Syllabus
Sunday, July 10
| 3:00 | Meet at Antiquarian Hall (AH), 185 Salisbury Street |
| 3:15-3:30 | Welcome and Introductions Nan Wolverton, Director, CHAViC, AAS |
| 3:30-3:45 | Overview of the Seminar, Kathryn Morse and Jon T. Coleman, Seminar leaders Hand out complimentary copies for initial look of Peter John Brownlee, Manifest Destiny/Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape (Terra Foundation, 2008) |
| 3:45-4:15 | Tour of the library |
| 4:15-5:00 | Techniques of Printmaking, Lauren Hewes, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts |
| 5:00-8:00 | Reception followed by dinner at Goddard Daniels House (GDH) |
Monday, July 11: Stone & Fire
| 9:00-10:30 | Introduction to AAS Online Resources and the Reading Room; Meet the Curators (AH—half of group to Orientation Room, half of group to Council Room) |
| 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00-12:00 | Lecture/Discussion: New England’s Rocky Start: Water, Fire, Stone, and the Environmental Building Blocks of History (Jon T. Coleman and Kathryn Morse). |
| 12:00-1:00 | Lunch |
| 1:15-3:00 | Workshop: Climate History; The Elements. |
| 3:00-5:00 | Research on your own in the library or individual consultations with seminar leaders or AAS staff (AH) Dinner on your own Possible Readings: Thomas Wickman, “Winters Embittered with Hardships”: Severe Cold, Wabanaki Power, and English Adjustments, 1690–1710” William and Mary Quarterly (Jan 2015). PDF John McPhee, “Travels of the Rock.” The New Yorker (26 February 1990). PDF Stephen Pyne, “Firestick History,” Journal of American History 92 (March 1990), 1132–41. PDF |
Tuesday, July 12: Forests
| 9:00 | Morning review: Topic of the day: Forests. Reading discussion (GDH) |
| 9:30-10:30 | Lecture/Discussion: Clearing Trees: Time, Change, Progress, and Loss (Jon T. Coleman and Kathryn Morse). |
| 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00-12:00 | Workshop: Landscapes With and Without Trees: Visual and Written Sources and Storytelling about Deforestation |
| 12:00-1:00 | Lunch |
| 1:00 | Leave for Harvard Forest, Petersham, MA |
| 1:45 | Arrive Fisher Museum, Harvard Forest |
| 2:00-5:00 | Tour dioramas of New England forests through time |
| 5:30 | Reception at private residence, Petersham, MA Possible Readings (list to be shortened): Brian Donahue, “Another Look from Sanderson’s Farm: A Perspective on New England Environmental History and Conservation,” Environmental History 12:1 (January 2007): 9-34; with Hugh Raup, “The View from John Sanderson’s Farm,” Forest History 10:1 (April 1966); reprint Forest History Today (1997): 2-11. PDF (Donahue) | PDF (Raup) William Cronon, “Taking the Forest,” ch. 6 from Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists & the Ecology of New England (Hill & Wang 1983): 108-126. PDF Richard Judd, “’A Wonderful Order and Balance’: Natural History and the Beginnings of Forest Conservation in America, 1730-1830,” Environmental History 11:1 (January 2006): 8-36. PDF Alan Taylor, “‘Wasty Ways’: Stories of American Settlement,” Environmental History 3:3 (July 1998): 291-310. PDF |
Wednesday, July 13: Fields
| 9:00 | Morning review. Topic of the day: Fields. Reading discussion (GDH) |
| 9:30-10:30 | Lecture/discussion: Gender, Labor, and the Creation of Farms. |
| 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00-12:00 | Workshop: Visual sources and agrarian life (CR) |
| 12:00-1:00 | Lunch |
| 1:00-2:00 | Research Time: Prepare for group history barn raisin’. |
| 2:00-3:00 | Group History Barn Raisin’: Farm-scapes, work & nature in historical rural landscapes. |
| 3:00-8:00 | Free time for research in library/individual consultations Possible Readings: Laurel Ulrich, “Deputy Husbands,” in Good Wives: Image and Reality of the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (NY: Knopf, 1982). PDF Virginia Dejohn Anderson, “Thomas Minor’s World: Agrarian Life in Seventeenth-Century New England,” Agricultural History, Vol. 82, No. 4 (Fall, 2008), pp. 496-518 PDF John-Manuel Andriote, “The History, Science and Poetry of New England’s Stone Walls.” Earth: The Science behind the Headlines http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/history-science-and-poetry-new-englands-stone-walls |
Thursday, July 14: Industry
| 9:00 | Morning review: topics of the day; reading discussion (GDH) |
| 9:30-10:30 | Lecture/Discussion: Industrial Natures: The First Industrial Revolution and Environmental Change (Jon T. Coleman and Kathryn Morse) |
| 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00 | Group photo (GDH) |
| 11:15 | Fellowship opportunities at AAS, Paul Erickson, Director of Academic Programs |
| 12:00-1:00 | Lunch |
| 1:00-3:00 | Research time: Prepare for Lightning Round Visual Interpretation Session |
| 3:00-5:00 | Lightning Round: 4 minute environmental histories of one visual source (all participants) |
| 5:30 | Cookout at the Goddard-Daniels House Possible readings (list to be shortened): Sean Patrick Adams, “How the Industrial Economy Made the Stove” and “How Mineral Heat Came to American Cities,” chapters 1-2 in Adams, Home Fires: How Americans Kept Warm in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: JHU Press, 2014); 13-64. PDF Peter John Brownlee, Manifest Destiny/Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape (Terra Foundation, 2008) Jon T. Coleman, “The Shoemaker’s Circus”: Grizzly Adams and Nineteenth-Century Animal Entertainment,” Environmental History 20 (2015): 593-618. PDF Paul E. Johnson, “Paterson,” ch. 2 in Johnson, Sam Patch: The Famous Jumper (Hill & Wang, 2004): 41-77. PDF Christopher Jones, “The Anthracite Energy Transition,” ch. 2 in Routes of Power: Energy in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press, 2014): 59-87. PDF Chad Montrie, “I Think Less of the Factory than of My Native Dell’: Labor, Nature, and the Lowell Mill Girls,” Environmental History 9:2 (April 2004): 275-295. PDF Richard Voyer, et al, “New Bedford, Massachusetts: A Story of Urbanization and Ecological Connections,” Environmental History 5:3 (July 2000): 352-377. PDF |
Friday, July 15
| 9:00-10:00 | In the Classroom: Teaching Environmental History with Visual Sources (Jon T. Coleman and Kathryn Morse) |
| 10:00 | Coffee Break |
| 10:30-12:00 | Return to Landscape: Group discussion of plus further brainstorming with Peter John Brownlee, Manifest Destiny/Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape (Terra Foundation, 2008). |
| 12:00-1:00 | Lunch |
| 1:00-2:00 | Concluding remarks and discussion (GDH) |
| 2:00-5:00 | Departure or research in library |