A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate

Senator George P. McLean’s crowning achievement was overseeing passage of one of the country’s first and most important wildlife conservation laws, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The MBTA, which is still in effect today, has saved billions of birds from senseless killing and likely prevented the extinction of entire bird species. A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate puts McLean’s victory for birds in the context of his distinguished forty-five-year career marked by many acts of reform during a time of widespread corruption and political instability. Author Will McLean Greeley traces McLean’s rise from obscurity as a Connecticut farm boy to national prominence, when he advised five US presidents and helped lead change and shape events as a US senator from 1911 to 1929. One reviewer writes: “And there’s a bonus: This book is also a love song to a distant relative. We need more historians who truly care about the people they’re writing about, and Greeley does just that.”

© 2024 RIT Press (Ebook): 9781956313000

Release date

Ebook: 28 June 2024