George Marshall (conservationist)
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George Marshall was a political activist and conservationist. Marshall was the son of the Louis Marshall, a noted constitutional lawyer and co-founder of the American Jewish Committee. He earned a master's degree from Columbia University and a PhD in economics from the Brookings Institution. He worked as an economist for the National Recovery Administration under Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. He served as chairman of the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties and the Civil Rights Congress, a leading leftist group that was active early the United States civil rights movement, providing leadership and funding; in the late 1940s and early 1950s he worked with Paul Robeson, Dashiell Hammett and William L. Patterson on litigation protecting the rights of African-Americans and American communists.
Marshall was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, where he was cited for Contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over records from the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. Convicted, he served three months in a federal prison in 1950.
Marshall also had a career as a conservationist. He spent his childhood summers at Knollwood, his father's great camp on the shores of Saranac Lake; with his brother Bob Marshall he climbed all 46 Adirondack High Peaks (mountains taller than 4,000 feet), an accomplishment that made him a founding membership in the "46ers". After his brother's early death, Marshall became a trustee of the Robert Marshall Wilderness Fund, which supported conservation activities. He was a member of the Wilderness Society, founded by his brother, for more than 50 years, serving as president in 1971–72. In the late 1950s, Marshall moved to Los Angeles, where he became involved in the Sierra Club, serving on the board of directors from 1959 to 1968.
