Collection of Aldo Leopold Papers

Rand Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, on January 11, 1887 to Carl Leopold and Clara Starker. Leopold showed an interest in the outdoors from early childhood often taking long excursions in wooded areas. Leopold began his secondary schooling in his native Iowa but transferred to The Lawrenceville School at the encouragement of family friend and Lawrenceville School Head Master Simon J. McPherson. The heavily wooded and botanically diverse Lawrenceville campus suited Aldo. He explored the campus and surrounding area mapping the terrain and the flora and fauna. Upon graduating from the Lawrenceville School in 1905, Leopold entered the Yale Sheffield Scientific School to prepare for the Yale Forest School graduate program. He graduated in 1908.

Shortly after graduating from Yale, Leopold was hired by the United States Forest Service and sent to work in Apache National Forest in the Arizona Territory. He was later transferred to Carson National Forest in New Mexico. Leopold's career with Forest Service included developing the first comprehensive management plan for the Grand Canyon, writing the Forest Service's first game and fish handbook, and proposing Gila Wilderness Area, the first national wilderness area in the Forest Service system. It was his experiences with the Forest Service in the Southwest that helped him develop his theories on preservation and wilderness, particularly his belief in protecting predatory animals and the destructive effects of human advancement.

Leopold relocated to Madison, Wisconsin in 1924 after he became associate director of the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory. In 1933, he was appointed Professor of Game Management in the Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the first such professorship of wildlife management. Fulfilling a lifelong desire to own property for recreational purposes, Leopold purchased eighty acres in central Wisconsin. The land, which had been left barren, consisted largely of sand and included a chicken coop. Here he put his theories to work planting native plant life and restoring the terrain. He used this experience as the basis for his best-selling A Sand County Almanac, published posthumously in 1949.

Leopold married Estella Bergere on October 9, 1912. Together they had four children. Aldo died of a heart attack on April 21, 1948.