Peeling Back The Bark
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October 27, 1858: Happy Birthday, Teddy Roosevelt!
By James Lewis on October 27, 2008Today marks the 150th birthday of Theodore Roosevelt. Considered one of our greatest presidents, it’s not for nothing that he’s on Mount Rushmore and still widely admired around the world. He packed a lot of living into his sixty years. An avid outdoorsman and naturalist, you can add cowboy, cattle rancher, sheriff, big-game hunter, war…
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Driving the River
By Eben Lehman on October 24, 2008Six brand new photo galleries featuring more than 160 historic photos documenting various aspects of river log drives were added to our website today. River drives were a standard way of moving large amounts of cut timber to sawmills during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, prior to the expansion and adoption of railroads…
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October 20, 1964: Cradle of Forestry Dedication Ceremony
By Amanda T. Ross on October 20, 2008On this day in 1964, foresters, government officials, and others gathered near Asheville, North Carolina, at the site of the historic Biltmore Forest School. At this joint annual meeting of the American Forestry Association and the North Carolina Forestry Association, officials laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Forest Service Visitor Information Center, dedicating the Cradle…
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The Next Environmentalism: After the 2008 Election
By Amanda T. Ross on October 15, 2008The American environmental movement has periodically experienced shifts in focus and organizational priorities following key elections. Notable transformative junctures include the 1970 and 1972 congressional elections; the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, which sent ripple effects throughout the environmental movement; and the 2000 election of George W. Bush, which arguably witnessed the most significant shift…
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China's Syndrome
By James Lewis on October 8, 2008A recent article in The New Yorker investigated where China gets its wood from now that logging has been widely banned in the country. “The Stolen Forests: Inside the Covert War on Illegal Logging” states that the ban was instituted after the Yangtze River watershed flooded in 1999, killing more than three thousand people and…
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For the Ladies…
By Amanda T. Ross on October 8, 2008Photographs from the Forest History Society collections have been used for a great variety of purposes, from scholarly publications to popular documentaries to home decor. Perhaps we have the beginnings of a Men of Logging calendar?
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Logger Photos
By Eben Lehman on October 7, 2008Two new online photo galleries have just been added to our website today. The new “Loggers” gallery features more than 80 historic photos of loggers posing while at work in the field. Photos in this gallery showcase the outdoor working environment as well as the individual personalities of many of the loggers: The second new…
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Photograph Collections: A Capital Idea!
By Amanda T. Ross on October 6, 2008On September 17, 2008, FHS’s own Technical Archivist Eben Lehman participated in a news conference sponsored by the Alabama Forest Owners’ Association, Inc. The AFOA advocates for owners of Alabama forestland and strives to keep members informed on matters related to forest ownership. As part of his segment, Eben highlighted the riches of the Forest…
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Dignity Dies an Ignoble Death
By James Lewis on October 3, 2008By coincidence, we were looking through artist Rudy Wendelin’s papers the other day when the news broke about the baccanalian goings-on in the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service. We found several party invitations from the 1930s for which Rudy did the artwork. These events were tame affairs by comparison, no doubt, but you have…
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Playoff Dreams, Shattered Bats
By James Lewis on October 1, 2008Major League Baseball playoffs started today! Besides the excitement of the games, fans can also expect to see more shattered bats, a problem that has plagued baseball at all professional levels this year. In the last 15 years or so, maple has become the favored wood by big league sluggers, with 60% of major leaguers…
