1911 Weeks Act: the Legislation that Nationalised the US Forest Service

Abstract

A century ago, the US Congress passed legislation that authorised the Secretary of Agriculture ‘to purchase forested, cutover, or denuded lands within the watersheds of navigable streams’. Known as the 1911 Weeks Act, the bill had an enormous impact on the newly created national forest system. The purchase authority eventually added nearly 20 million acres to the national forest system east of the Mississippi River, but its influence goes far beyond the boundaries of the national forests. In addition, the Weeks Act provided funding and authority for the US Forest Service to enter into cooperative agreements with state and private forest owners, thus extending federal forest conservation practices across the nation. This article traces the events and context surrounding forest management in the US that led to passage of the Act. After decades of efforts, a coalition of public interest and congressional support combined to pass one of the foundational pieces of legislation in American forest management whose influence continues today.

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Lincoln Bramwell

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Lincoln Bramwell, PhD, is the Chief Historian for the US Forest Service. He has been in this position for three years. Before taking his current position he was Director of Research in the public history programme at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He can be reached at [email protected].