Among some of our nation's wealthiest families of the 19th and 20th centuries there was the practice of encouraging children to live lives of service to others, that in exchange for a lifetime of family support that they devote their lives to helping those in need. Nobless oblige has its roots in French nobility of the late medieval period and gave rise to the idea of chivarlry. Especially among French Catholic noblility, children of priviledge who were to inherit great wealth were also expected to bear great responsibility for those less fortunate, especially the vulnerable and poor. Not as widespread a practice today, the idea of the "obligated nobles" has faded away as modern oligarchs set up family foundations and promote philanthropy in other and very different ways.
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| Pinchot family graveyard on Laurel Hill |
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| Grey Towers |
Gifford Pinchot, whose home estate Grey Towers I visited in Milford, Pennsylvania, reflected in his life and life's work the family practice and dying tradition of nobless oblige in America. In the late 1800s as his father impressed upon him the weight of social responsibilty borne from great wealth, a virtue to be demonstrated for the good of society, Pinchot as a student chose a path unique and unknown to most American industrialist families - that of conservation of natural resources. Using family connections and money, he sought a rigorous education here and abroad to learn all he could about the science of forestry and forest management. What he discovered on his educational journey was that America was stumbling headfirst and ignorantly into a national crisis of deforestation and that it desperately needed conservation intervention if forests (and soils, water, air) would survive into the 20th century.
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| Memorial to the Father of American Forestry and the USFS |
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| "The Bait Box" playhouse |
As I toured the house and grounds with USFS Ranger Tracey, I was struck by the paradox of Grey Towers as representing both extreme wealth and a consuming cause for public duty. She stopped at the elaborate playhouse, "The Bait Box," which is being renovated as a small retreat space and meeting area. It was built for Gifford and Cornelia's only son Gifford Bryce Pinchot and is full of quirky details and fun spaces for imagination and as an accompaniment to "The Letter Box" nearby, a blockhouse fortress professional office and meeting space for Pinchot and his aides, apart from the family home. The Letter Box for work, The Bait Box for play, the home itself Grey Towers for the Pinchot family, comfortable and modern, thanks to Cornelia's push to exit the Victorian era once and for all and enter a new age of American progressivism.
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| The Outdoor Dining Table for floating meals |
As Gifford Pinchot launched his career as America's first forester, his social circles (already wide and influential) expanded to include politicians like Teddy Roosevelt - also from a family that practiced obligatory duty to society - with whom Gifford formed a lasting friendship and enduring partnership in advancing the cause of conservation in America. It was TR who played matchmaker for Cornelia and Gifford and who proudly attended their wedding, happily taking credit. All three families, Pinchot, Bryce, and Roosevelt, were powerhouses for service to the public good and from this partnership came Gifford Pinchot's conservation motto "for the greater good for the greatest number for the long run."
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| Library - Italianesque portrait of Cornelia and children |
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| Artifacts of a bygone lifestyle |
Until his death in 1947, Pinchott's accomplishments reflected the rise of America's powerful conservation movement. His influence, ideas, and drive to impress upon government and society the need to change our thinking about America's seemingly vast stores of natural resources as finite and vulnerable to greed (capitalism and capitalists). Indeed, it was is ability to change thinking about the sustainability of forests under corporate greed that lead to the creation of the U.S. Forest Service. There's so much written and recorded about Pinchot's life that it makes little sense to describe it all here (see Notes), but the idea of nobless oblige made the greatest impression on me. It got me to thinking about the Progressive Era a lot more in the context of an individual or a family's service as responsibility to one's country. How different things are today ...
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| Copper Beech planted by Gifford Pinchot |
Ranger Tracey described the forested ground of the estate as the work of Gifford himself. Among the trees planted by Pinchot were nine small Copper Beech from Europe that he knew he would never see in their maturity. They were planted in part to honor the traditions of service the family represented, a family with philosophical roots in European ideals of obligation to society. They were also planted as living memorials to his time of progressive change, a time of contribution and service that reverberate even today in the shifting landscape of USFS conservation mission. We sat for some time on a bench below the spreading limbs of one these century old trees and talked more about what conservation for the common good means today.
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| Imagine TR and Pinchot sitting here talking about forest sustainability... |
Notes:
Forest History Society - On Gifford Pinchot, U.S. Forest Service Chief
U.S.F.S. Grey Towers National Historical Site https://www.fs.usda.gov/greytowers
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