Bob Marshall was the son of a prominent New York lawyer who helped insert the phrase "forever wild" into the state constitution, a key to preserving the forests of the Adirondack region. His experiences in the Adirondack Mountains as a youth, at his family's summer place, and the early habit of taking long walks, gave early shape to his preoccupation with the importance of wilderness. Marshall worked diligently for the protection of wilderness in the United States for aesthetic reasons and for the psychological health of the American people by counteracting the "drabness" and "horrible banality" of modern civilization.

Marshall earned a forestry degree from Syracuse University, a Masters of Forestry from Harvard, and ultimately a doctorate in plant physiology from Johns Hopkins. He first worked for the United States Forest Service at an experimental station in Missoula...