
f Integrated with Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge in 1963.
g Acreage upon establishment. No longer an NPS unit.
h Acreage upon establishment. No longer an NPS unit.
i Established as Fort Peck Game Range in 1936, renamed in 1963 after artist Charles M. Russell, and reclassified as a national wildlife refuge in 1976.
j Originally established as Desert Game Range.
k Originally established in 1931 as Charles Sheldon Wild Life Refuge, the unit, under FDR, was enlarged in May 1936 and subsequently redesignated in December 1936 as Charles Sheldon Antelope Range. A small portion of the refuge exists within the boundaries of Oregon. On December 12, 1936, Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, a companion unit to Charles Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, was also established.
l Edwin B. Forsythe NWR was formed in 1984 when two existing refuge parcels—the Brigantine Division, established by FDR in 1939; and the Barnegat Division, established in 1967 by LBJ—were combined.
m Originally established as Lower Souris Migratory Waterfowl Refuge.
n Acreage upon establishment
o Acreage upon establishment. Established as Billings Lake Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, this unit is no longer part of the NPS.
p Acreage upon establishment.
q Acreage upon establishment.
r Acreage upon establishment. No longer an NPS unit.
s Acreage upon establishment.
t Acreage upon establishment.
u Acreage upon establishment.
v Acreage upon establishment.
w Acreage upon establishment.
x Acreage upon establishment.
y Acreage upon establishment. No longer an NPS unit.
z Acreage upon establishment.
aa Acreage upon establishment.
bb Acreage upon establishment.
cc Acreage upon establishment.
dd Acreage upon establishment.
ee Acreage upon establishment.
ff Acreage upon establishment.
gg Portions of this refuge are located within the state boundaries of Kentucky.
hh A very small portion of Chincoteague NWR is contained within the boundaries of Maryland.
ii Acreage upon establishment. No longer an NPS unit.
jj Acreage upon establishment. Now managed as part of San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge.
kk Acreage upon establishment. No longer an NPS unit.
APPENDIX C
NATIONAL PARKS AND NATIONAL MONUMENTS CREATED BY FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT FOLLOWING THE REORGANIZATION OF AUGUST 10, 1933
Cedar Breaks National Monument (UT)
August 22, 1933
Everglades National Park (FL)
May 30, 1934
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (NC/TN)
June 15, 1934
Fort Jefferson National Monumenta (FL)
January 4, 1935
Big Bend National Park (TX)
June 20, 1935
Fort Stanwix National Monument (NY)
August 21, 1935
Ackia Battleground National Monument (MS)
August 27, 1935
Andrew Johnson National Monument (TN)
August 29, 1935
Shenandoah National Park (VA)
December 26, 1935
Homestead National Monument of America (NE)
March 19, 1936
Fort Frederica National Monument (GA)
May 26, 1936
Perry’s Victory and International Peace
June 2, 1936
Memorial National Monument (OH)
Whitman National Monument (WA)
June 29, 1936
Joshua Tree National Monumentb (CA)
August 16, 1936
Zion National Monumentc (UT)
January 22, 1937
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (AZ)
April 13, 1937
Capitol Reef National Monumentd (UT)
August 2, 1937
Pipestone National Monument (MN)
August 25, 1937
Channel Islands National Monumente (CA)
April 26, 1938
Olympic National Park (WA)
June 29, 1938
Fort Laramie National Monument (WY)
July 16, 1938
Santa Rosa Island National Monument (FL)
May 17, 1939
Kings Canyon National Park (CA)
March 4, 1940
Isle Royale National Park (MI)
April 3, 1940
Mammoth Cave National Park (KY)
July 1, 1941
Jackson Hole National Monument (WY)
March 15, 1943
George Washington Carver National Monument (MO)
July 14, 1943
Harpers Ferry National Monument (VA/WV)
June 30, 1944
a Became Dry Tortugas National Park in 1992.
b Became Tree National Park in 1994.
c Became Zion National Park in 1956.
d Became Capitol Reef National Park in 1971.
e Became Channel Islands National Park in 1980.
APPENDIX D
ESTABLISHMENT AND MODIFICATION OF NATIONAL FOREST BOUNDARIES BY FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, MARCH 1933 TO APRIL 1945
Information in this appendix is from United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Lands and Realty Management Staff, Establishment and Modification of National Forest Boundaries and National Grasslands: A Chronological Record, 1891–2012, FS-612, 2012. I’ve included only acreage added by FDR.
* Effective date is different from date approved.
APPENDIX E
THE NINE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS AREAS
First: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
Second: Delaware, New Jersey, New York
Third: District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia
Fourth: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee
Fifth: Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia
Sixth: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin
Seventh: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Eighth: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming (excluding western Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park)
Ninth: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and western Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park
APPENDIX F
CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS—BASIC FACTS (COURTESY OF THE CCC LEGACY FOUNDATION)
•Duration of the program: April 5, 1933, to June 30, 1942
•Nicknames: “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” “Tree Troopers,” “Soil Soldiers,” “Cees,” “3 Cs,” “Colossal College of Calluses,” “Woodpecker Warriors”
•Total men enrolled: 3,463,766
•Juniors, veterans, and Native American enrollees: 2,876,638
•Territorial enrollees: 50,000 (estimated)
•Non-enrolled personnel: 263,755
•Average enrollee: eighteen to nineteen years old, 147 pounds, five feet eight inches tall
•Average weight gain of enrollees in first three months: 11.5 pounds
•Number of illiterate enrollees taught to read: 40,000
•Average number of camp operating in the United States per year: 1,643
•Total number of different camps: 4,500
•Highest elevation of a CCC camp: 9,200 feet above sea level—Rocky Mountain Park, Colorado
•Lowest
elevation of a CCC camp: 270 feet below sea level—Death Valley, California
•Camp locations: Every state in the Union, plus Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands
•Total cost: $3 billion
•Approximate cost per enrollee in 1940 for food, clothing, overhead, and allotments to dependents: $1,000
•Allotments to dependents: $662,895,000
•Number of people who directly benefited from enrollees’ checks: 12 million to 15 million
•Value of work in 1942 dollars: $2 billion
•Miles of roads built: 125,000 miles
•Miles of telephone lines strung: 89,000 miles
•Miles of foot trails built: 13,000 miles
•Farmland that benefited from erosion-control protection: 154 million square miles
•Range revegetation: 814,000 acres
•Firefighting man-days: More than 6 million
•Number of enrollees who died fighting fires: 29
•Overall death rate: 2.25 per thousand
•State parks developed: 800
•Public campground development: 52,000 acres
•Mosquito control: 248,000 acres
•Number of fish stocked: 972 million
•Historic restoration: 3,980 structures
•Number of trees planted: between 2 billion and 3 billion
•Number of federal government agencies participating in some capacity: 25
•Unofficial motto: “We can take it!”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Just after Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1932 presidential election the New York Times published a series of biographical articles about him. When asked what differentiated him from his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt, the president-elect turned instinctively to forestry. Franklin, unlike TR, disliked the lumberjack’s ax. “I like to plant trees,” FDR said, “not cut them down.” And plant he did. From 1933 to 1945 Roosevelt’s New Deal conservation programs planted around three billion trees from California to New Hampshire, Alaska to Puerto Rico. Planting trees was to FDR a God-affirming act. Determined to avoid the long-ballyhooed timber famine, sickened by much-publicized stories of soil erosion and depletion of the nation’s forest resources, Roosevelt, during his two terms as governor of New York and his entire four terms in the White House (March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945), became America’s visionary forester in chief.
Essentially, this book is a sequel to my The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: HarperCollins, 2009). TR was brilliantly effective in preserving America’s most visually stunning and wildlife rich terrain, but at the same time he exerted only light control over industries—notably timber extraction on public and private land—that FDR held to a higher standard of conduct and often outlawed completely from rich forestland. The two Roosevelts—TR and FDR—are undisputedly America’s great revolutionary conservation presidents. Yet FDR’s conservation heroics remained, up until this publication, overshadowed in history by TR. This is largely because TR wrote vivid travel articles about his outdoor adventures in places such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, Africa and the Amazon. By contrast, the intrepid FDR never kept journals of his travels to Hawaii Volcanoes and the Olympics, the Everglades and Dry Tortugas. As documented in this book, FDR, for example, cruised to the Galápagos Islands in 1938 to lead a Smithsonian Institution–sponsored marine biology expedition. Certainly TR would have self-servingly written about discovering, in the Darwinian tradition, new species of flora and fauna. By contrast, all FDR managed after weeks of scientific collecting on Ecuador’s islands were a couple of lighthearted letters to Eleanor.
The appendixes of this book inventory the mind-numbing number of national parks, national forests, and national historic sites FDR preserved. There was no room for a spreadsheet delineating the hundreds of state parks the New Deal built from scratch. While Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Harrison, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama were likewise outstanding environment-minded presidents, the Roosevelts made the management of natural resources the top domestic issue during their White House tenures.
My journey to write a biography of FDR from an environmental history perspective began in Hyde Park, New York. As a trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL), administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), I regularly examine Great Depression and World War II literature. Whenever a new archival collection pertaining to Franklin and Eleanor is processed, I grow excited. The digitalization of many FDRL collections has enabled twenty-first-century scholars everywhere to conduct primary research without having to travel to Hyde Park. Nevertheless, for this book, living in the Hudson River Valley ecosystem was essential. Many weeks were spent studying documents in the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Research Room at the FDRL. The most useful collections were the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) records and FDR speech files. But I also harvested great returns from the personal papers of FDR, Louis Howe, Henry Wallace, Nelson Brown, and Eleanor Roosevelt. At the FDR Library I’m proud to have worked with both directors Lynn A. Bassanese and Paul M. Sparrow. Archivists Bob Clark (especially), Virginia Lewick, Kristen Strigel Carter, Matthew Hanson, and Sarah Malcolm went beyond the call of duty.
While researching at FDRL I had the privilege of staying at the amazing Payne Estate, located on the west bank of the Hudson River in Ulster County, New York. Marist University owns this 42,000-square-foot Beaux Arts–style Mediterranean palazzo built in 1905. We called the place “the Mansion” and had free run of the sixty well-manicured acres for the summers of 2013 and 2014. My humble gratitude goes to the longtime president of Marist, Dennis J. Murray, for allowing the Brinkley family to experience the life of Hudson River Valley gentry. He has been a valued friend for many years. And special thanks are due to Dr. Murray’s assistant, Eileen Sico, and estate manager, Tony Sill, for making our summers so bucolic. Marist University is an exciting institution.
I owe a profound debt of gratitude to Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel. When I was a young assistant professor at Hofstra University, way back in 1992, Bill asked me to join the board of directors of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI). The primary objective of FERI was to promote the legacy and ideals of both Roosevelts. I was just thirty-two and had never sat on a board before. At the time, I was living on Bedford Street in Greenwich Village (across from Chumley’s Bar) and doing the reverse train commute to Hempstead, Long Island, to teach at Hofstra. Every couple of weeks Bill invited me to lunch along with his closest friend, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Before long, the three of us launched a book series with St. Martin’s Press called The World of the Roosevelts. And under the auspices of FERI we organized academic conferences for the fiftieth anniversaries of Pearl Harbor, the Atlantic Charter, Casablanca, D-Day, and other seminal historical events. A former UN ambassador, Bill also spearheaded the successful effort to build the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in the East River. With an unobstructed view of the United Nations, this New York City memorial is lined with rows of trees, just as Roosevelt, the inveterate park planner, would have liked.
FERI was fortunate to have John F. Sears as its executive director in the 1990s. John supervised the restoration of Top Cottage (FDR’s Dutchess County getaway home) and established the Roosevelt Foundation for United States Studies at Moscow State University in the Soviet Union. In this all-things-Roosevelt spirit, FERI cohosted a first-rate conference in 2002 titled Recovering the Environmental Legacy of FDR. As the title intimates, the conference looked at the neglected legacy of the New Deal’s conservation policies. Many topics covered in this book—the Soil Conservation Service, the Shelterbelt, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the TVA, and the Taylor Grazing Act—were discussed at this conference. The pioneering New Deal historian Neil M. Maher spoke on the CCC, while environmental historian Paul Sutter ably illuminated the “wilderness” mo
vement during the New Deal. The end result was the publication of Harry L. Henderson and David B. Woolner, eds., FDR and the Environment (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) for our World of the Roosevelts series. It served as a cornerstone for me in developing this book.
There is so much excellent scholarship on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s legacy that if I included a proper bibliography, it would run around fifteen pages. Instead, I’ve chosen, for space purposes, to credit appropriate scholars in the endnotes. However, a few books and sources deserve special mention. A cache of primary documents relevant to environmental history can be found in Edgar B. Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation, 1911–1945, 2 vols. (Hyde Park, NY: National Archives and Records Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1957). All scholars find very useful Samuel I. Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 4 vols. (New York: Random House, 1937–1940), and Geoffrey C. Ward, ed., Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship Between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), which offers extraordinary insights into FDR’s thinking about the natural world.
I profited mightily from Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s three-volume masterpiece, The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919–1933 (1957); The Coming of the New Deal: 1933–1935 (1958); and The Politics of Upheaval: 1935–1936 (1960). Before his death in 2007, Arthur told me that Frederic A. Delano was an unsung hero of the New Deal. Because Delano was FDR’s uncle, he slipped into and out of the Oval Office without being marked on the White House logbooks. His influence on Franklin was large. Indeed, as I soon learned, he was FDR’s crucial adviser on all land-planning–related issues. As chairman of the Board of the American Planning and Civic Association, Delano oversaw the publication of the organization’s Annual from 1932 to 1945. These reports are the mother lode for anybody interested in U.S. preservation philosophy during the Great Depression and New Deal land-planning accomplishments.