Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam
Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam is an American conservationist and founder of the Student Conservation Association. Early life and education. Putnam graduated from Miss Porter's School in 1952 and from Vassar in 1955. Founding SCA. As a student at Vassar College in the 1950s, Putnam admired the natural heritage of America's national parks, but worried limited federal financial resources would prevent proper maintenance of the pristine parklands. In 1955, Putnam wrote her senior thesis at Vassar College, "A Proposed Student Conservation Corps". The idea, modeled after the federal Civilian Conservation Corps program (1933–42), was to  take the burden of labor-intensive jobs such as entrance fee collecting or trail work from the National Park Service and shift to the proposed SCC. Career. After founding the Student Conservation Association in 1957, Putnam served as its President until her retirement in 1990. She currently resides in Shaftsbury, Vermont,