A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate
by Will McLean Greeley
From RIT Press:
Senator George P. McLean’s crowning achievement was overseeing passage of one of the country’s first and most important wildlife conservation laws, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The MBTA, which is still in effect today, has saved billions of birds from senseless killing and likely prevented the extinction of entire bird species. A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate puts McLean’s victory for birds in the context of his distinguished forty-five-year career marked by many acts of reform during a time of widespread corruption and political instability. Author Will McLean Greeley traces McLean’s rise from obscurity as a Connecticut farm boy to national prominence when he advised five US presidents and helped lead change and shape events as a US senator from 1911 to 1929. One reviewer writes: “And there’s a bonus: This book is also a love song to a distant relative. We need more historians who truly care about the people they’re writing about, and Greeley does just that.”
A political biography on this website? (Well, about someone other than Theodore Roosevelt.) But this is one politician that birders should be interested in, as he is a very important, but little-known, figure in conservation.
A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate
by Will McLean Greeley
Paperback; 350 pages
RIT Press; February 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781939125996
$34.95
Disclosure: I get a small commission for purchases made through links in this post.
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Posted by Grant McCreary on June 6th, 2023.
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