He was described by Joseph Wood Krutch as "perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers" during his heyday.
[2]: 248 He studied French poetry[citation needed] for two years at the University of Chicago, then tried journalism, and office work in New York.
[4][2]: xi In 1928[3] Peattie and his wife, Louise Redfield, with their four-year-old daughter and baby son, Malcolm, moved to Paris to "launch the frail bark of our careers".
[10] Peattie's nature writings are distinguished by a poetic and philosophical cast of mind and are scientifically scrupulous.
An example of Peattie's views that can be construed as racist is the following, from An Almanac for Moderns: "Every species of ant has its racial characteristics.
He is easily impressed by the superior organization or the menacing tactics of his raiders and drivers, and, as I know him, he is relatively lazy or at least disorganized, random, feckless and witless when free in the bush, while for his masters he will work faithfully.
"[12] (This is a slap against the American Eugenics Society, a national group formed in 1921, which was prominent in the 1930s, promoting "racial betterment."
[14] That was after he witnessed a Japanese gardener, who had been hired by the owner of a house he was renting in California, interned in the camps.