Environmental History Seminar

When:
January 14, 2020 @ 5:15 pm – 7:30 pm
2020-01-14T17:15:00-05:00
2020-01-14T19:30:00-05:00
Where:
Massachusetts Historical Society
1154 Boylston Street
Boston
MA
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Massachusetts Historical Society
617 536-1608

The Massachusetts Historical Society will hold an Environmental History seminar on Aaron Ahlstrom’s recent paper, The Wealth and Beauty in Trees: State Forestry and the Rehabilitation of Massachusetts’ Economy, Landscape & Culture, 1898 – 1919, on January 14th from 5:15 to 7:30 pm.

Massachusetts currently has 311,000 acres of state forests and parks. This public land system originated in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century efforts to strengthen the Commonwealth’s economy, rehabilitate its unproductive landscapes, and revitalize its rural communities through scientific forestry.

This paper by Aaron Ahlstrom of Boston University offers new perspectives on Progressive Era conservation by analyzing how state foresters sought to improve rural landscapes’ profitability and aesthetics by educating private woodlot owners, suppressing forest fires and pests, and reforesting newly-acquired public lands.

For information, call 617 536-1608 or visit: www.masshist.org/2012/ calendar/seminars/environmental-history