Document Type
Article - postprint
Department
Environmental Analysis (Pomona)
Publication Date
2013
Keywords
Unites States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, Howard Abbey
Abstract
Howard Abbey could recall the exact moment when he learned that he had passed the forest ranger’s examination for the newly established USDA Forest Service (USFS). In the early morning of Aug. 1, 1905, while he was managing a team of horses pulling a mowing machine on the McIntosh Ranch in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, Allen Ray Powers, a Forest Assistant on the Plumas Forest Reserve, rode up and “informed me that I was wanted at the Forest Supervisor’s office in Quincy.” Abbey handed over the reins to his boss and walked the 2 miles to town where he met with Supervisor Louis A. Barrett, who congratulated the young ranch hand on having passed the exam. After accepting the offer of a job as a Forest Guard on the Plumas, and “taking the Oath of Office,” Abbey was “given a bronze badge—insignia of office” (Abbey 1940, p. 5).
Rights Information
© 2013 Journal of Forestry
DOI
10.5849/jof.13-052
Recommended Citation
Miller, Char, "Uncle Sam’s Badge: Identity and Representation in the USDA Forest Service, 1905–2013" (2013). Pomona Faculty Publications and Research. 387.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_fac_pub/387
Comments
Final version at Journal of Forestry (vol. 111, no. 5), published by the Society of American Foresters, 5400 Grosvenor Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814-2198. Not for further reproduction.