Environmental History

1
Environmental History

• Impact of human activity on the environment
• Role of the environment in shaping human society
  and history
• Evolving relationship between human beings and
  the natural world

2
The Economics of Frontier Farming

• Whilst there was an abun-dance of fresh and
  fertile soil, it was the interest of the
  cultivator to spread his labor over as great a
  surface as he could. Land being cheap and labor
  dear it was profitable to draw as much as
  possible from the land.
• Address to the Albemarle Agricultural Society,
  1818.

James Madison
3
Native American Landscapes

• Epidemic Disease
• Farming
• Hunting
• Extensive Land Use

4
Slash Burn Farming

• Native American Models
• Girdling Trees
• Burning Logs
• Hoe vs. Plow
• Crop Progressions
• Abandonment
• Old Field Succession

George Harvey, "Spring Burning Fallen Trees in a
Girdled Clearing, 1841.
5
Frontier Animal Husbandry

• Hunting
• Feral Livestock
• Woods-Burning
• The Open Range

Development of the Southern Hog from Open Range
to Pen
6
The Frontier Environment

• Deforestation
• Species Loss
• Soil Exhaustion
• Soil Erosion
• New Grounds and Old Fields
• The Patchwork Landscape

Loblolly Pine Invading a Florida Old Field
7
Families and Farms

• Partible Inheritance
• Land Abandonment
• Westward Migration
• Family Farms

8
Frontier Farming the U.S. in Era IV

• Benevolence
• Race War Removal
• Westward Expansion
• Public Land Policy
• Sectional Conflict
• Intensive Farming

Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Jackson
9
Teaching Environmental History

• Understanding connections to traditional
  historical events and issues
• Reading primary sources
• Relating students own experiences with the
  natural world

Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1850s.
Old Wagon Road, Cumberland Plateau, 1976.