Unprecedented Seasons

In keeping with our mission to inform the present by drawing from the past, FHS launched a virtual lecture series Unprecedented Seasons, hosted by FHS historian Jamie Lewis. Presenters explored the biggest topics of 2020 and 2021—racial inequality and social justice, social isolation/distancing, and climate change—often using the lens of environmental history, biography and memoir to do so. Topics have included wilderness and the COVID-19 pandemic, Henry David Thoreau and social justice, the U.S. Forest Service and the civil rights movement era, and the life and career of U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. Videos of all presentations are available on the FHS YouTube Channel or the FHS Vimeo Channel.

Funding for this series is provided by the Lynn W. Day Endowment.

The re-created cabin of Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond.
The re-created cabin of Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond.
September 2021 “The Right Environment for You: Talking with Students about Natural Resources and Forestry”
Tremaine Brittian and Sam Cook
August 2021 “Wild History: A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Archives and Museum”
Mark Madison
July 2021 “Wood Bioenergy, Forest Supplies, and Timberland Ownership: What We Got Right (and Wrong)"
Brooks Mendell
June 2021 “Fire Breaks: Fire Suppression, the 'Light-Burning' Controversy, and the Return of Indigenous Flames"
Char Miller
May 2021 “Stewart Udall and the Politics of the Environment and Race"
John de Graaf
April 2021 “War and the Environment: A Roundtable Discussion"
Roundtable discussion with Anthony Andersson, Lisa M. Brady, Gerard J. Fitzgerald, Keri Lambert, and Richard Tucker, moderated by Jamie Lewis.
March 2021 “'A Vast and Indefinite Loss':  Henry David Thoreau on Slavery and Nature"
Laura Dassow Walls
February 2021 “From ‘Invalids need not apply’ to ‘Black Foresters Wanted’: The Forest Service in the Civil Rights Era”
Donna Sinclair
January 2021 "Isolation and Wilderness: How American Wilderness Intersects with the Pandemic”
DJ Lee

Other Presentations From FHS

mushrooms in Great Smoky Mtns

Nontimber Forest Products & Bioeconomy

Experts discuss how the bioeconomy can reduce environmental impacts of economic growth by forest management that promotes sustainable harvests and production of non-timber forest products such as food and medicine.

Learn More
Jamie Lewis-3

Conversations in Forest History

This monthly series hosted by FHS historian Jamie Lewis explores the latest ideas in forest and conservation history with historians, journalists, and film makers or forest-related topics in the news with experts in natural resources management.

Learn More
close donate modal