Boston’s No-lemons Charter Schools
By 2013, the charter schools in many U.S. cities were beginning to pile up remarkable achievement records, but the accomplishments of Boston’s philanthropically supported charters were in a category by Read more…
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Mellon Parklands
Out of the bank he established in Pittsburgh in 1869, Thomas Mellon left behind both a fortune and a string of descendants who variously increased those funds and gave them Read more…
Noble Research Institute
Lloyd Noble was an Oklahoman who taught in rural schools before buying an oil-drilling rig with a loan from his mother. In 1926 he struck gold—or its liquid equivalent—and became Read more…
Appalachian Trail
In 1921, an article was published in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects proposing a series of trail-connected camps along the Appalachian Mountains. Very soon, volunteer crews of Read more…
Hawk Mountain
Hawk Mountain is regularly mistaken for a public park, whereas it’s actually a classic example of a concerned citizen taking action on her own. A series of ridges in the Read more…
Mount Katahdin and Baxter State Park
Mount Katahdin, at 5,269 feet, is the highest peak in Maine and the terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The surrounding area features hundreds of lakes, streams, and waterfalls, wildlife are Read more…
Hunter-led Wildlife Recoveries
Experience from the last 85 years shows that people who stalk and harvest animals are often the best at saving them. The Dust Bowl droughts of the 1930s decimated North Read more…
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
In the early 1920s, Wickliffe Rose of the Rockefeller Foundation began conversations with the director of the U.S. Marine Biological Laboratory about the need for better understanding of the oceans. Read more…
Great Smoky Mountains
John Rockefeller Jr. had already catalyzed creation of a national park at Acadia in Maine, and set events in motion for another at Grand Teton in Wyoming, when in 1928 Read more…
Acadia National Park
Maine’s Acadia National Park mixes ocean, forest, and mountains in combinations of legendary beauty. It is a product of the tenacity of one George Dorr, a Bostonian with an inherited Read more…
Stephen Mather Builds the National Park Service
Stephen Mather was the first director of the National Park Service, but he was much more than a bureaucrat. His abilities as a manager and his personal donations as a Read more…
Camel’s Hump State Park
Joseph Battell was a Vermont newspaper publisher, and promoter of the Morgan horse. His creation of the American Morgan Horse Registry and donation of his horse farm to the national Read more…
Muir Woods National Monument
The oldest surviving California sequoias are thousands of years old. Sheathed by the fogs that roll in daily from the Pacific, they reach hundreds of feet in height. Ancient specimens Read more…
Grand Canyon of the East
Central New Yorker William Letchworth made a fortune in the iron business, then retired at age 48 to a property he had purchased in the spectacular deep gorge carved by Read more…
Pierre du Pont Creates Longwood Gardens
In 1798, the twin grandsons of a Quaker who was farming 400 acres in the far southeastern corner of Pennsylvania developed an interest in natural history; they began planting a Read more…
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Ellen Scripps, whose fortune derived from the Scripps family’s newspaper empire, generously supported a range of charitable causes across southern California. She donated the land and first building for a Read more…
From Snowy Egrets to Jungle Gardens
Just after the Civil War, E. A. “Ned” McIlhenny was born on Louisiana’s Avery Island—a 2,500 acre dome surrounded by marsh, swamp, and bayou. His family had operated a sugar Read more…
Trustees of Reservations
During the later nineteenth century, Charles Eliot was a young man working as a landscape architect in Boston. His father was president of Harvard and would be instrumental in founding Read more…
Appalachian Mountain Club
In 1876, Edward Pickering, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, convened on MIT’s Boston campus a gathering of 34 men with a shared interest in mountain exploration Read more…
ASPCA Births the Animal Welfare Movement
Henry Bergh operated the shipbuilding business founded in New York City by his father, and retired early with a substantial fortune. An abolitionist, his friendship with William Seward won him Read more…