Chapter 2 Expert Adviser

Efforts to protect South Carolina’s woodlands from lumbering and forest fire began in earnest in 1901. Hoping that it might become part of a proposed Appalachian Forest Reserve, South Carolina passed legislation to give the federal government permission to buy land for forest protection. In 1911, after years of agitation, the passage of the Weeks Act, a national law which permitted the creation of eastern forest reserves for the protection of navigable streams, made acquisition of this land by the US Forest Service possible. Soon, the federal government approved a new national forest in South Carolina’s Oconee County, where logging activity in mountainous terrain endangered the watershed of the Savannah River. This area became part of the larger Appalachian National Forest Reserve, and the property acquired there in 1914 was South Carolina’s first public land set aside for conservation purposes.³ Additionally, in 1910 conservation supporters secured a study of South Carolina’s forests, carried out by the US Forest Service. This report, Forest Conditions in South Carolina, created a blueprint for future conservation work, calling for the establishment of a state forestry commission, forest fire suppression, livestock range control laws, employment of a state forester, and public acquisition of endangered forest lands, all essential next steps for South Carolina forest protection.⁴

The 1910 publication of Forest Conditions in South Carolina and the creation of South Carolina’s portion of the Appalachian National Forest Reserve in 1914 represented major victories for local conservationists. Still, state leaders refused to enact forestry legislation or devote funds for protecting natural resources, and activists accomplished little else until the late 1920s. This temporary breakdown became clear in 1914 after conservation supporters introduced the state’s first forestry bill in the General Assembly. At a joint committee hearing, J. Given Peters of the US Forest Service told legislators that South Carolina’s timber cutting far exceeded the rate of growth, and that without intervention, complete forest depletion would be inevitable. Peters and State Senator Niels Christensen, a member of the State Audubon Society, advocated adopting the recommendations contained in Page 41 →Forest Conditions of South Carolina, especially the creation of a state conservation commission. Despite the active support of local and federal conservationists, Governor Coleman Blease, a populist, vetoed the bill, and it died at the close of the 1914 legislative session.⁵ With the failure of the state’s first forestry bill, South Carolina’s forestry movement was dormant for nearly a decade.

The South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs (SCFWC) had been involved in the state’s conservation movement from its beginning. The SCFWC maintained a forestry department, created in 1901, which encouraged affiliated member clubs around the state to plant trees, conduct arbor day programs in schools, and lobby government for forest protection. That year, Beaufort’s Mary E. Waterhouse read a paper on forestry at the SCFWC annual convention, explaining the “use and abuse of our forests, the legislation in regard to them.”⁶ Seven years later, the SCFWC’s Forestry and Civics Department instructed every club in the state to give at least one day to forestry matters, see that books on forestry were in local libraries, and “emphasize the utilitarian side [of forest reserves] in preference to the esthetic [and] urge the need of forest preservation, protection, and scientific handling.”⁷ From 1907 to 1909, the chair of the SCFWC’s forestry department lobbied national and state legislators in support of the creation of eastern national forest reserves in the Appalachian Mountains. Following the 1910 study of South Carolina forests, the Forestry and Civics Department urged the Federation to use its influence to stop the custom of annual woods burning, believing that women could assist the movement best by spreading information, influencing legislators, and shaping public sentiment. The SCFWC also contacted the US Forest Service, which agreed to advise and assist clubs and clubwomen working to protect forests.⁸

Historian Rachel D. Kline provides significant context for the work of Progressive Era women in forest conservation. In her analysis of women’s conservation traditions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Kline found that women were often excluded from the male dominated world of forest management, and in response carved out “feminine forestry,” a meaningful female path within the profession and movement.”⁹ She cites Vera Norwood, who argued that Progressive Era women sometimes carried out conservation work through what was viewed as gender appropriate activities, such as raising children to appreciate nature, gardening at home, studying botany, writing about nature, painting, and Page 42 →sketching. In a few cases women also took on male roles by serving as fire tower lookouts on western national forests and entering public sector work as professionals.¹⁰ In the process, women created a “distinctly female” conservation tradition. In the US Forest Service, of which Gifford Pinchot was the head, women worked as clerks, educational specialists, researchers, and fire tower lookouts in addition to doing the behind-the-scenes, uncompensated work as forest rangers’ wives that ensured the smooth and successful operation of national forests.¹¹

As women contributed to the forestry movement, they developed a gendered philosophy of natural resources protection, one that Kline refers to as “women’s conservation cause.”¹² In this intellectual framework, women expanded on Pinchot’s idea of “the greatest good for the greatest number, in the long run” by focusing on concepts of “American morality, culture, and citizenship” and linking “tree life with human life.”¹³ For women, “the conservation cause was a civic and moral responsibility to conserve nature and people’s relationship with the land for the future benefit of American life and values.”¹⁴ Women working as educational specialists within the US Forest Service in the early twentieth century played a central role in the development and spread of these ideas. These educational efforts, especially those conducted by women’s clubs, women working for government agencies, and individual women activists, would be central to gradually overcoming the often-intense opposition to conservation in the early years of the twentieth century.

Historians have noted an early divide in the American conservation movement between John Muir-inspired preservationists and Gifford Pinchot-led utilitarian conservationists. Muir advocated scenic and wilderness preservation, and believed that unimpaired wilderness held enormous scientific, cultural, and moral value. Pinchot chose to emphasize the uses of natural resources, and the economic and social benefits of conservation.¹⁵ Progressive women clearly fell into both camps, with many embracing aspects of both philosophies. However, because of its close association with Pinchot, the US Forest Service was the standard bearer for utilitarian conservation. Employees of the Forest Service, including women such as Edgerton, probably adopted that viewpoint, at least in their professional roles, as a matter of agency policy. Progressive Era women activists in South Carolina, especially within the SCFWC, were interested in both approaches. For example, in 1911, the president of the SCFWC recommended supporting John Muir in his efforts to protect the Hetch-Hetchy Valley in Yosemite. On the other hand, in 1908, the chair of the SCFWC’s Forestry Department spoke of the need to understand “the economic meaning and importance of Page 43 →forestry, and not just the esthetic values of trees and forests.”¹⁶ Ultimately, Progressive Era conservationists in South Carolina followed the utilitarian path, possibly realizing that a Muir-style emphasis on aesthetic preservation might not fare well in the state’s conservative environment.

At the very center of the conservation debate were fire and the use of forests as rangelands. Active protection of forests was a potential threat to traditional unregulated access to natural resources. Politicians who opposed forestry sought to protect their constituents’ economic independence—especially access to the open forest range. SCFWC activists recognized this in 1910 when they used their influence to “stop the custom of burning off each spring the fields and woods.”¹⁷ Since the eighteenth century, forest areas in South Carolina had served as common lands where “free range” cattle could graze on the open range, at no cost to their owners. For livestock to thrive, free range users burned the woods each year, typically in the spring. This kept the forest open, burnt away the longleaf pine needles, and allowed the grasses to grow under the trees. Over generations, fire shaped the appearance and habitats of the forest landscape. When industrial logging came South after Reconstruction, however, conditions changed, and small grass fires that had never been a problem before began to rage out of control. Fire was worst in areas where the loggers had removed the timber.¹⁸ In 1898, three million acres of land burned in central South Carolina over the period of a few days, causing the loss of at least fourteen lives and an estimated $700,000 in property damage.¹⁹ The increased intensity of fires may have been due to the accumulation of logging slash or other factors related to ecological changes in forests.

For Progressive Era conservationists (and the New Deal conservationists who followed), getting the fires under control, protecting existing trees and allowing for reforestation in logged areas, became an overriding goal. But not until the 1930s did the US Forest Service make a concerted effort to reach rural, working-class people in South Carolina. We know, for example, that Francis Marion National Forest District Ranger W. A. Garber “more or less independently converted large interior populations to the principles of fire control” between 1935 and 1937.²⁰

Today, the consensus of foresters in the South is that periodic controlled burning is desirable—not for grazing improvement, but instead for habitat restoration and maintenance. Important species such as longleaf pine thrive when fire is present, and suppression of burning has caused Page 44 →numerous ecological problems. Most modern foresters would now say that their predecessors had been wrong about fire, and that their actions to stamp out fire had far-reaching and negative ecological consequences.²¹ It is worth noting, however, that while the Progressive and New Deal Era gospel of fire exclusion generated great opposition, it also became the catalyst for winning the support of the lumber industry (something this chapter addresses later). In short, fire exclusion may have been a necessary first step that had to happen for forest conservation to advance in the South.

The origins of populist opposition to southern conservation lay, in part, in a postbellum struggle for control of natural resources between former planters, freed people, and poor whites. Beginning with the state’s livestock management law in 1877, elites used conservation as a tool to control agricultural labor’s access to natural resources. As historians Steven Hahn and Eric Foner have noted, following emancipation and the breakup of plantations, large landowners across the South found it increasingly difficult to attract farm labor. Many newly freed African Americans, as well as white yeomen, preferred subsistence hunting, fishing, and livestock raising to working for planters. As long as poor white and Black people could support themselves on common lands, they had few incentives to work as wage laborers and sharecroppers. Planters responded by proposing a series of conservation laws, all designed to keep labor under control. Within a few years, “the compulsions of necessity replaced the compulsions of the lash,” as legislation reduced non-elite access to common lands and resources.²² Prior to the passage of turn of the century stock laws, cattle and hogs could graze on any unfenced woodlands, since farmers had to fence crops rather than range.²³ For those without land, stock laws became a form of enclosure that essentially dispossessed them of access to the forested rangelands. Working-class opposition to elite control of natural resources solidified, an opposition that “formed the heart of an emergent radicalism that would be harnessed by Populism” in the early twentieth century.²⁴ For populists, all conservation, including protection of forests, became linked to the loss of access to forest rangelands, as well as the oppressive tactics and economic dominance of planters and their allies.

By the 1920s, conservation supporters tended to be white New South businessmen, middle class women, and progressives rather than planters. But South Carolina populists such as US Senator Benjamin Tillman and former SC governor, Coleman Blease, viewed them as elites and contested their attempts to protect natural resources. Blease viewed conservation as interference with the people’s natural rights. Tillman opposed public forestry programs as immoral subsidies to elite “lumber barons” and the Page 45 →“lumber trust.” In 1907, he asserted that “the [national] forestry arrangement we are now working under permits the timber supply which has been reserved for the people to turn into the pockets of millionaire lumber manufacturers.”²⁵

At the beginning of 1922, opponents thwarted forest conservationists in their attempt to invite forester and former chief of the US Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot to speak before the South Carolina General Assembly. Several representatives opposed his visit, believing that they were protecting South Carolina from Northern and federal government interference. Representative J. J. Evans, an opponent, stated: “You say he is from Pennsylvania. If so, what does he know of forests in South Carolina? What can he tell us of South Carolina forest conservation?”²⁶ Conservationist James Henry Rice explained, “the prevailing belief in South Carolina is that Forest Conservation is a Yankee scheme and invention, which they [opponents] distrust on general principles.”²⁷

Because some opponents viewed the conservation movement as imposed from outside, it was increasingly important for South Carolina conservationists to prove that theirs was a homegrown, grassroots effort. Ties to national organizations and leaders inspired resistance, as demonstrated by the blocked attempt to bring Gifford Pinchot to the General Assembly. According to Representative J. W. Hanahan, “We are selling our liberties for a mess of pottage … let the North take all the money from the United States Government it wants, but if our forests need conserving let us do it ourselves.”²⁸ US Forest Service staff knew this dynamic well, and while they were always willing to visit states and advise about forestry, they also sought local people to lead the effort. In fact, under the 1911 Weeks Law, the federal government only made funds available for forestry purposes after a state took decisive steps toward protecting its own forest resources.²⁹ As a result, the US Forest Service’s J. Given Peters attempted to convince James Henry Rice, a local conservation supporter, to lead the state’s movement, explaining, “I am afraid that we [the US Forest Service] have given the impression in some quarters that something quite new has been pressed, put over if you please, from the outside, and our action has been resented.”³⁰ Peters preferred that local conservationists contact him first, since he was a federal official and an outsider. While Rice declined to take the lead, he and Peters attempted to recruit other locals. Requests for assistance eventually reached Lieutenant Governor Wilson G. Harvey, who began considering forest conservation.³¹ It was at this critical moment that Daisy Priscilla Smith Edgerton entered South Carolina’s conservation story, with significant results.

Page 46 →In 1922, numerous activists and politicians made efforts to revive the state’s flagging forest conservation movement. Forester Daisy Priscilla Smith Edgerton helped to break the deadlock by playing an inspirational role at just the right moment. Edgerton worked briefly, though intensely, to advise Wilson G. Harvey, governor of South Carolina from 1922–23, as he adopted the forest protection cause. Her story provides a useful case study of a female approach to conservation in the 1920s and serves as an example of how women conservationists found ways to operate effectively in a male-dominated profession. Edgerton, as an individual activist, pressed the boundaries of her role with boldness, passion, and creativity. She also embraced ideas that historian Rachel D. Kline refers to as the “women’s conservation cause.”³² While Edgerton’s national work has received some attention, her efforts in South Carolina have largely gone unacknowledged.

Kline has enumerated the many contributions on a national level of “foundational” educators like Edgerton, who had “a passion for conservation education” and brought forest conservation teaching into southern schools.”³³ Kline notes that Edgerton had a significant national impact, especially through textbooks (two described as “bestsellers”) that she wrote on teaching forestry in the classroom.³⁴ Not long after her South Carolina episode, Mississippi hired Edgerton as the state supervisor of forestry education. She then condensed her accumulated knowledge into multiple textbooks on forestry education, including The Forest: A Handbook for Teachers (1927), First Steps in Southern Forest Study (1930), and Living in Forest Lands: A Unit for Junior High School (1939).³⁵ It is likely that Edgerton’s works and voice reached thousands, influencing multiple generations of schoolchildren across the country. While briefly referencing Edgerton’s Mississippi work, Kline’s principal focus is Edgerton’s contributions in the Washington, DC, Forest Service offices. Still, Edgerton’s role as adviser to the South Carolina governor and her 1922–23 educational campaign provide an important but overlooked case study of how Edgerton applied the ideas of “women’s conservation cause” through the role of educator, and by serving as a behind-the-scenes expert adviser.

Born in Yorkshire, England, in 1868, Daisy Priscilla Smith moved to Charleston, South Carolina, when she was five years old. Her father, Rev. Thomas Hirst Smith, a Unitarian minister, met her mother Alice Octavia Walker, a Charlestonian, during his first assignment to a Charleston church in 1866–68. The new family soon travelled back to England, but after her Page 47 →husband’s death in 1873, Alice returned to South Carolina with their three children, Daisy, Sam, and Annie.³⁶ Daisy Smith soon became aware of conservation, a cause that would interest her for the rest of her life.³⁷ First, though, she discovered a love of teaching while enrolled at the Memminger School, a state normal school that trained female teachers. Conservation and teaching became intertwined and shaped her life’s work.

By 1890, Edgerton was a teacher at Charleston’s public Morris Street School for African American students. She later moved to the Crafts School, a public primary school for white students in the city, where she served from at least 1896–1902,³⁸ establishing a reputation as “an instructor and teacher of no mean ability” (see fig. 2.1).³⁹ Regarding her chosen profession, Edgerton wrote in 1922:

I believe that I have taught in several previous existences, for it comes so naturally to me that when I had to stop teaching else-where, I took a class in Sunday school [instruction]. I am the typical school marm, in spite of the Mrs. before my name—I should properly say, because of it. Whatever the reason for my predilection, I love it . . .⁴⁰

Page 48 →Edgerton, who became president of the Memminger Alumnae Association in 1898, later used her knowledge of the state’s club network as a tool in her forestry education efforts. After the SCFWC formed in 1898, the Memminger Alumnae Association joined and in 1904 sent delegates to the state convention in Newberry, South Carolina.⁴¹ In 1901 Daisy P. Smith was a prominent worker “in every line of woman’s work in the city,”⁴² as she organized an exhibit focusing on women’s inventions and patents for the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition in Charleston. She also served in the officially titled role of 1st Vice President of the City Union, a precursor to the Charleston City Federation of Women’s Clubs. In 1902, the SCFWC membership elected her as corresponding secretary, where she connected with many South Carolina clubwomen. Later, this network supported her conservation campaign in the state. Smith also was involved in Unitarian Church work, as a member of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women.⁴³ By 1907, she was acquainted with Wilson G. Harvey, who would later become governor and collaborate with her in forestry efforts.

From its beginning, the SCFWC addressed conservation issues, ranging from bird protection to forestry and from parks to civic improvement. Charlestonian Louisa B. Poppenheim, president of the SCFWC in 1900, put great emphasis on bird protection, in particular. Born the same year as Edgerton, Poppenheim also served as an officer in the in the Charleston City Union and the SCFWC at the same time.⁴⁴ They certainly knew each other well and likely discussed many aspects of women’s club work, including conservation.

Sometime around 1903 Daisy Smith married Edward Samuel Edgerton in Charleston.⁴⁵ Alice, their only child, was born soon after. By 1907, the Edgertons had moved to Washington, DC, where Edward took a job as a clerk.⁴⁶ Daisy Edgerton began employment with the US Forest Service in 1909, “in an editorial capacity,” a career that spanned twenty-nine years until her retirement. She likely worked in the Office of the Editor, within the Office of the Forester. This office handled all informational activities of the agency.⁴⁷ The Service’s numerous publications required a staff of writers and editors.⁴⁸ Edgerton likely worked anonymously on numerous publications, one of which she sent to her friend, Governor Wilson G. Harvey of South Carolina, explaining that she was “enclosing one of our general Page 49 →publications, which I had the satisfaction of revising and illustrating (by means of photographs, of course).”⁴⁹

In 1920, the Forest Service’s newly established Branch of Public Relations absorbed both the Office of Information and the Office of Publications. Edgerton worked in that office, still under the supervision of the editor of the USFS. Soon, she became a forestry educator, bringing her back to her teaching roots, taking charge of forestry education in the Washington, DC, public school system. Starting in October 1921, Edgerton conducted outreach to the district’s K-12 and normal schools, developing a travelling exhibit and giving talks to 25,000 students over a two-year period.⁵⁰ In her fifties, she combined a love of teaching with a lifelong passion for the conservation cause (see fig. 2.2). She wrote to Governor Harvey in 1922, telling him, “The older I get the more carefree I become.”⁵¹

Page 50 →As Edgerton’s conservation career developed in Washington, DC, progress in natural resources conservation stalled in South Carolina. When Edgerton left Charleston in 1907, enthusiasm for conservation was on the rise, especially among clubwomen. Hopes were high that politicians would enact forest protection legislation. As an employee of the US Forest Service, Edgerton likely watched these developments closely. It is even possible that she helped edit and produce the 1910 study, Forest Conditions in South Carolina, in her role in the Forest Service Editor’s office. She noted in 1922 that, “there is a considerable correspondence and material … in the files of the Forest Service indicating that South Carolinians with the forward look have been feeling after forestry for the State for years.”⁵² She was also aware of the political forces working in opposition to conservation in the state, including Governor Coleman Blease. By 1922, Edgerton was concerned about this kind of populist resistance to forest protection:

State political gossip drifting back from home tells me that it is more than likely that Blease will come back as the next Governor. This makes me sick at heart for the cause which is so dear to me from both angles—my daily work for over thirteen years and my whole previous life back to my fifth birthday. Blease is described as an obscurantist, and even at this distance I know that he will do nothing for the State welfare along such broad lines, unless it happens to be spectacular.⁵³

In Edgerton’s view, “‘Free Range’ advocates and certain hostile lumbermen” fed the opposition to protect important economic interests.⁵⁴ Colleagues in the DC Forest Service offices knew that only a local activist or politician could counter these forces. It was Edgerton who successfully recruited this forestry leader in South Carolina.

A businessman and prominent banker, born, raised, and educated in Charleston, Wilson Godfrey Harvey (1866–1932) began working in 1881 at age fifteen, first for newspapers, and then organizing the Enterprise Bank of Charleston, one of the state’s largest. He entered politics around 1900, serving as Charleston alderman and mayor pro tem. In these roles, he focused primarily on improving infrastructure, including paving roads and building a seawall on the battery. He also showed interest in education, serving on the city’s Standing Committee on Public Education. But he was Page 51 →not involved in early conservation efforts in the state, nor in either of the state Audubon Societies. In 1920, Harvey became lieutenant governor. In 1922, when Governor Robert Archer Cooper resigned before completing his term, Harvey became governor of South Carolina.⁵⁵ As governor, Harvey knew he had limited time to make an impact and sought an important cause. Early in his eight-month term, his old friend Daisy Edgerton summarized his request:

You said in that letter that your time being short and you unhampered by partisan considerations, you would endeavor to do something that would benefit the state as a whole. I have no doubt that you will accomplish more than one good thing, for I know your dynamic powers.⁵⁶

She suggested forest conservation as his cause, asking, “can I enlist your sympathy and cooperation unofficially?”⁵⁷ She noted that if he made progress in forest protection she would “feel indeed that your friendship for me and mine for you had been worthwhile, not only to ourselves, but to our beloved state and home people.”⁵⁸ Four days later, following her advice exactly, Harvey wrote the US Forest Service formally asking for its assistance.⁵⁹

As governor, Harvey turned to Daisy Edgerton as his behind-the scenes forestry adviser. Serving as a technical forestry expert for a state governor was well-outside the norm for a woman working in conservation during the 1920s. With thirteen years of experience working in the Office of the Forester preparing technical publications, and decades of teaching experience, technical expertise is exactly what Edgerton possessed. And most importantly, she knew South Carolina’s people and politics. As she herself explained: “one way to learn is to read, a better is to study, but the best is to teach.”⁶⁰ By teaching conservation in the schools of Washington, DC, Edgerton had learned much about forestry’s connection to geography, history, manual training, civics, and economics. Well aware that she was stepping out of prescribed gender roles by serving as an expert, Edgerton insisted that it all be unofficial and discreet. Writing to Harvey in “semi-official” capacity, she addressed him “officially in my unofficial capacity.”⁶¹ In later correspondence she would type “Not Official,” “super-ficial,” and “Personal” at the beginning of her letters to the governor.⁶² She also played down her expertise to Harvey.

Of course, the development of any forestry work in South Carolina would be far over my head. It is far too important for any but the Page 52 →most expert attention. I hope you understand that all this is but the pushing up of a presumptuous little seedling, which will have to be nursed into life by such experts as the Governor of South Carolina and the U. S. Forester, in their own formal and official ways. The only thing which I can hope will come directly of this effusion which is purely confidential and unofficial, is some word from you to the Forester apparently of your own volition.⁶³

Edgerton eventually took to signing her letters as “x-Pert Adviser,” with the “x” crossed out, or “P. A.” for short.⁶⁴ Edgerton knew she was pushing boundaries. To the governor, she was a subject matter expert. Harvey declared himself “totally ignorant” about conservation and asked that she tell him exactly what to do—“to whom I am to write and just what I am to say when I write … just as you would do to one of your [school] children expecting them to follow directions.”⁶⁵

From July to December 1922, Edgerton advised Harvey confidently, competently, and discreetly. Her advice included a variety of actionable ideas, all with the goal of creating momentum for conservation, leading to implementation of the recommendations from the 1910 forest study. Edgerton’s first step for Harvey was to initiate formal contact with the US Forest Service expressing his interest in a forest policy in South Carolina. Edgerton wrote drafts of letters for Harvey, which he used verbatim.⁶⁶ In one amusing incident, Edgerton was present when the man who received the letter she had drafted read it. She reported to the governor that he “pronounced it a ‘fine letter,’ perfectly unconscious of the inspiration.”⁶⁷ To aid Harvey in preparing speeches on the subject, she also sent detailed notes.

Edgerton suggested that Harvey’s second step should be to assemble a group of conservation supporters and lumbermen to form a state forestry association. The governor and Edgerton spent considerable time coming up with lists of men and women to invite. She also suggested having the new forestry association draft a forestry bill for submission to the SC State Legislature; creating a state proclamation in support of forestry; and finally, sending a letter to the US Forest Service asking that it send a representative to South Carolina to advise the movement.⁶⁸ Believing in Edgerton’s expertise, Harvey wondered if the US Forest Service might send her to the state as a “more substantial and well informed” person.”⁶⁹

Page 53 →Conscious that he only had a few months to do this work, Harvey moved quickly on Edgerton’s recommendations. He wrote the US Forester just days after receiving Edgerton’s letter and quickly set a date for a state forestry meeting, to which he invited dozens of men and women, including conservation supporters, lumbermen, clubwomen, landscape architects, and politicians.⁷⁰ The US Forest Service agreed to send two representatives. Edgerton drafted notes for Harvey’s introductory speech. Thirty-eight people responded that they planned to attend the “Forestry Congress” on October 10, 1922, in Columbia.⁷¹

The meeting, chaired by Governor Harvey and held at the South Carolina State House, included J. Given Peters and James E. Scott of the US Forest Service as primary speakers, along with numerous civic leaders. At least four of the women attendees, including Sumter’s landscape architect Julia Lester Dillon, also spoke at the meeting.⁷² The group concluded “that the next thing needed is somebody to keep educating the people by going to the schools and before civic bodies” to create public pressure on the legislature. After the meeting, the governor appointed a committee to form a Page 55 →state forestry association. In addition, state representatives committed to introducing a forestry bill in January 1923 to create a state forestry department, hire a state forester, and pass regulations for logging and fire.⁷³

Harvey quickly appointed a new committee to establish a state forestry association, composed of fifteen women and men—“some of the best informed and most progressive people of the state.”⁷⁴ When this group met November 3rd, they formed the South Carolina Forestry Association (SCFA), which worked to promote forest conservation, with education as a primary focus.⁷⁵ The SCFA stuck “closely to education of the public on the economic loss through forest destruction,” rather than focusing on “general conservation propaganda.”⁷⁶ They brought Daisy Smith Edgerton to South Carolina for six weeks to carry out an educational campaign, an idea worked out between Governor Harvey and US Forest Service officials.⁷⁷

Edgerton and Harvey were satisfied to see the educational campaign launched, as it had been their priority for months:

As to my end of the work, it would be the greatest honor I could wish for if I could go to Rock Hill to the Teachers’ Institute, or to Columbia after the schools reopen and talk to the teachers with the aid of lantern slides. I have done a great deal of this kind of work … I want very much to get some experience outside of Washington … These are ambitions, probably dreams, and may never materialize, but if you should see me blow in some day, you will know that some of my dreams came true.⁷⁸

Edgerton suggested that she could model a South Carolina tour after her Washington, DC, forestry school program. Ultimately, the goal was to reach people interested in conservation, women in particular, who would in turn influence the legislature. When word arrived that the Forest Service would send her to South Carolina on an educational campaign focusing on schools and women’s clubs, Harvey responded enthusiastically, “Hurrah!—all is serene. Letter from Mr. Smith received.”⁷⁹

For four months between November 14, 1922, to January 11, 1923, Edgerton gave more than forty talks in more than a dozen South Carolina towns. She also held numerous conferences with members of the SCFA and other conservation supporters, and toured reforestation projects in the Page 57 →Lowcountry. She presented to women’s clubs and spoke at Clemson and Winthrop Colleges, various civic organizations, law enforcement groups, the South Carolina Agricultural Society, the Charleston County Fair, and the Charleston Museum.⁸⁰ Speaking at Winthrop College, a school for women, in December 1922, was very exciting for Edgerton. Her biggest audience in South Carolina seems to have been members of the SCFWC. She started her campaign with lectures to their district meetings in Hartsville, St. George, and Fairfax. In Columbia, she met with women’s organization leaders at the Governor’s mansion, as well as a large group of women at that city’s YWCA.⁸¹

She used state-of-the-art presentation equipment, including colorful lantern slides, a balopticon projector, and picture reels.⁸² Regardless of the setting, Edgerton believed “that round-table conferences will be most valuable.”⁸³ Her talks received coverage in at least sixteen newspaper stories.⁸⁴ A woman forestry expert with South Carolina connections generated a great deal of interest (see fig. 2.3). That she was also a guest in the Governor’s Mansion during part of her trip enhanced her importance. One article emphasized her pioneering role, noting that she was “the first woman to be sent out by the United States bureau of forestry on an educational mission.”⁸⁵ Edgerton explained that she was also the first woman to be entertained by the venerable and conservative South Carolina Agricultural Society, and was thus “a double pioneer.”⁸⁶

Page 58 →In her correspondence with Governor Harvey, Edgerton said little about her personal philosophies and definitions of conservation. But as a professional editor working for the US Forest Service, she was essentially the voice of that agency and would have adopted its commitment to utilitarian conservation. In her public speeches in South Carolina, she spoke of the practical economic value of forests and their soils and waters, arguing that agriculture, the lumber industry, and even the Piedmont factories depended on these resources for survival. For her, forestry was primarily practical: “Time was, when an American forester, if he could be found, was looked upon as a faddist, a dreamer,” she explained to her listeners. But today’s forester, she believed, was realistic, and as a federal forester, she advocated “wise use and protection” of the woods.⁸⁷ For Edgerton, though she clearly drew inspiration from nature, forests were a crop, but one grown for future generations that in the meantime must be protected. In her clearest statement of utilitarian conservation goals in 1923, she explained that her listeners should value the forest for “its products, for protection of water and soil, for important effects upon agriculture, manufacturing, commerce and other industries, and upon health and recreation.”⁸⁸ In short, she believed in “multiple use,” and in her professional capacity she mirrored the policies of her employer, the US Forest Service.⁸⁹

Edgerton’s approach was similar to other women US Forest Service educators. For example, in talks with titles such as “Our Friend the Forest” and “Keeping Faith with Our Forests,” she frequently linked forest protection with the preservation of American morality, culture, and citizenship. At a speech in Columbia, South Carolina, Edgerton explained that neglect of forest resources was a “civic disgrace.”⁹⁰ She reminded an audience at Clemson College that, “We, as citizens … cannot fail to recognize the important part which the forest plays in our individual and community welfare.”⁹¹ Edgerton argued that healthy forests provided a foundation for South Carolina society, and that damage to forests would lead to greater social problems. Edgerton also highlighted fire as a particularly damaging problem, specifically mentioning a 1798 South Carolina law that attempted to regulate the willful burning of the woods.⁹² By invoking the state’s early heritage, she showed that the conservation movement had Page 59 →deep roots, in an attempt to counter anti-conservation sentiment fueled by a belief in the traditional burning of woodland cattle range areas to improve pasturage.

Edgerton, like other Progressive Era conservation educators, used poetry and literature to inspire her audiences. As historian Rachel Kline explained, poetry helped listeners relate to forestry personally, while linking science to human experience and morality.⁹³

By infusing their scientific texts with literature and cultural references, these women [forestry educators such as Edgerton] demonstrated how the conservation cause for them was not only the scientific management of natural resources that male utilitarian conservationists (and even some women) advocated—the cause was also saving forests because American’s character and morality depended on them . . .”⁹⁴

In an article for the Charleston papers entitled “The Best Tree in the World,” Edgerton quoted John Greenleaf Whittier, an American poet and abolitionist, who wrote that forest conservation enhanced the “wealth, beauty, fertility, healthfulness” of the country. Edgerton added “happiness” as well. She also referenced author Henry Van Dyke’s “The First Christmas Tree” (1897), noting that: “We must perforce bring the child of the forest to our house to symbolize the life of beauty and uprightness as well as of cheer and good will.”⁹⁵ It is likely that Edgerton drew on similar techniques in her in-person meetings and presentations. Later, in Mississippi, she quoted Henry Van Dyke, Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Gene Stratton-Porter in presentations to women’s clubs there.⁹⁶

Speaking to women’s groups became one of Edgerton’s specialties. When she retired in 1938, Ferdinand Silcox, then the US forester, wrote: “It is doubtful if anyone did more” than Edgerton “to interest women in the Nation’s forest problems.”⁹⁷ To understand her approach with women audiences, a presentation outline from 1929–31 used in Mississippi may be helpful. Her outline for “Women’s Part in Conservation,” includes participatory techniques for audience members to read literary quotes and vote on their favorites. Also included was a catechism of forestry facts, with questions and answers, for the audience to draw on when they went out to educate others. Edgerton appealed to women as the creators of the “Great American Home,” an approach that Rachel Kline documents in her study of women foresters.⁹⁸ Progressive Era conservationists sought to stretch Page 60 →women’s traditional roles as keepers of the home and caretakers of children to include protection of nature as well. Not only did women feel the responsibility for preserving the environment for future generations, but they also believed that children benefitted from exposure to the natural world.⁹⁹ Edgerton echoed these ideas:

Children who are taught the value of trees … recognize how essential they are to civilization. They learn cooperation … they learn the lessons of duty and unselfishness, endurance, and constancy, from the study of the trees—they learn the value of a useful life.”¹⁰⁰

Daisy Edgerton’s 1922 South Carolina campaign went well and had a significant influence on conservation efforts in the state. Newspaper coverage was extensive and favorable. Meetings and presentations reached hundreds of people. Clubwomen received her message about forestry “with enthusiasm” and she “made a very profound impression on her hearers.”¹⁰¹ So popular were her presentations that Edgerton had to turn down more invitations than she could accept, an indication that South Carolinians were “at last awake” to the problem.¹⁰² James Henry Rice, conservation supporter, former state game warden, and an important leader in the South Carolina’s forestry movement, told Edgerton:

From what I have been able to learn from friends you have made a splendid beginning. It is doubtful at least if anybody could have made as good a showing in the time allowed and under the conditions. I am in no way surprised; but I am gratified and tender my felicitations … There has been a noticeable change for the better since your entry into the State … the preliminary work done now will pave the way to substantial work later.¹⁰³

Edgerton’s own assessment was less optimistic. Towards the end of her tour in January 1923, she wrote to Governor Harvey “I have done the best I could under all the depressing circumstances in this work in S. C.”¹⁰⁴ She was concerned that he and the SCFA president might consider the campaign inadequate. Believing there was a deep interest in forest protection in South Carolina, it remained to be seen how effectively Edgerton had “scratched the surface.”¹⁰⁵ For her, only the General Assembly’s passage of a forestry bill would indicate success.

Page 61 →Edgerton’s efforts focused almost exclusively on white elites. Most of her listeners were likely already conservation supporters. Rather than changing minds, the idea was to educate supporters and inspire them to influence their representatives. Edgerton focused her efforts on white institutions (i.e., Clemson College, Winthrop College, the Charleston Museum) and organizations (i.e., SCFWC, the SC Agricultural Society, the SCFA). She made only one presentation for African Americans, at the South Carolina State College in Orangeburg.¹⁰⁶ She might have done more in this area, especially since she had experience teaching at Black schools in Charleston. But, as products of the Jim Crow South, likely she and her fellow activists simply did not view outreach to the Black community as a priority. Even the South Carolina State College speech would not have reached many of the people who embraced the centuries-old folk tradition of burning the woods: poor Black and white farmers, livestock raisers, and sharecroppers. Earlier attempts to reach the “free range crowd” in the 1920s might have helped reduce emerging opposition to the forestry movement.

Concomitant with the end of Edgerton’s South Carolina tour in January 1923, conservation supporters introduced a forestry bill in the state legislature.¹⁰⁷ Within months, the bill failed, with opponents claiming that fire improved, rather than damaged, the land. “I believe,” one representative argued, “that the forests should be burned off in January every year.”¹⁰⁸ Fire remained a central obstacle. This began a four-year struggle during which forestry supporters introduced legislation every year.¹⁰⁹ Though the 1924, 1925, and 1926 bills all failed, a coalition, made up of conservationists, clubwomen, and lumbermen finally secured passage of a state forestry law in 1927.¹¹⁰ Edgerton, supported by Harvey, helped to create the coalition that made this possible. She and US Forest Service colleagues argued successfully that the governor invite “prominent lumbermen” to the October 1922 forestry congress.¹¹¹ At least five attended the meeting (R. L. Montague, Horace L. Tilghman, W. H. Andrews, Luther N. Bagnal, and L. P. Harper).¹¹² Montague and Andrews served on the committee that established the South Carolina Forestry Association (SCFA). Tilghman became president of that organization in 1924 and encouraged timber companies to support pending forestry legislation.¹¹³ Ultimately, the economic and industrial benefits of fire prevention may have tipped the scales in the final State House debate.

Page 62 →We are burning up in South Carolina more than the amount of the appropriation bill each year … And you talk about bringing new industries into our state. The preservation of our forests will give us a permanent lumber industry and a permanent naval stores industry.¹¹⁴

Timber companies used their political influence to break the deadlock.¹¹⁵ As owners of large tracts of forest land, companies such as the E. P. Burton Lumber Company and the North State Lumber Company disliked annual fires set by free range advocates, which consumed timber resources as well as profits. E. P. Burton Lumber Company’s Maurice C. Burton wrote Governor Harvey in 1922 that he “was of the firm opinion” that if fires had been prevented over the past twenty years, “we would have on the Coastal Plain, more standing timber to be cut down, than has been cut in the past twenty years.”¹¹⁶ By 1924, timber companies reached a consensus. “The solution to the forestry business,” stated G. J. Cherry, manager of the North State Lumber Company, “is to keep fire out.”¹¹⁷ Horace Tilghman, lumberman and former president of the SCFA, concluded in 1926:

The forest fires of this year have wrought untold damages to the forests of this nation. In my state we would hardly breathe or see in the country or town for the smoke of the burning woods this past summer. In view of these losses I think, if possible, we should speed up our [conservation] campaign … Educate all both old and young so they will know as you and I know the need of keeping fires out of the woods then we can sit back and view a task very nearly completed.¹¹⁸

The successful forest conservation legislation resulted in the creation of the South Carolina Forestry Commission (SCFC). It was the high-water mark of the state’s early conservation movement, as it provided the authority both permission and funding to hire a professional state forester, whose duties included supervision of fire prevention and suppression work. The SCFC also eventually established state-owned parks and forests and facilitated the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) on the state’s public lands during the 1930s. The SCFC moved towards developing state parks and forests in 1931, and actually acquired properties in 1934, in response to the opportunities created by federal work relief programs that provided both needed labor and funding. Numerous counties donated land for parks to secure the economically beneficial CCC camps. Federal agencies Page 63 →like the US Forest Service and the National Park Service guided the effort, turning the completed parks over to the SCFC to operate as a park system.¹¹⁹ In this sense, the seeds sown by Edgerton in 1922 contributed directly to the tangible conservation achievements of the New Deal-era (see fig. 2.4).

Edgerton’s advisory efforts and educational campaign have received little public or scholarly acknowledgment.¹²⁰ While historians have noted that her 1930 book, The Forest: A Handbook for Teachers, became a “bestseller,”¹²¹ this chapter centers her earlier South Carolina-based contributions. Her personal letters in Governor Harvey’s official state papers not only make acknowledgment of her impact possible, but they also bring her story to life—and put a human face on South Carolina’s early forest conservation movement. Recognizing Edgerton’s South Carolina work is essential. Since the beginning of the modern conservation movement, women have always been involved in protecting natural resources. The public history field has a responsibility to document these examples, and provide users of forests and parks, public land management agencies, and public employees with more stories like hers.

1. 1. Page 64 →Regarding the Blease veto, see “Forestry Body Will Be Formed,” The State (Columbia, SC), October 11, 1922.
2. 2. It is important to note that Daisy Smith Edgerton’s official title did not include the term “Forester.” However, I have adopted this term to describe her since currently the term typically means “an expert in forestry,” something that Edgerton was in numerous, but not all, ways. She made the argument that she was a professional forester when she applied for full membership in the Society for American Foresters (SAF) in 1928 and 1930. See Correspondence with SAF, 2012.036.182, D. Priscilla Edgerton SAF Membership, National Museum of Forest Service History, Missoula, MT.
3. 3. Harold K. Steen, The Forest Service: A History (University of Washington Press, 1976), 123–24; Daniel Smith Pierce, “Boosters, Bureaucrats, Politicians, and Philanthropists: Coalition Building in the Establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,” (PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1995), 11–12, 13; Statute No. 346, South Carolina Acts and Resolutions (1901); William G. Robbins, American Forestry: A History of National, State, and Private Cooperation (University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 53; USDA Forest Service, The National Forests and Purchase Units of Region Eight (US Government Printing Office, 1973), 48.
4. 4. W. M. Moore, Forest Conditions in South Carolina: Report of Preliminary Examination and Survey (Gonzalez and Bryan, 1910), 39, 42–43, 47.
5. 5. “A Bill to Establish a State Board of Forestry,” Senate Bill No. 902, South Carolina Senate Journal (1914), 497; “Cut Far Exceeds Rate of Growth,” The State (Columbia, SC), March 23, 1909; Regarding the Blease veto, see “Forestry Body Will Be Formed,” The State (Columbia, SC), October 11, 1922.
6. 6. The Keystone 2, no. 12 (May 1901): 5, 11.
7. 7. Report of the Department of Forestry and Civics of the SCFWC, SCFWC Yearbook, 1907–8 (Brewer Printing Co.), 17–18.
8. 8. SCFWC Yearbook, 1907–8, 18; Report of the Forestry and Civics Department, SCFWC Yearbook, 1910–11 (R. L. Bryan Co.), 26.
9. 9. Rachel D. Kline, “‘We Feminine Foresters’: Women, Conservation, and the USDA Forest Service, 1850–1970,” (PhD diss., University of New Hampshire, 2021), 14.
10. 10. Vera Norwood, Made from This Earth: American Women and Nature (University of North Carolina Press, 1993), xviii.
11. 11. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 15–16.
12. 12. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 18.
13. 13. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 18.
14. 14. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 19.
15. 15. Roderick Nash, The American Environment: Readings in the History of Conservation, 2nd ed. (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1968), 41; William G. Robbins, American Forestry: A History of National, State, and Private Cooperation (University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 20–21, 37–39; Samuel Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920 (Harvard University Page 65 →Press, 1959), 28–29; Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, 2nd rev. ed. (University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 68–70, 77–81.
16. 16. Report of Minnie M. Burney, SCFWC Yearbook, 1910–11 (R. L. Bryan Co.), 14; Report of the Department of Forestry and Civics of the SCFWC, SCFWC Yearbook, 1907–8 (Brewer Printing), 18.
17. 17. Report of the Forestry and Civics Department, SCFWC Yearbook, 1910–11 (R. L. Bryan), 26.
18. 18. Charles W. Lafon et al., Fire History of the Appalachian Region: A Review and Synthesis (USDA Forest Service, 2017), 3–6, 89–90; Lawrence S. Earley, Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 73–84; R. J. Riebold, “The Early History of Wildfires and Prescribed Burning,” in Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Proceedings of the Prescribed Burning Symposium, Charleston, SC (USDA Forest Service, 1971), 11–20.
19. 19. “Loss by Forest Fires,” News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), February 27, 1898, 5.
20. 20. H. M. Sears, Letter of Recommendation for W. A. Garber, April 12, 1938, Ranger W. A. Garber Correspondence, Files of the Archaeologist, Francis Marion National Forest, SC.
21. 21. See, for example, “Prescribed Fire,” Longleaf Alliance website, https://longleafalliance.org; “Restoring and Managing Longleaf Pine Ecosystems,” Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov; “Prescribed Burning,” South Carolina Forestry Commission, https://www.scfc.gov; “Why We Work with Fire,” The Nature Conservancy, https://www.nature.org.
22. 22. Steven Hahn, “Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging: Common Rights and Class Relations in the Postbellum South,” Radical History Review 26 (1982): 37–64; Eric Foner, Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (Louisiana State University Press, 1983), 61–65; quote from Hahn, “Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging,” 51.
23. 23. “Stock Law,” Act no. 240, Statutes of South Carolina, Vol. 16 (1875–1878), 252; “General Stock Law and Fencing Law,” Section 1184, General Statutes of South Carolina (1882), 352.
24. 24. Hahn, “Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging,” 57.
25. 25. Ernest M. Lander, A History of South Carolina, 1865–1900, 2nd ed. (University of South Carolina Press, 1970), 30–36, 49–50; Congressional Record-Senate, 59th Congress, 2nd Session, February 18, 1907, 3200.
26. 26. “Lively Repartee in House Debate,” The State (Columbia, SC), February 1, 1922, 10. It should be noted that some owners of forest lands were outsiders, many of whom initially opposed conservation for a variety of reasons.
27. 27. James Henry Rice to Harry A. Slattery, March 17, 1922, box 5, file 1, James Henry Rice Papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC.
28. 28. “Lively Repartee in House Debate,” The State (Columbia, SC), February 1, 1922, 10.
29. 29. Robbins, American Forestry, 53–61; E. E. Carter to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, August 1, 1922, Governor Wilson G. Harvey Papers, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC (hereafter referred to as Harvey Papers).
30. 30. J. G. Peters to James Henry Rice, November 3, 1921, box 4, file 3, James Henry Rice Papers, Duke University.
31. 31. Page 66 →J. G. Peters to James Henry Rice, January 16, 1922; James O. Sheppard to James Henry Rice, June 19, 1922; and James Henry Rice to James O. Sheppard, June 20, 1922, all in James Henry Rice Papers, box 5, Duke University; Joseph Hyde Pratt to R. I. McDavid, March 4, 1922, and Governor Wilson G. Harvey to Joseph Hyde Pratt, June 7, 1922, Harvey Papers.
32. 32. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 14, 18.
33. 33. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 178.
34. 34. D. P. Edgerton, Southern Forests: First Steps in Southern Forest Study (Rand McNally, 1930) and, The Forest: A Handbook for Teachers (USDA Forest Service, 1927).
35. 35. Edgerton, Southern Forests: First Steps in Southern Forest Study and The Forest: A Handbook for Teachers.
36. 36. Enumerations for Daisy Smith, Federal Censuses for 1880 and 1900, Charleston, South Carolina; Enumeration for Daisy S. Edgerton, Federal Census for 1910, Prince George’s, Maryland; Enumeration for Daisy S. Edgerton, Federal Census for 1920, Washington, DC; Enumeration for D. Priscilla Edgerton, Federal Censuses for 1930 and 1940, Washington, DC; Grave Record for Daisy Priscilla Edgerton, Magnolia Cemetery, Washington, DC, Find a Grave.com; “Life Begins at 70: Woman Tree Expert Takes Up New Career at 70 to Keep Busy,” Washington Post, February 18, 1939, copy on file at the Forest History Society, Durham, NC; John Allen Macaulay, Unitarianism in the Antebellum South: The Other Invisible Institution (University of Alabama Press, 2001), 181.
37. 37. Henry Dickson Capers, The Life and Times of C. G. Memminger (Everett Waddey, 1893), 397; Smith was also a member of the Memminger Alumnae Association, Greenville News, May 21, 1901; Entry for “Memminger School,” South Carolina Encyclopedia, https://www.scencyclopedia.org; Daisy S. Edgerton to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, July 20, 1922, box 3 (1922).
38. 38. Charleston (SC) City Directories, 1890–1902; Greenville (SC) News, May 21, 1901.
39. 39. The State (Columbia, SC), October 29, 1922.
40. 40. Daisy S. Edgerton to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, August 3, 1922, Harvey Papers.
41. 41. Yearbook, 1898, City of Charleston (Lucas & Richardson Co., 1898), 272; Greenwood (SC) Evening Index, May 2, 1901; Newberry (SC) Weekly Herald, June 10, 1904.
42. 42. Greenville (SC) News, May 21, 1901.
43. 43. Greenville (SC) News, September 1, 1901; The Charleston City Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1899–1924 (J. J. Furlong, 1924), 3–4, 37, copy at the South Caroliniana Library, Columbia, SC;Greenville (SC) News, May 24, 1902; The Clubwoman x, no. 8 (April 1903): 274; The National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women, Manual, 1900 (Boston, 1900), 10.
44. 44. South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs, Yearbook, 1904–5 (Walker, Evans & Cogswell, n. d.), 4, 13, South Caroliniana Library, Columbia, SC; The Keystone 2, no. 12 (May 1901): 5, 10–11, South Caroliniana Library; The Charleston City Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1899–1924 (J. J. Furlong, 1924), 37, South Caroliniana Library, Columbia, SC; Greenville (SC) Daily News, May 24, 1902. For more on the link between women’s clubs and conservation, see Priscilla G. Massmann, “A Neglected Partnership: The General Federation of Women’s Clubs and Conservation, 1890–1920,” (PhD diss., University of Connecticut, 1997).
45. 45. Page 67 →Charleston City Directories, 1900–1904; After about 1926, she seems to have gone by her middle name Priscilla, using the name D. Priscilla Edgerton and dropping her maiden name entirely. See her author name on books published after that date.
46. 46. Washington, DC, City Directories, 1907, 1909, 1917; Enumerations for Daisy and Edward Edgerton, 1910 Federal Census, St. George’s, Maryland; Enumerations for Daisy and Alice Edgerton, 1920 and 1930 Federal Censuses, Washington, DC.
47. 47. “Mrs. Edgerton Retires,” US Forest Service Bulletin, December 26, 1938, p. 10; US Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service, Field Program, January 1910, 195.
48. 48. US Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service, Field Program, January 1911.
49. 49. Daisy S. Edgerton to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
50. 50. “Records of the Forest Service,” RG 95, Guide to Federal Records, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/095.html; Daisy S. Edgerton to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers; US Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service, Field Program, January 1918; American Tree Association, Forestry News Digest, November 1926, 5; D. Priscilla Edgerton SAF Membership Application, Correspondence with SAF, 2012.036.182, National Museum of Forest Service History.
51. 51. Daisy S. Edgerton to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, November 4, 1922, Harvey Papers.
52. 52. Edgerton to Harvey, October 2, 1922, Harvey Papers. By “feeling after forestry” she may have meant that they had been searching for ways to conserve forests.
53. 53. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
54. 54. Edgerton to Harvey, October 2, 1922, Harvey Papers.
55. 55. Yates Snowden, ed., History of South Carolina, Vol. V (The Lewis Publishing Company, 1930), 192; City of Charleston, Yearbook, 1910, City of Charleston, So. Ca. (Daggett Printing, 1910), iii, vi, xi, xii, 377.
56. 56. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
57. 57. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
58. 58. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
59. 59. Acting Forester E. E. Carter to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, August 1, 1922, Harvey Papers. Carter noted that he had received Harvey’s letter as of July 24th.
60. 60. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
61. 61. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
62. 62. Edgerton to Harvey, August 3, 1922; Edgerton to Harvey, August 31, 1922; Edgerton to Harvey, October 2, 1922; all in Harvey Papers.
63. 63. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
64. 64. Edgerton to Harvey, August 31, 1922, Harvey Papers.
65. 65. Harvey to Edgerton, September 21, 1922, Harvey Papers.
66. 66. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, August 3, 1922, and August 31, 1922, all in Harvey Papers; Edgerton sent him a draft letter for Henry S. Graves, director of the Yale Forestry School, on October 2, 1922. Harvey sent this letter, under his name, to Graves on October 3, 1922. He also wrote the US Forest Service on September 26, 1922, a letter that was identical to one recommended by Edgerton with no date (though probably August or September 1922). These letters are all included in the Harvey Papers.
67. 67. Edgerton to Harvey, October 2, 1922, Harvey Papers.
68. 68. Page 68 →Edgerton to Harvey, August 31, 1922, Harvey Papers.
69. 69. Harvey to Edgerton, September 21, 1922, Harvey Papers.
70. 70. Harvey to Edgerton, September 21, 1922, and October 2, 1922, Harvey Papers; Multiple letters from Harvey to others, 3–4 October 1922, Harvey Papers.
71. 71. Harvey to Edgerton, October 2, 1922, and October 14, 1922, Harvey Papers; Harvey to Henry S. Graves, October 3, 1922, Harvey Papers; “Calls Conference of Forestry,” Pickens (SC) Sentinel, October 12, 1922, 3; “Forestry in South Carolina,” Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), October 14, 1922, 4. “Present at the Forestry Congress, October 10th, 1922,” Harvey Papers. No one from Charleston was present, surprisingly, since it was previously a center of conservation support.
72. 72. Yorkville (SC) Enquirer, October 13, 1922; The State (Columbia, SC), October 11, 1922.
73. 73. Harvey to Edgerton, October 14, 1922, Harvey Papers.
74. 74. H. W. Barre to Harvey, November 5, 1922, Harvey Papers. “Forestry Body to be Formed,” Columbia (SC) Record, November 3, 1922, 13; “J. E. Walmsley Chosen to Aid Forestry Work,” Evening Herald (Rock Hill, SC), October 30, 1922, 1.
75. 75. “Plan Protection to State Forests,” The State (Columbia, SC), November 4, 1922, 5; newspaper references to the South Carolina Forestry Commission continue from 1922 until the late 1930s, after which they disappear until the 1960s; the current SCFA, founded in 1967, eventually replaced the earlier 1922 SCFA. Both are private groups, while the State Commission of Forestry, a public government agency, was established in 1927; Francis L. Taylor, “Early History of the South Carolina Forestry Association,” https://www.scforestry.org/.
76. 76. “Forestry Body to be Formed,” Columbia (SC) Record, November 3, 1922, 13.
77. 77. Harvey to Edgerton, October 27, 1922, Harvey Papers.
78. 78. Edgerton to Harvey, July 20, 1922, Harvey Papers.
79. 79. Harvey to Edgerton, October 27, 1922, Harvey Papers. “Mr. Smith” was Herbert A. Smith, Edgerton’s supervisor.
80. 80. Edgerton to A. C. Moore, January 2, 1923, and Louisa Cheves Stoney to Andrew C. Moore, November 26, 1922, both in the Harvey Papers.
81. 81. Columbia (SC) Record, November 20, 1922, 1; Columbia (SC) Record, November 29, 1922, 2; Edgerton to A. C. Moore, January 2, 1923, Harvey Papers. The November 29th news article stated that the meeting took place at the YMCA, rather than the YWCA, though this may be a typographical error. An article dated November 30, 1922, in The State newspaper indicates that she spoke at the YWCA.
82. 82. Telegram from Gill to Harvey, November 6, 1922, Harvey Papers; Edgerton to Mrs. Adam Moss, contained within letter of Edgerton to Margaret Harvey, November 8, 1922, Harvey Papers; “To Make Address on Forestry Day,” The State (Columbia, SC), November 21, 1922, 2.
83. 83. Edgerton to Mrs. Adam Moss, contained within letter of Edgerton to Margaret Harvey, November 8, 1922, Harvey Papers.
84. 84. Columbia (SC) Record, October 28, 1922, 2; The State (Columbia, SC), October 29, 1922, 16; Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), November 1, 1922, 1; Columbia (SC) Record, November 3, 1922, 13; Columbia (SC) Record, November 13, 1922, 8; Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, November 22, 1922, 1; The State (Columbia, SC), November 19, 1922, 6; Columbia (SC) Record, November 20, 1922, 1; The State (Columbia, SC), November 21, Page 69 →1922, 2; Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), November 25, 1922, 2; Columbia (SC) Record, November 29, 1922, 2; News and Herald (Winnsboro, SC), November 30, 1922, 1; The State (Columbia, SC), November 30, 1922, 3; Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), January 17, 1923, 4; Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), January 18, 1923, 3; Horry Herald (Conway, SC), January 25, 1923.
85. 85. The State (Columbia, SC), November 30, 1922, 3.
86. 86. The State (Columbia, SC), November 30, 1922, 3.
87. 87. Columbia (SC) Record, November 20, 1922, 1.
88. 88. Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), January 17, 1923.
89. 89. “Multiple Use” remains the mission of the USDA Forest Service. https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/what-we-believe.
90. 90. Columbia (SC) Record, November 20, 1922, 1.
91. 91. Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), January 17, 1923, 4.
92. 92. Columbia (SC) Record, November 20, 1922.
93. 93. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 187.
94. 94. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 184.
95. 95. Daisy Smith Edgerton, “The Best Tree in the World: U. S. Forest Service Representative Extends Greetings of the Season to Tree Lovers of the State,” in Governor Harvey Papers. It is not clear if the newspapers ever published the article.
96. 96. D. Priscilla Edgerton, “The Woman’s Part in Conservation,” unpublished manuscript, n.d. [but ca. 1929–31], in D. Priscilla Edgerton Forestry Education Material, the National Museum of Forest Service History, http://forestservicemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive/A95AA31F-182F-444D-98A5–749261308100.
97. 97. “Mrs. Edgerton Retires,” US Forest Service Bulletin, December 26, 1938, 10, copy on file at the Forest History Society, Durham, NC.
98. 98. D. Priscilla Edgerton, “The Woman’s Part in Conservation,” National Museum of Forest Service History.
99. 99. Kline, “We Feminine Foresters,” 19–20.
100. 100. D. Priscilla Edgerton, “The Woman’s Part in Conservation,” National Museum of Forest Service History.
101. 101. Columbia (SC) Record, November 20, 1922, 1.
102. 102. The State (Columbia, SC), February 1, 1923.
103. 103. James Henry Rice to Edgerton, December 13, 1922, box 7, file 1, James Henry Rice Papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC.
104. 104. Edgerton to Harvey, January 2, 1923, Harvey Papers.
105. 105. Edgerton to A. C. Moore, January 2, 1923, Harvey Papers.
106. 106. Edgerton to A. C. Moore, January 2, 1923, Harvey Papers.
107. 107. “Important Bills Up Before House,” The State (Columbia, SC), January 27, 1923.
108. 108. The State (Columbia, SC), March 18, 1923.
109. 109. House Bill No. 206, South Carolina House Journal (1923), 220; House Bill No. 1161, South Carolina House Journal (1924), 268; House Bill No. 547, South Carolina House Journal (1925), 501; Senate Bill No. 385, South Carolina Senate Journal (1925), 388; House Bill No. 963, South Carolina House Journal (1926), 163; Senate Bill No. 873, South Carolina Senate Journal (1926), 113; Senate Bill No. 165, South Carolina Senate Journal (1927), 532. For a description of the bills, see The State (Columbia, SC), Page 70 →January 27, 1923, March 10, 1926, and February 18, 1927, as well as James Henry Rice to Miss Allston, February 24, 1925, box 12, file 1, James Henry Rice Papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC.
110. 110. “Senate Approves Forestry Bill,” The State (Columbia, SC), February 18, 1927, 10.
111. 111. Edgerton to Harvey, October 2, 1922, Harvey Papers.
112. 112. R. L. Montague (Atlantic Coast Lumber Co.), Maurice C. Burton (E. P. Burton Lumber Co.), Horace L. Tilghman (Tilghman Lumber Co.), Luther N. Bagnal (L. N. Bagnal Lumber Co.), F. G. Davies (Tuxbury Lumber Co.), E. W. Durant (E. P. Burton Lumber Co.), W. H. Andrews (Andrews Lumber Co.), L. P. Harper, Harvey Papers.
113. 113. Horace L. Tilghman to James Henry Rice, September 8, 1924, box 11, file 2, and November 26, 1924, box 11, file 4, both in James Henry Rice Papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC; “Forestation is Subject of Talk,” Columbia (SC) Record, January 30, 1925, 1.
114. 114. Representative E. W. Dabbs Jr., quoted in The State (Columbia, SC), April 20, 1927, 9.
115. 115. James Henry Rice to W. J. Spillman, February 26, 1922, box 4, file 6, James Henry Rice Papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC; “Forestry Body Will Be Formed,” The State (Columbia, SC), October 11, 1922; “Would Establish Forestry Bureau,” The State (Columbia, SC), August 19, 1924.
116. 116. Maurice C. Burton to Governor Wilson G. Harvey, Harvey Papers.
117. 117. “Would Establish Forestry Bureau,” The State (Columbia, SC), August 19, 1924.
118. 118. Florence (SC) Morning News, January 7, 1926, 1.
119. 119. Tara Mitchell Mielnik, New Deal, New Landscape: The Civilian Conservation Corps and South Carolina’s State Parks (University of South Carolina Press, 2011), 65, 99–106.
120. 120. Certainly, her colleagues at the US Forest Service wrote positively on her national accomplishments when she retired. Later in her life, Ferdinand Silcox, chief forester of the US Forest Service, and someone who also had Charleston roots, described her as having a “warm personality … cherished above all else by all” who knew her. He also complimented her record as a “teacher, writer and feminist.” Other observers described her as “soft spoken” and “scholarly mannered,” and noted that she had the ability to win people over with her “charming personality.” See “Mrs. Edgerton Retires,” US Forest Service Bulletin, December 26, 1938, 10, copy on file at the Forest History Society, Durham, NC; The State (Columbia, SC), October 29, 1922. Ferdinand Silcox, chief of the US Forest Service in the 1930s, attended high school and college in Charleston. See E. I. Kotok and R. F. Hammatt, “Ferdinand Augustus Silcox,” Public Administration Review 2, no. 3 (Summer 1942): 240–41. He was young enough to have been a student of Edgerton’s but apparently did not attend her school.
121. 121. Silcox, retirement letter; C. E. Randall, “Women in Forestry,” unpublished notes dated August 29, 1956, in the USFS Subject File, “Women in the Forest Service—Biographical Information,” Forest History Society, Durham, NC.