Remembering Frank Graham

Sitting on my desk is a well-thumbed copy of The Audubon Ark. I have flipped through it countless times, immersing myself in Audubon’s history. The book, which traces the evolution of the organization from the late 1800s, is a feat of reporting, a definitive account of the people, places, and events that shaped Audubon’s mission and work. It’s a book only Frank Graham, Jr., could have produced. 

Frank wrote the Ark during his tenure as Audubon magazine’s field editor—a position he held for 45 years. In that span Frank crisscrossed the country some 200 times on reporting trips that he transformed into remarkable stories. Though Frank retired as field editor in 2013, his contributions to Audubon remained so indelible that—out of respect and admiration—we continued to include his name on the masthead until this past April, when he passed away at the age of 100. 

Frank will be remembered for many things, but longtime readers of this magazine will recollect he was both a beautiful nature writer and an outstanding environmental journalist. In his hands, subjects as ethereal as fog and as ordinary as a fly became vivid protagonists. He also deployed his sharp powers of observation to shed much-needed light on conservation challenges. As his first assignment for Audubon, Frank investigated the slow progress in regulating pesticides in the wake of Silent Spring—reporting he then expanded into the seminal book’s sequel, which received acclaim for defending and building on Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking work.

Frank was intimately familiar with this magazine. While researching The Audubon Ark, he read every issue, starting with the first (then called Bird-Lore) in 1899. He documented our evolution, too, into a trusted and respected source of journalism on the modern conservation movement. It’s a status that Frank helped cement, and that we strive to uphold. In these pages you’ll find stories that both explore today’s environmental challenges and invite close observation and celebration of nature. For as Frank wrote shortly before he retired, “I have seen the strongest bonds forged when we bring to the fight, as Rachel Carson did, a determination to preserve what we love.”

Hope sprang eternal in much of Frank’s conservation coverage, observed David Seideman, who worked with Frank for nearly 20 years, including many as Audubon’s editor-in-chief. You can read David’s tribute to Frank here, as well as a favorite piece of Frank’s republished from our archives.