President bans Christmas tree from White House!

(First published in 2008, this blog posted was updated in 2012 and, after finding the letters to his sisters on the Theodore Roosevelt Center’s website, again in 2016 and 2019.)

Around the internet, there are innumerable articles about how Theodore …

Honoring America’s First Forester on His 150th Birthday

The following is an op-ed piece by FHS staff historian James G. Lewis that appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times on August 9, 2015, in honor of Gifford Pinchot’s 150th birthday on August 11. 

Born just after the guns of the …

Teddy Roosevelt, “Uncle Remus,” and Supporting the Weeks Act

One hundred years ago today, on October 8, 1910, former president Theodore Roosevelt addressed the Southern Conservation Congress in Atlanta, Georgia. Roosevelt was just one of many speakers during the two-day meeting called to "discuss the problems of utilizing to …

Tongass National Forest Celebrates Another Anniversary

On September 10, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska. This month, the Forest History Society is publishing a history of the region, Tongass Timber: A History of Logging and Timber Utilization in Southeast Alaska…

February 18, 1909: North American Conservation Conference is held

In one of his last acts as president, Theodore Roosevelt convened the North American Conservation Conference on this date 101 years ago. This event might ring a bell for faithful followers of the blog. The conference and its legacy were …

Gifford Pinchot and the Search for "Permanent Peace"

The following is an op-ed piece that appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer on January 3, 2010. It was co-authored by FHS staff historian James G. Lewis and FHS member and professor of environmental history Char Miller.

February 22, 1897: Cleveland Celebrates Washington by Foreshadowing Roosevelt

On this day in 1897, President Grover Cleveland signed an executive order creating the Washington Birthday Reserves.  He proclaimed 13 new or expanded forest reserves in the western United States, totaling some 21 million acres; it brought the total acreage …

Who should the president appoint to his cabinet?

As President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet nominees are being finalized with little controversy, we here at Peeling Back the Bark can’t help but think back one hundred years ago and wonder what might have happened if, as newspapers speculated, Gifford Pinchot …

Historian Char Miller Ruminates on SAF Birthday

What do you give a professional organization on its 108th birthday? Warm wishes, I suppose. But in the case of the Society of American Foresters, formally founded on November 30, 1900, in the cramped office of its first president, Gifford …

Hot off the Press: Forest History Today fire issue

With the forest fires still burning in southern California and some suggesting that fire season there is now a year-round event, the publication of the Fall 2008 issue of Forest History Today is rather timely, to say the least. The …

October 27, 1858: Happy Birthday, Teddy Roosevelt!

Today marks the 150th birthday of Theodore Roosevelt.  Considered one of our greatest presidents, it’s not for nothing that he’s on Mount Rushmore and still widely admired around the world.  He packed a lot of living into his sixty years.  …