Robert Marshall papers, 1908-1939

Summary

Abstract:

Consists of correspondence with family, friends, and professional associates, field notebooks, journals, writings, and other material primarily related to Marshall's forestry career with the Office of Indian Affairs and the National Forest Service. Also included are papers and writings related to his field work mapping the Koyukuk area of Alaska, his work with the Wilderness Society, and his love of walking and climbing peaks, especially in the Adirondacks.

Extent:

Number of containers: 17 boxes, 5 cartons, 4 card file boxes, 1 oversize box, 3 oversize folders and 7 volumes Linear feet: 16.45 1 Digital Object (2 images)

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

The Robert Marshall papers, 1908-1939, consist of correspondence with family, friends and professional associates, field notebooks, journals, writings, and other material primarily related to Marshall's forestry career with the Office of Indian Affairs and the Forestry Service. Also included are papers, writings, and maps related to his field work mapping the Koyukuk area of Alaska, his work with the Wilderness Society, and his love of walking and climbing peaks, especially in the Adirondacks.

Biographical / historical:

Robert Marshall, forester and environmentalist, was born in New York on January 2, 1901. The son of Louis Marshall, a constitutional lawyer and philanthropist, Robert Marshall developed an early interest in mountains, the outdoors, and activism. After graduating from the Ethical Culture School in New York, he attended Columbia College, the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse, and then Harvard University. From 1925-1928 he worked at the United States Forestry Service's Northern Rocky Mountain Forest Experiment Station in Missoula, Montana returning to school in 1928 at Johns Hopkins University to earn a Ph.D. in Plant Physiology.

Marshall traveled to Alaska in the summer of 1929 exploring the basin of the Koyukuk River in the Central Brooks Range. After receiving his doctorate in 1934, he built a log cabin near an arctic village, Wiseman Alaska, which was his base of operations during his 13 month exploration of the northern Koyukuk region. He returned to Alaska in 1938 to explore and map the North Fork of the Koyukuk and Upper Anaktuvuk Rivers, and again in 1939 to complete mapping the Koyukuk territory. He was the first person to map much of the area.

From 1933 to 1937 Marshall served as Director of Forestry for the Office of Indian Affairs. During this period Marshall, along with Benton MacKaye, Aldo Leopold and others, established the Wilderness Society, an organization dedicated to preserving the wilderness in its unspoiled state. In 1937 Marshall was made chief of the new Forest Service Division of Recreation and Lands. Marshall died suddenly of a heart attack in 1939 at 38 years of age.

Acquisition information:

The Robert Marshall Papers were given to The Bancroft Library by George Marshall on March, 1979. Additions were made in August 1993.

Physical location:

For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

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