Description: Each week, the Archives features a woman who has been a groundbreaker at the Smithsonian, past or present, in a series titled Wonderful Women Wednesday.
Description: Smokey Bear, the character, was created by the Forest Service in August 1944 as the lead symbol in its Wildfire Prevention Campaign. However, there was also a real, living Smokey Bear, himself the victim of a forest fire as a young cub. Smokey was born in 1950 in the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico, where he was found badly burned. Despite the odds for survival, he was