Origins, entanglements and civic aims of the early forestry movement in the United States

While the origins of forestry in the United States have been the
topic of sustained interest amongst environmental and forest
historians, the history of the early forestry movement itself
remains neglected. This is partly due to the manner in which
later professional foresters often air brushed their “forest
sentimentalist” predecessors out of the story and forest
historians focused their narratives on of the development of
forestry science and the modern Forestry Service, isolating that
institution's history from the broader social movement in which
it originated.  This broader movement advocated forestry not
just as a means to produce timber for an increasingly
industrialized nation but also as a vehicle of social reform and
religious awakening. One of the pioneers in this movement, and a
key advocate of Arbor Day, village improvement and forestry
education, was Connecticut educator Birdsey G. Northrop. This
episode of the podcast explores the alternative origins,
entanglements and civic orientation of early forestry in the US
through Northrop’s forgotten tour of Europe’s Forestry Schools in
the summer of 1877. This journey and the impact it had on
American forestry is a theme studied by the guest on this episode
of the podcast, Jay Bolthouse, a PhD candidate in the Graduate
School of Frontier Sciences at the University of Tokyo.


Music credits: Where You Are Now by Zapac, Greensleeves Jazz by
Doxent Zsigmond, One Way by Rey Izain. All available from
ccMixter.org