Acclaimed author, conservationist, and farmer Louis Bromfield was born in Mansfield in 1896 and, after attending the city's schools, studied agriculture at Cornell University in 1914 before leaving in 1915 to help run his family's farm. In 1916 he enrolled at Columbia University to study journalism, and when America entered World War I he enlisted in the United States Army Ambulance Service and saw action in seven major European battles. After the war he finished his education and became a reporter. In 1921 he married Mary Appleton Wood, and they had three daughters. His first published novel, The Green Bay Tree, appeared in 1924 and was a critical and commercial success, and his third novel, Early Autumn, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927. The Bromfields moved to France in 1925 and lived there until 1938. During his writing career he published thirty books and wrote numerous stories, articles, and screenplays. In 1939, prompted by the threat of war in Europe and his desire to return to the land of his youth, Bromfield purchased three farms in Pleasant Valley and named the estate Malabar Farm after the Malabar Coast of India, the setting of his 1937 book The Rains Came. There he worked to restore the land and put into practice soil and water conservation techniques that later became widely influential. Devoted to educating farmers and the public about conservation, he hosted thousands of visitors at Malabar and promoted his ideas in speeches, columns, and radio broadcasts. He also continued writing, turning to non-fiction to share his experiences in books including Malabar Farm (1948) and Out of the Earth (1950). Bromfield died in 1956, and after Malabar passed out of family ownership it became a state park in 1976, demonstrating the techniques he had put into practice.