Louis Marshall was an American corporate, constitutional and civil rights lawyer as well as a mediator and Jewish community leader who worked to secure religious, political, and cultural freedom for all minority groups. Among the founders of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), he defended Jewish and minority rights. He was also a conservationist, and the force behind re-establishing the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, which evolved into today's State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).

The New York State College of Forestry, the first professional school of forestry in North America, opened its doors at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, in the autumn of 1898., It was advocated for by Governor Frank S. Black, but after just a few years of operation, it was defunded in 1903, by Governor Benjamin B. Odell in response to public outcry over the College's controversial forestry practices in the Adirondacks.