From Seed Men to Bird Women: Pennsylvanians and the Environment

Abstract

Many of us, academics and the general reading public alike, find biographies fascinating. I'd warrant that we all have them on our bookshelves, read them for entertainment, and find in them many illustrative examples for our teaching. I would further posit that well-researched, fully contextualized, and gracefully written biographies can be rich sources of historical understanding. Thus, I would like to argue that appropriately selected biographical snapshots can be readily integrated into classroom teaching at almost any level and would capture our students' interests. The following set of individuals can be connected to important trends in environmental history and integrated nicely into several major periods of American history: colonial, early national, pre–Civil War industrialization, Progressive Era, 1920s and New Deal, and postwar modern America. This article highlights the environmental contributions of John and William Bartram, John James Audubon, George Inness, Jasper Francis Cropsy, Gifford Pinchot, Rosalie Edge, and Rachel Carson.