The Pinchots: A Family Saga (Paperback or Softback)

The Vanderbilts. The Rockefellers. The Carnegies. The Pinchots?

In America’s Gilded Age, successful families forged self-made and powerful aristocracies, but history slighted a wealthy, influential family dynasty: the Pinchots. Outstandingly different from these and other business titans, this family is long overdue for recognition.

In a broad historical sweep, this book focuses on three generations of Pinchots. The Pinchot family members propounded a set of values in serving the public good that went beyond economic success, and they championed many political and social reforms.

The star is Gifford Pinchot, America’s first professionally trained forester, a central figure of the early environmental movement, Theodore Roosevelt’s closest confidant, and twice-elected governor of Pennsylvania. Also brought to life in these pages are Gifford’s father James Pinchot with his Franco-American cultural initiatives; his supportive mother Mary; his brother Amos, a gifted writer and activist for civil liberties and peace; and his sister Nettie, a noted humanitarian during the Great War. The last part of the book gives special attention to the turbulent lives of Amos’s three beautiful daughters, Rosamond, Mary, and Tony.

Also woven into the storyline are the relationships between several Pinchots and the Roosevelts and later the Kennedys. The Pinchots is an essential read for anyone interested in citizen activism and the nation’s extraordinary transformation, culturally and politically, from the Civil War era to modern America.

David Patterson's career as an academic and government historian includes teaching diplomatic history, peace history, and women's history at major universities and his service for several years as chief editor of U.S. Department of State's Foreign Relations of the United States, a long-standing, multi-volume documentary series. His work on the Pinchot family is an outgrowth of his growing concerns about the global environmental challenges, which Gifford Pinchot first confronted more than a century ago, and his ongoing research into Amos Pinchot's commitment to civil liberties and antiwar movements. Among his awards, Patterson was the recipient of a Mershon Social Science Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities travel grant. While teaching in China, he was named the Sir Run Run Shaw Professor of American History at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies. More recently, he served as a visiting fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. He received a B.A. from Yale University and has a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley. Besides history, his other passions include choral singing, golf, and, like the Pinchots, the central importance of family. Patterson and his wife live in Maryland, within commuting distance of their son and wife and grandchildren.