Gifford Pinchot’s 'New Patriotism': Lessons for 21st Century Conservation

• In Event: Agents, Agencies and Icons: Sites and Settings for U.S. Environmental Discourse

Abstract

In seeking a rhetoric of stability to respond to current environmental crises, this essay takes inspiration from the early American conservation movement. In his public appeals for conservation, Gifford Pinchot called for a “new patriotism” based on an American aesthetic of Manifest Destiny and a national ethic of the “common good.” Pinchot’s conservation rhetoric deserves renewed attention for its development of a concept of environmental patriotism appropriate for the ecological challenges of the 21st century.

Author

• Anne Marie Todd, San Jose State University