Historians often cite conservation of natural resources as Theodore Roosevelt's most enduring contribution to the country. As the nation's twenty-sixth President, Roosevelt was faced with critical conservation issues and made decisive moves to promote conservation, thus becoming the national leader most clearly associated with preservation of public land.

Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family in New York City, and early took an interest in the outdoors, partly to compensate for asthma and a frail constitution. He was an avid naturalist as a child, an early interest that lasted all his life and, as Paul R. Cutright documents in detail in his Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist, Roosevelt was instrumental in creating a role model for conservationists. Certainly, much of his attention to conservation derived at least in part from his interest in the...