Harvey Broome
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Harvey Benjamin Broome (July 15, 1902 – March 8, 1968) was an American lawyer, writer and conservationist. A native of
Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...
, Broome was a founding member of The Wilderness Society, for which he served as president from 1957 until his death in 1968, and played a key role in the establishment of the
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, whi ...
. The Knoxville Group of the Tennessee Chapter of the
Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...
is named the "Harvey Broome Group" in his honor.


Early life and career

Broome was born in Knoxville to George W. and Adeline Broome on July 15, 1902. During his childhood, he frequently visited his grandparents' farm in Fountain City (now a suburb of Knoxville). Located 40 miles north of the
Great Smoky Mountains The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge ...
, it was here that Broome developed his love of the outdoors. At the age of fifteen, his father took him on his first camping trip, to
Silers Bald Silers Bald is a mountain in the western Great Smoky Mountains, located in the Southeastern United States. Its proximity to Clingmans Dome and its location along the Appalachian Trail make it a popular hiking destination. Silers Bald is located ...
in the Smokies.Harvey Broom
. The Wilderness Society website. Retrieved on January 26, 2010.
After graduating from Knoxville High School in 1919, Broome attended the
University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...
, graduating in 1923. Three years later, he earned a law degree from
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. Although he began his law career as a clerk, he eventually entered into private practice with a law firm in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...
called Kramer, Dye, McNabb and Greenwood. Realizing after several years that the life of a clerk had provided him with more time to spend in the outdoors, Broome left the firm to return to his former position. He clerked for federal district court judge Xen Hicks from 1930 to 1949, and for Judge Robert L. Taylor from 1958 to 1968.


Conservation

In October 1934, while attending a forestry conference in the Smokies, Broome met fellow conservationists Bob Marshall,
Benton MacKaye Benton MacKaye ( ; March 6, 1879 – December 11, 1975) was an American forester, planner and conservationist. He was born in Stamford, Connecticut; his father was actor and dramatist Steele MacKaye. After studying forestry at Harvard Unive ...
and
Bernard Frank Bernard Frank (11 October 1929, in Neuilly-sur-Seine – 3 November 2006, in Paris) was a French journalist and writer. Early life Bernard Frank was raised in a comfortable family, where his father was a bank manager. After his baccalauréat ...
, all of whom shared a common interest in the need for an organization to protect America's wilderness areas. Three months later, The Wilderness Society was created; Broome would be heavily involved in the Society for the remainder of his life. Among his achievements was his work alongside Society executive director
Howard Zahniser Howard Clinton Zahniser (February 25, 1906 – May 5, 1964) was an American environmental activist. For nearly 20 years, he helped lead The Wilderness Society as executive secretary, executive director, and editor of ''The Living Wilderness'', fr ...
in persuading the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
to create the National Wilderness Preservation System, which occurred in 1964 when Congress passed the
Wilderness Act The Wilderness Act of 1964 () was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres (37,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a lon ...
. Broome was present among other conservationists when President
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
signed the bill into law on September 3, 1964. He also wrote a letter detailing his predictions of the future of forest preservation, which is to be opened by the President of the United States on October 24, 1964. In the mid-1930s, Broome was director of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association. While he advocated the creation of the park, he disagreed with Park Commission president
David C. Chapman David Carpenter Chapman (August 9, 1876 – July 26, 1944) was an American soldier, politician, and business leader from Knoxville, Tennessee who led the effort to establish the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1920s and 1930s. Mou ...
, who wanted to develop the park as a tourist attraction. Broome wanted the park strictly preserved as a wilderness, with access provided via hiking trails.Mark Banker, ''Appalachians All: East Tennesseans and the Elusive History of an American Region'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2010), p. 288. In 1954, Broome was one of several conservationists (among them Justice
William O. Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often ci ...
) to hike the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, wh ...
towpath in protest of plans to convert the towpath into a road. In the mid-1960s, he helped establish the Save-Our-Smokies campaign, mainly to oppose the construction of a trans-mountain road through the park. Broome published his first article, "Great Smoky Mountain Trails," in ''Mountain'' magazine in 1928.Anne Broome, "Harvey Broome," ''An Encyclopedia of East Tennessee'' (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: Children's Museum of Oak Ridge, 1981), pp. 66-67. In subsequent years, he contributed numerous articles to various publications, including ''Living Wilderness'' (The Wilderness Society's publication), ''National Parks Magazine'', and ''Nature'', among others. Three of his books were published posthumously: ''Out Under the Skies in the Great Smoky Mountains'', ''Faces of the Wilderness'', and ''Harvey Broome: Earth Man''. Broome served as president of the
East Tennessee Historical Society The East Tennessee Historical Society (ETHS), headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of East Tennessee history, the preservation of historically significant artifacts, and educating ...
from 1945 to 1947. During this period, the Society published its first comprehensive history of Knoxville and Knox County, ''The French Broad-Holston County: A History of Knox County, Tennessee'', which was edited by Lawson McGhee librarian Mary Rothrock. Broome provided three chapters for the book detailing the history of Knox County's government.


Personal life

Broome married his wife Anna, who shared his love of the outdoors, in 1937. They lived in a house that the couple relocated from Broome's grandfather's farm to Knoxville; they also owned a cabin in the Smokies. Harvey Broome died of a heart attack on March 8, 1968, while building a birdhouse out of a hollow log.


Notes


References

*Sutter, Paul. 2002. ''Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement''. Seattle: University of Washington press. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Broome, Harvey 1902 births 1968 deaths Harvard Law School alumni People from Knoxville, Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains National Park Tennessee lawyers American environmentalists 20th-century American lawyers