Harvey Benjamin Broome or known as Harvey Broome was born on July 15, 1902, and died on March 8, 1968. His father was George W and a mother named Adeline Broome. He is a writer, lawyer, and conservationist from the United States. He was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Broome was a founder and member of The Wilderness Society, where he served as president from 1957 until he died in 1968. He played a major role in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club is named as “Harvey Broome Group to honor Harvey Broome.
In his childhood, he often visited the farm of his grandparents in Fountain City (now located on the outskirts of Knoxville). Located 40 miles north of the Great Smoky Mountains, this is where Broome develops his love for the outdoors. When he was fifteen years old, his father took him on his first camping trip to Silers Bald in the Smokies.
Broome went on to the University of Tennessee and graduated in 1923 after graduating from Knoxville high school in 1919. Three years after that, he got a law degree from Harvard University.
Although he started his legal career as a clerk, he eventually practiced at a law firm in Oak Ridge, Tennessee named Kramer, Dye, McNabb, and Greenwood. Realizing after several years that his life as a clerk gave him more time outdoors, Broome left the company to return to its original position.
Harvey Broome, the environmental activist
He attended a forestry conference in the Smokies in October 1934. On that time, Broome met with fellow environmentalists Bob Marshall, Benton MacKaye, and Bernard Frank, all of them shared the same interest in the need for an organization to protect the American wilderness.
Three months later, they formed The Wilderness Society. Broome is deeply involved in society for the rest of his life. He also wrote a letter detailing his prediction of the future of forest preservation, which was opened by the President of the United States on October 24, 1964.
Harvey Broome and the great smoky mountain conservation association
In the mid-1930s, Broome was a director of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association. Broome disagreed with the Park Commission chairman David C. Chapman, who wanted to develop the park as a tourist attraction. Broome wants the park to function as a jungle only with access provided through the hiking track.
In 1954, Broome was one of the few conservationists who climbed the Chesapeake and Canal Ohio in protest over plans to turn the highway into a road. In the mid-1960s, he helped created the Save-Our-Smokies campaign, especially against the construction of trans-mountain roads through the park.
Broome published his first article entitled “Great Smoky Mountain Trails,” in Mountain magazine in 1928. In subsequent years, he contributed many articles to various publishers, including Living Wilderness, National Parks Magazine, and Nature.
Three books are published: Out Under the Skies in the Great Smoky Mountains, Faces of the Wilderness, and Harvey Broome: Earth Man. We should imitate the spirit in order to fight for the environment by Harvey Broome.
