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Acknowledgments I could not have dreamed of writing this book had I not been given two things: first, a powerful suggestion, and second, a suitcase packed with old letters. The suggestion came from the late T. H. Watkins, my friend, coauthor , and editor at American Heritage and Wilderness. Watkins discovered Rosalie Edge’s Emergency Conservation Committee (ecc) papers in the Conservation Collection of the Denver Public Library while working on his biography of Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. Since I lived near Denver, I checked what the library had on Edge, and as Tom predicted, I became hooked. That suitcase—with about three hundred of Rosalie Edge’s handwritten personal letters, original memorabilia, and family documents dating to the 1850s—was presented to me by the activist’s seventy-seven-year-old son, Peter Edge, about a year after I began my research. I went to Winnetka, Illinois , several times to interview the generous and gracious Peter before he died in 2002. At the end of one of my visits, he handed over the suitcase with the stipulation that I use its contents to recover a forgotten bit of history and tell the best story I could about his mother’s life. I have been blessed and burdened with Peter Edge’s faith in me to do so ever since. I am further indebted to Deborah Edge, who adhered to her father’s wish that I be permitted complete freedom to write this book as I felt it needed to be written. While the character of Hawk of Mercy derives from the wealth of primary material I was privileged to have available, I want to acknowledge five published histories that helped me put Edge within the context of the conservation movement: Steven Fox’s John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement; Carsten Lien’s Olympic Battleground: The Power xiv ] acknowledgments Politics of Timber Preservation; Irving Brant’s Adventures in Conservation with Franklin D. Roosevelt; T. H. Watkins’s Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874–1952; and Frank Graham Jr.’s Audubon Ark: A History of the National Audubon Society. I am also grateful to Clark N. Bainbridge ’s 2002 PhD dissertation, “The Origins of Rosalie Edge’s Emergency Conservation Committee, 1930–1962: A Historical Analysis.” Clark knowledgeably discussed Rosalie Edge with me and as one of my manuscript readers suggested corrections. Any errors or omissions that remain are my own. Clark’s admiration for Edge strengthened my belief that she was the sort of hero others would want to know. A dozen agents and publishers rejected this notion, but the book proposal did grab the plucky and persistent acquisition editors at the University of Georgia Press. I am grateful to Barbara Ras for her spontaneous enthusiasm and to Christa Frangiamore for her periodic calls gently rousing me from stagnation. Andrew Berzanskis’s bracing note still hangs above my desk; next came the stalwart and resourceful Judy Purdy, who grasped all that I was trying to accomplish and guided manuscript revisions through to the end. Developmental editor John Tallmadge provided essential validation of the story’s worth and gave me elegant solutions to address the narrative’s shortcomings. Barb Wojhoski proved the value of having a fine copyeditor. At the Conservation Collection of the Denver Public Library’s Western History/Genealogy Department, Bruce Hanson, Joan Harms, Abby Haverstock , Janice Prater, and Ellen Zazzarino were of enormous assistance. The library’s helpful staff and unique resources further convinced me that along with national parks, free public libraries are the greatest contribution the United States has made to the world. I am thankful to archival collections large and small, public and private. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s staff and volunteers tolerated my erratic visits for a decade or more and gave me permission to go where no one had gone before: into the dark, dank, mouse-infested basement of the Visitor Center, where Rosalie Edge’s yellowed correspondence pertaining to Hawk Mountain ’s establishment moldered in rusty file cabinets. At Hawk Mountain, Nancy Keeler, Keith Bildstein, and Mary Linkevich remained as enthusiastic about the project as they were patient, and proffered a thousand kindnesses. Hawk Mountain volunteer Karen Wolzanski and interns Emily Brodsky and Nicole Barko ably assisted me in the Julian Hill Memorial Archive–Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Archives, the bright, clean space that was later funded so that Edge’s papers could be preserved and cataloged. [3.144.187.103] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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