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Finding Aid to the Emanuel Fritz papers, circa 1900-1988
BANC MSS C-B 728
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Collection Title: Emanuel Fritz papers
Date (inclusive): circa 1900-1988
Collection Number: BANC MSS C-B 728
Creators :
Fritz, Emanuel, 1886-
Extent:
Number of containers: 74 cartons, 6 boxes, 6 oversize boxes, 10 volumes, 1 oversize folder
(Linear feet: 110)
Repository: The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
Abstract: Papers of California forester Emanuel Fritz.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information
on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Collection is open for research.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head
of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000. Consent is given on behalf of The
Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright
owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research
and educational purposes.Materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition,
the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor
restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected
by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of without permission of the copyright owner.
Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .
[Identification of item], Emanuel Fritz papers, BANC MSS C-B 728, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
There are no alternate forms of this collection.
The Emanuel Fritz papers were gifted to the Bancroft Library by Emanuel Fritz and Barbara Fritz between 1958 and 2012.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Fritz, Emanuel, 1886- --Archives
University of California (1868-1952)--Dept. of Forestry--Faculty
University of California, Berkeley--School of Forestry and Conservation--Faculty
Forest History Society
Society of American Foresters
California Redwood Association
Foundation for American Resources Management
Commonwealth Club of California
Bohemian Club (San Francisco, Calif.)
Redwood Region Logging Conference
Forests and forestry
Lumbering--California
Forestry law and legislation--United States
Forestry law and legislation--California
Reforestation--California
Redwood (Wood)--California
Coast redwood--California
Sonservation of natural resources--Study and teaching--California--Berkeley
Forestry schools and education--California--Berkeley
Forest fires--California
Forestry projects--California
Redwood National Park (Calif.)
Faculty papers
No additions are expected.
Five accessions of Emanuel Fritz papers, which arrived at the Bancroft Library between 1958 and 2012, were merged into one
collection by Lara Michels in 2013. Two accessions had been processed previously and all attempts were made to preserve descriptive
details from earlier finding aids written by an unknown author and Mary Jo Pugh.
Emanuel Fritz - forester, professor, author, editor, engineer - was born October 29, 1886 in
Baltimore, Maryland. He received a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 1908.
Until 1912, Fritz taught at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, from which he himself had graduated
in 1905. His enthusiasm for the forest and his long-time interest in wood, however, eventually took
him to Yale University, where he received his master's in forestry in 1914. Fritz was employed
briefly as a field assistant for the New Hampshire Forestry Commission and then joined the United
States Forest Service as a forest assistant in Montana and Idaho in 1915 and 1916. Later in 1916, he
accepted a forest assistant's position at Fort Valley Forest Experiment Station in Arizona. With the
start of World War I, Fritz enlisted in the military and, after officer training, was commissioned
in the Field Artillery; he became, by transfer to the new air arm of the Army, Captain and C.O. of
the 639th Aero Squadron, serving with the Allied Expeditionary Forces from January, 1918 until May,
1919. Upon his return to civilian life, Fritz accepted a position teaching wood technology and
utilization at the University of California and remained there until his retirement in 1954.
Fritz's career reached far beyond the University to include national and regional forestry and the shaping
of forest legislation. He became a senior member of the Society of American Foresters in 1919 and
took an active part in the society's affairs, for seventeen years accepting committee
responsibilities. Fritz helped to rewrite the SAF constitution, to improve the status of private
foresters within the society, to upgrade forestry education and forestry as a profession, and to
shape and participate in the society's political activities. He was also the initiator and organizer
of the First Annual Meeting of the California Section of the Society of American Foresters in 1924
and the acted as secretary of this section from 1924 to 1927. He was a member of the SAF council
from 1933 until he resigned this post and the chairmanship of the Society's Division of Private
Forestry in 1936.
Fritz also worked as a private consultant in forestry for the Department of the
Interior, various legislative committees, and associations such as the California Redwood
Association, the California White and Sugar Pine Association, the West Coast Lumbermen's
Association, the Union Lumber Company and many others. Always a strong champion of private forestry
and foresters, he brought to these organizations a theoretical knowledge from the academic community
and an ability to convert theory into practice. Fritz had many friends among lumbermen and foresters
working in the lumber industry. Fritz was a gifted organizer and in 1936 he initiated the Redwood
Region Logging Conference under the auspices of the California Redwood Association. Fritz served as
secretary-manager of the Board of Directors of the RRLC until 1958, becoming, with retirement, its
honorary vice-president. In 1934, in the difficult period of the Lumber Code Authority, Fritz became
Consulting Forester for the California Redwood Association. When government controls were lifted as
a result of the Supreme Court's invalidation of the Code, Fritz, working with the California Redwood
Association, began a program designed to forestall further federal control of private forestry be
eliminating such destructive lumber industry practices as might seem to justify controls. Lumber
industry compliance with a voluntary forest practices code was the aim, and Fritz undertook
installation of the selective-cutting system in the redwood forests (though under certain
conditions, when the selective-cutting system failed to function as expected, he reluctantly
approved clear-cutting provided it was followed with artificial reforestation). Working through the
California Redwood Association, Fritz instituted a program of grass-roots education, conservation
conferences and improved public relations for lumbermen, their companies and associations. Upgrading
the public image of the lumber industry in the Redwood Region was achieved in part through carrying
the forest protection message directory to the logging crews. Fritz insisted on accurate reporting
by government and others, not from distant bureaus or offices but from actual observation in the
woods, so that the public and government could see the improvements in forest practice which were
actually being affected. Fritz was active with the California Redwood Association in these matters
from 1934 to 1950.
In 1943, he moved more directly into the legislative arena, becoming consultant
for the California Forestry Study Committee headed by Senator George Biggar of Covelo, a committee
which in 1944 visited forests all over the state under Fritz's guidance, talking with practicing
foresters and lumbermen. From the findings, Fritz wrote the official report, "The Forest Situation
in California." He also wrote some of the bills which resulted in state rather than federal forest
practice laws and which were signed into law by Governor Earl Warren in 1945. Biggar himself failed
to win re-election, but Fritz continued his interest in the implementation of the new laws and
continued to serve on such committees as the Redwood District Practice Committee (1945-1947) and the
California State Reconstruction and Reemployment Commission. Fritz was a world renowned authority on
the sequoias and was often referred to as Mr. Redwood by the western press. His book "California
Coast Redwoods" is an exhaustive bibliography of Sequoia sempervirens. Fritz's work, particularly in
the Redwood Region, was a major factor in the implementation of programs of forest protection and
conservation, in reducing the hazard of fire, in substituting for liquidation-cutting the concept of
tree farming for continuous yield, in minimizing damage to standing trees through tractor rather
than skyline logging, and in reforestation through the preservation of seed trees. Fritz's influence
extends to the students he trained in thirty-five years of university teaching. He directed many of
his students into private forestry and used his own good relations with employers to open new
opportunities for those he mentored.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection documents Emanuel Fritz's work on the forestry faculty at the University of California, his work with a range
of forestry and lumber organizations and associations, his consulting work in forestry and wood technology, and his role in
shaping forestry law and policy on the national, state, and local level. The collection is arranged into thirteen series:
Correspondence; University of California files; Consulting and industry case files; Forestry organizations and associations;
Civic and conservation organizations; Redwood National Park files; Forestry law and policy; Writings, speeches, and notes;
Projects; Redwood reference files; General forestry reference files; Forestry card file bibliography; and Personal.