Category: Environmental Issues

Marches, Gas Masks, and Trash Sculptures: The First Hoosier Earth Day

Centerville High School students marching in Centerville, Indiana to demonstrate against automobile pollution for Earth Day, Palladium-Item, April 22, 1970, accessed newspapers.com.

Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar proclaimed April 22, 1970 as “a day for contemplation, conversation, and action to halt and reverse the impending crisis of the decay of man’s environment.” Throughout Indiana, Hoosiers acted to raise awareness about the imminent pollution crisis.  In addition to general clean up campaigns, panel discussions, and seminars, students built monuments made of trash and participated in marches. Some even donned gas masks or abandoned their cars, all to dramatize the need for citizens to “Give Earth a Chance.”

This was the first Earth Day. Historian Adam Rome describes the day as “the most famous little-known event in modern U.S. history.” He notes it was “bigger by far than any civil rights march or antiwar demonstration or woman’s liberation protest in the 1960s.” A whopping 22 million Americans took part in the first Earth Day. About 1,500 colleges and 10,000 schools, in addition to numerous churches, temples, city parks, and lawns in front of various government and corporate buildings hosted Earth Day activities. The event was so popular that Congress even shut down on Earth Day. About two-thirds of congressmen, both Democrats and Republicans, returned home to speak to their constituents at Earth Day rallies. President Richard Nixon, one of the only major politicians not to make a public speech on Earth Day, even admitted in a press release that he felt “the activities show the concern of people of all walks of life over the dangers to our environment.”

Earth Day participants blocked Fifth Avenue in New York, front page of The New York Times, April 23, 1970, accessed Project for Public Spaces.
Senator Gaylord Nelson, accessed Congress.gov

Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin, conceived Earth Day in 1969. After the Santa Barbara oil spill in January and February of that year, Nelson decided to ignite a mass protest in support of increased environmental action. He had crafted environmental legislation throughout the 1960s, including efforts to ban harmful chemical products, like the pesticide DDT and non-biodegradable detergents. He found few supporters for his initiatives in Congress. However, he surmised many citizens, worried about radioactive fallout, suburban sprawl, and smog, would care. Inspired by anti-war teach-ins in the 1960s, Nelson envisioned a nationwide teach-in event to educate people about pollution and encourage them to take action. If constituents supported environmental regulation, it was reasoned, politicians would follow.

Judy Hoody working at Environmental Teach-In Inc, 1970, Associated Press, accessed USATODAY.

Though Nelson came up with the general premise of Earth Day, he knew the movement would not flourish if he dictated the event. Instead, he announced plans for the teach-in in September 1969 and enlisted the help of Pete McCloskey, a Republican, as co-chair. Soon, individuals all over the country called Nelson’s office, asking for more information. To handle all the activity, Nelson set up a separate organization, Environmental Teach-In Inc., in December 1969. A small staff of twenty-somethings ran the organization. Though Nelson originally created the organization to help local organizers implement ideas and make contacts, Environmental Teach-In mainly became a publicity hub. Community organizers, which often included housewives, students, and scientists started planning Earth Day events before the organization opened.

Thus, the national office spent most of their time fielding calls from journalists to inform them about Earth Day plans in locales across the nation. Organizers planned programs to explore a variety of topics including population growth, pesticide use, nuclear fallout, waste disposal, suburban sprawl, in addition to mainstays like air, water, and land pollution.

Back in the Hoosier state, Governor Whitcomb issued an executive order endorsing Earth Day activities in Indiana. He wrote “I urge all of our citizens to act responsibly to alleviate the pollution menace to the environment.” In particular, Whitcomb noted:

Our educational institutions have the expertise and capability both to inform us of present dangers resulting from the ways we use our natural resources and to define and develop new technologies and systems needed to abate the pollution problem.

Whitcomb’s emphasis on educational institutions highlighted the primary role students played in Indiana Earth Day. Most of these activities took place at universities, colleges, and schools, which were all open to broader community members. However, it was mostly students, rather than faculty that organized the day’s events. Elizabeth Young, a sophomore at St.-Mary-of-the-Woods College near Terre Haute summarized why young Hoosiers rallied around Earth Day. She told the Indianapolis Star “if the kids our age don’t do something, we won’t live to be the age of our professors.”

LS Ayres sponsored Earth Day ad, Indianapolis Star, April 19, 1970 accessed newspapers.com.

Though most activities took place on April 22, students and community members often could attend ecological events at their local university or college throughout the week. Almost all the major secondary education institutions in Indiana sponsored panels, lectures and discussions featuring a variety of speakers, including politicians, scientists, and industry representatives. Senator Nelson even spoke at rallies at IU Bloomington and Notre Dame. Most of the Indiana congressional delegation returned from Washington, D.C. to speak to their constituents. At Purdue, industry representatives from Inland Steel, Eli Lilly, and General Motors participated in a panel discussion. Each talked about the measures their company was taking to abate pollution and answered questions from audience members. Many universities organized tree planting ceremonies or litter clean-up operations along Indiana waterways.

A student adding cans to the non-disposable monument in front of the Arts Terrance; Daily News, April 23, 1970, 4 accessed Ball State University Archives and Special Collections.

A few students staged more dramatic events to draw attention to environmentalism. At Ball State University, students constructed a pile of cans and bottles they collected from Muncie residents and created a “non-disposable, non-returnable monument” on the terrace of the Art Building. The monument symbolized junk, which students perceived as one of America’s primary pollution problems. At Purdue, students picked up litter along the Wabash River and displayed it all in front of the Lafayette courthouse for the public and local government representatives to see. DePauw students sponsored bus tours for community members to take throughout Greencastle, which would showcase Putnam County’s dirtiest and cleanest spots, including a junkyard, a pig feed next to a stream, homes designed specially to preserve the terrain, and an industrial plant featuring the latest pollution control measures. Others specifically tackled air pollution issues. Tri-State College in Angola (now Trine University), initiated a campaign urging students and faculty to leave their cars at home and walk to campus. One DePauw student rode a horse to campus bearing the sign “Ban the automobile.” DePauw also put an electric car on display.

Litter along the Indianapolis Canal looking South on Vermont Street with the State Office Building in the background, Indianapolis Star, April 22, 1970, accessed newspapers.com

Numerous younger students participated as well. Schools received packets detailing available speakers, films, materials, and suggested programs and activities to coordinate for Earth Day activities. Elementary school students picked up litter and participated in art and essay contests about environmental issues. In Portland, elementary students started a “Be a Pollution Policeman” campaign and created posters advising community members to report polluters that they later put up all over town.

Christy Miller, a student at Northwestern High School in Kokomo, stands among trash picked up around the school and asks other students to sign a petition against pollution, Kokomo Tribune, April 23, 1970, accessed newspapers.com.

North Central High School students in Indianapolis hosted an Earth Day program filled with speakers, seminars, and films. Students created a pollution themed skit and a collage made with all the litter they collected in the area. Several student musicians played music alongside a slide show of photographs of local pollution. At Southport High School, a group of students all wore gasmasks to class to highlight air pollution. Logansport physics students marched through town sporting posters and signs. At Edinburgh, high school students even produced a television program “Project Earth Day,” aired on a Columbus news station that examined water, air, and land pollution in the area.

Despite the major successes of Earth Day, a lot of issues remained unsolved. Whitney M. Young Jr. addressed the major deficit of the Earth Day celebration and of the ensuing environmental movement, in the Indianapolis Recorder in 1970: Earth Day programs often failed to incorporate race or class into the problem of pollution. Though pollution was finally spreading to the suburbs, people of color had often been forced to live and work in places containing dangerous pollutants for years through zoning ordinances and prejudiced real estate practices. He noted, “I get the uneasy feeling that some people who have suddenly discovered the pollution issue embrace it because its basic concern is improving middle class life.” He concluded:

The choice isn’t between the physical environment and the human. Both go hand in hand, and the widespread concern with pollution must be joined by a similar concern for wiping out the pollutants of racism and poverty.

Earth Day did, however, inspire landmark legislation and institutions to address pollution. In later years, some environmental justice organizations tackled the issues Young brought up. Adam Rome notes Earth Day “inspired the formation of lobbying groups, recycling centers, and environmental studies programs. Earth Day also turned thousands of participants into committed environmentalists.” Before Earth Day, Americans addressed environmental issues in disjointed ways. Old conservation groups from the Progressive era focused mainly on wilderness preservation. Other groups focused on single issue campaigns, like air pollution. Earth Day pushed numerous related environmental concerns into one platform and provided a space for concerned citizens to come together and decide how America should fight the environmental crisis of the 1970s. The constituent support Earth Day garnered encouraged Congress to enact a swell of landmark environmental legislation after Earth Day, including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in December 1970, the Clean Air Act amendments of 1970, the Clean Water Act in 1972, and the Endangered Species Act in 1973.

Advertisement for Marlin McDaniel for State Senate, emphasizing his work with the environment, including checking Gary air pollution and sampling industrial pollution in the White River, Palladium-Item, May 5, 1974, 56 accessed newspapers.com.

Indiana politicians also dedicated more of their time to environmental issues after Earth Day. Governor Whitcomb started “Operation Cleansweep” in May 1970, a massive campaign to clean up polluted and littered landscapes across the state. On the first anniversary of Earth Day in 1971, Mayor Lugar launched Indianapolis’s first recycling program to collect cardboard and metal.  Indiana also became the first state in the nation to ban phosphate detergents, which scientists discovered as a major polluter of waterways, in 1971. Additionally, more Hoosiers joined or formed environmental organizations to make sure the state government stayed on top of environmental regulation. For example, the Indiana Eco-Coalition formed in 1971 to serve as an umbrella organization to represent the majority of Indiana’s environmental activist groups and provide information on impending environmental legislation.

Clearly, when people shouted “Give Earth a Chance,” it worked.

Hoosier Women’s Fight for Clean Air

William A. Oates, South Indianapolis, 1967, Indianapolis Star, December 3, 1967, accessed newspapers.com

On February 5, 1970, the Franklin Daily Journal in Franklin, Indiana proclaimed air pollution the “Disease of the Seventies.” It predicted that “gas masks, domed cities, special contact lenses to prevent burned eyes” would become “standard equipment if life is to exist” by 2000, unless action against widespread air pollution was taken soon.

Neal Boenzi, New York City Smog, 1966, accessed Wikipedia.

The Daily Journal’s predictions were not off mark. Dense smog filled with toxic pollutants had already killed and sickened thousands of people in Donora, Pennsylvania in 1948, in London in 1952, and New York City in 1966. By the late 1960s, this type of deadly smog had begun to appear in nearly every metropolitan area in the US.

However, it’s now 2017, no gas masks, domed cities, or protective eye wear needed. Why? You can thank Hoosier women, who fought for air pollution control measures since the 1910s.

Comic that appeared in the Indianapolis Star, April 3, 1968, accessed newspapers.com

Women first entered the fight against coal to combat air pollution. When burned, coal releases a significant amount of smoke and soot. Londoners began burning coal for fuel as early as the 1200s. Virtually every Londoner relied on coal for fuel and heat by the 1600s as England’s forests became depleted. As industries and factories powered by coal emerged across England during the Industrial Revolution in the 17th and 18th centuries, many British cities developed air pollution problems. By 1800, a chronic cloud of smoke enveloped London. Soot and smoke dusted the streets, ruined clothing, and corroded buildings.

Major American cities did not escape the smoky air that plagued the Brits. European settlers cleared much of America’s forests for firewood, construction materials, and to make room for crops and cities. As the Industrial Revolution began on the East Coast at the end of the 18th century, industries, homes, and businesses began to rely on coal for heat and power. Dirty air followed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Dark smoke palls drifted through many urban areas at noon that reduced visibility to less than a block. The dirty, dark atmosphere caused traffic accidents, injuries, and even death. Doctors increasingly linked the drab, polluted air to depression and tuberculosis.

Indianapolis was no exception. The Indianapolis News reported on February 11, 1904 that “for a year or more, the smoke cloud has constantly been increasing until during the last two or three months, the city has taken a place among the smoke cities of the country and by some visitors is credited with being as dirty as Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, or St. Louis.”  That summer, the News described “dense volumes of black soot and smoke” blowing through business and residential districts across the city. A journalist wrote “Eyes and lungs are filled and as for wearing clean linen any length of time, that is one of the impossibilities.” The journalist noted that the smoke damaged goods in downtown shops and observed “every article in them to be thickly dotted with soot.”

“Aerial View of Indianapolis, 1913,” Panoramic Photograph Images, Indiana Historical Society Digital Image Collections.

Despite these issues, fighting smoke pollution in Indiana would be hard. Coal is one of Indiana’s natural resources and became a mainstay of the Hoosier economy during the early 20th century. It was discovered along the Wabash River in 1736. Organized coal production began in the 1830s and after World War I, production exceeded 30 million tons. Furthermore, coal and the smoke it produced became a symbol for economic prosperity nationwide. Often, postcards and promotional imagery for cities featured pictures of smokestacks emitting billowing, black clouds of smoke across the urban landscape. A writer for the Indianapolis News in defense of coal wrote in 1906, “But if the coal smokes, let it smoke . . . Wherever there is smoke there is fire, and the flames that make coal smoke brighten the world of industry and bring comfort to the untold hundreds of thousands of toilers. Let it smoke. The clouds of smoke that ascend to heaven are the pennants of prosperity.”

Bledsoe Coal Company Mine near Center Point, Indiana, 1931, Martin’s Photo Shop Collection, Indiana Historical Society Digital Images Collection

Indiana produces bituminous coal, a soft coal that often creates a lot of smoke when burned. Many cities had begun to abate smoke pollution simply by requiring residents and industry to burn anthracite coal, a harder coal that burned cleaner. Since bituminous coal was a major source of wealth for Indiana, many Indianapolis residents and businessmen did not want to take this course of action, even though they did support cleaner air for the city.

One method to abate smoke, but still burn Indiana bituminous coal was to install automatic stoking devices in factories and homes. These devices distributed the coal in furnaces more evenly so it produced less smoke. In 1904, the American Brewing Company on Ohio Street downtown installed one of these devices. According to the Indianapolis News, this device allowed the company to burn just as much bituminous Indiana coal as it had last year, but produce far less smoke: the journalist described the company’s smokestacks as “practically smokeless.”

However, few businesses followed in the American Brewing Company’s footsteps. In 1910, Indianapolis women formed the Smoke Abatement Association operating under the slogan “Better and Cleaner Indianapolis” to try to get housewives and manufacturers to stop burning bituminous coal. These women became part of a nationwide movement of middle and upper class housewives practicing “Civic Motherhood” or “Municipal Housekeeping” that drew on women’s traditional roles as protectors of the home. These women reformers argued they could use their skills as household managers to improve the health of the communities their families lived in and thus began to participate in political discussions surrounding health, pollution, and sanitation, like air pollution.

Announcement from Smoke Abatement Association, Indianapolis Star, January 31, 1911, p. 16, accessed newspapers.com

The group first asked women to reduce smoke produced in their homes by installing smoke control devices. The group offered demonstrations for proper coal firing and issued reports on local residences and factories that issued a lot of smoke. In 1913, the group succeeded in getting a city ordinance passed which banned burning bituminous coal in a downtown district bordered by Maryland Street, East Street, New York Street, and Capitol Avenue. To honor Indiana’s coal production industry, bituminous coal could be burned if a smoke prevention device was installed. It was hoped this ordinance would create a clean, smoke free section of the city to improve health and help merchants preserve goods otherwise ruined by the sooty air.

“Our Three Lines of National Defense,” World War I Propaganda Poster, accessed http://www.ww1propaganda.com/

Though the Smoke Abatement Association remained active throughout the 1910s, US entry into World War I reverted smoke pollution’s image. Black and gray smoke churning out of smokestacks once again became symbolic of progress, this time in support of the war effort. Throughout the 1920s until the 1950s, air pollution remained regulated at the local level; state and federal governments largely remained aloof of the issue.

 

However, a more complex air pollution emerged in the 1940s that became a struggle for locals to solve on their own. In the summer of 1940, a thick eye-stinging, tear-producing, throat-irritating haze never before experienced enveloped Los Angeles. Though it eventually cleared, episodes continued as America entered World War II: the effects on health were so irritating, some Los Angelinos speculated it was a chemical attack from the Japanese. The problem persisted into 1943: various industries were suspected of causing the issue, but when they were shut down, the harmful air remained. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, this phenomenon, known increasingly as “smog,” afflicted almost every major urban area in the United States.

Los Angeles Street filled with smog, 1943, accessed http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist383/LosAngeles.html

This was a complex type of pollution: growth in industry during World War II and the postwar era increased the amounts of emissions released into the air from factories as they burned oil and coal to create goods for the war effort, and later refrigerators, household appliances, and other consumer goods. During this time, the development of new chemicals, drugs, pesticides, food additives, and plastics also proliferated the consumer market. When manufactured, these products released a number of synthetic chemicals into the atmosphere that decomposed much more slowly than those emitted by older industries and remained hazardous longer. Lastly, the rise in population and expansion of the suburbs increased the use of automobiles. Cars blew out gasoline vapor that became a major ingredient in smog formation. All these combined emissions created a much more complex air pollution that was much harder to get rid of that would require cooperation from consumers, industry, and government regulation at all levels.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument, 1967 Indianapolis Star November 19, 1967, p. 29, accessed newspapers.com

This type of pollution first appeared in Indianapolis in the mid-1940s, but did not become much of a chronic problem until the late 1960s. The pollution became so bad that it stained and eroded the limestone on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument downtown, as well as the façade of the Statehouse. It also became tied to increased rates of emphysema, lung cancer, and other serious diseases. Again, Hoosier women stepped up to try to improve the air in their neighborhoods, communities, and the state at large. They became part of a larger movement of women concerned with air pollution across the country and helped make it a national issue during the 1970s.

Letter League of Women Voters of Indianapolis sent out lobbying for stronger air pollution control, League Bulletin, May 1970, accessed University of Indianapolis Digital Mayoral Archives.

Many women fought air pollution through the League of Women Voters. League members traditionally conducted extensive research on political issues, conducted educational campaigns, and lobbied local, state and federal governments to make sure appropriate regulation was enacted. League of Women Voters members in Indianapolis, Richmond, and Seymour branches attended and testified at local air quality hearings, wrote to representatives urging more stringent air quality regulations, and sponsored programs and produced literature to teach the public about air pollution, current regulations, and what they could do to improve the solution. For example, these methods encouraged people to stop open burning of waste and carpool, bike, or walk to reduce automobile emissions.

HELP meeting, 1965, Terre Haute Tribune, September 18, 1965, p. 2, accessed newspapers.com

Other women’s groups in the state took similar action. Housewives Effort for Local Progress, or HELP, a women’s group in Terre Haute dedicated to improving the city, took on air pollution as one of its major agendas. They lobbied local commissioners and educated the public on air pollution. The Richmond Women’s Club organized funds to purchase educational materials on air pollution to distribute to local students. Other women joined ecology groups, such as the Environmental Coalition of Metropolitan Indianapolis and fought for the passage of many regulations to control harmful gasses emitted by industry, such as Sulphur oxides. Chairwoman Elaine Fisher summarized the important role of the public in abating pollution: “Industry is pressuring . . . on one side. The only hope is for the public to give equal pressure on the other side.”

These women’s groups, and others across the nation, raised awareness of air pollution and made it a national issue. Most groups encouraged the federal government to get involved with air pollution. Since air pollution spreads across local and state boundaries, it made sense for increased federal oversight to control the issue. It is not a surprise that women’s fight against air pollution coincided with the passage of key federal environmental legislation, such as the Clean Air Act amendments of 1970, which gave federal officials authority over reducing air pollution throughout the nation and the power to set federal emissions states have to comply with. The Clean Air Act has produced purer air for all Americans: since 1970 its regulations reduced the levels of common pollutants, and thus prevented deaths from disease and cancer and decreased damage to plants, crops, and forests previously caused by air pollution. Thank you, Hoosier women.

Flocks that Darken the Heavens: The Passenger Pigeon in Indiana

Julian Pender Hume, cover Extinct Birds, accessed Errol Fuller, The Passenger Pigeon, pg. 74.

One day in rural Monroe County, Indiana during the 1870s, 10-year-old Walter Rader witnessed an astonishing natural phenomenon: passenger pigeons had gathered at his family farm “by the millions.” As the birds descended on the farm, they blocked out “almost the entire visible area of sky.” He remembered that so many pigeons roosted in the trees surrounding the farm at night “that their weight would often break large limbs from the trees.” The crash rang so loudly he could hear it clearly inside his house.

John James Audubon’s painting of the male and female passenger pigeon, accessed Wikimedia. To see a 3D view of a passenger pigeon, visit the Smithsonian’s webpage.

Children in the 1870s became the last generation to witness such unbelievable flights of passenger pigeons. When the Indianapolis Star shared Rader’s memories in 1934, the passenger pigeon had been extinct already for twenty years, though it had reigned as North America’s most abundant bird since the 16th century. Passenger pigeons, once so numerous that they could disrupt natural landscapes, impact the nation’s economy, and shape American social life and cuisine, became a rarity by 1900. At their disappearance, some theorized that all the pigeons had drowned in the Gulf of Mexico, flew across the Pacific to Asia, or succumbed to some mysterious disease. What happened? How could a bird so populous that it darkened the sky be reduced to none in mere decades?

The passenger pigeon had a long history of striking awe in mere humans. Its large flocks astonished early European settlers and visitors. Ralphe Humor described the wild pigeons he saw in Virginia in 1615 as

beyond number or imagination, my selfe have seene three or four hours together flockes in the aire, so thicke that even they have shadowed the skie from us.

Portrait of John James Audubon by John Syme, White House Historical Association, accessed Wikimedia.

Even early ornithologists could not believe the amounts of passenger pigeons they witnessed. John James Audubon, one of the most prominent early North American naturalists, encountered such a large flight of passenger pigeons along the Ohio River in Kentucky that he was “struck with amazement.” He recalled the “air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow.” Despite the excrement, he decided to try to count all the pigeons that flew overhead, as any dedicated ornithologist would. He pulled out a pencil and paper and made a dot on the page for every flock that passed by. Audubon gave up after about twenty minutes, as the sky overhead was still inundated with pigeons. He counted 163 dots on the page. He later calculated that he saw well over one billion pigeons that day.

According to historian Joel Greenberg, “Nothing in the human record suggests that there was ever another bird like the passenger pigeon.” Estimations indicate three to five billion passenger pigeons inhabited North America from the 1500s through the early 1800s, constituting 25-40% of the continent’s total bird population. The passenger pigeon often traveled in huge flocks and left undeniable marks on the landscapes they inhabited. They formed roosts (resting sites) and nests for breeding in trees spread across miles. Their collective weight broke branches and sometimes toppled trees. When the pigeons finally left, it sometimes looked like tornado had swept across the land.

Passenger pigeon range, accessed birdwatchingdaily.com

The bird only lived in North America, generally east of the Rocky Mountains, between the Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Passenger Pigeons, always on the move in their search for enough food to feed their massive flocks, generally flew north in the spring and south in the fall. Indiana falls smack dab in the middle of the passenger pigeon’s range and migration path. William Hebert wrote one of the earliest extant records of the pigeon in Indiana. In 1823, while he visited Harmony, he saw “astonishing flights of pigeons” and millions congregated in the nearby woods. Since pigeons upon pigeons inhabited each tree, no guns were even necessary to hunt them. Parties of people went into the forest at night, armed with poles, and simply knocked armloads of pigeons off the trees.

During the 18th and 19th century, Americans put their lives on hold when pigeons came to town. The bewildering sight of pigeons upon pigeons as far as the eye could see attracted amazed onlookers. The influx of pigeons became a free, relatively easy source of food that required little skill to capture or kill. Since pigeons often traveled and nested in such high concentrations, it was almost impossible to miss shooting a bird (or two) with a rifle or capture huge numbers with a net. Naturalist Bénédict Henry Révoil witnessed pigeon fever strike Hartford, Kentucky in 1847. He attested that for three days “the population never laid aside their weapons. All—men and children—had a double barreled gun or rifle in their hands,” waiting for the right moment to shoot through the thick cloud of pigeons flying above them. “In the evening the conversation of everybody turned upon pigeons . . . For three days nothing was eaten but boiled, or broiled, or stewed, or baked pigeons.”

Drawing of a passenger pigeon shoot in Northern Louisiana by Smith Bennett, c. 1875, accessed Wikimedia.

Indiana newspapers often updated Hoosiers on the comings and goings of passenger pigeons in the state. In 1850, an enormous pigeon roost formed near Lafayette, Indiana. According to newspaper reports, four men went to the roost to hunt and returned to town with 598 pigeons. The Indiana State Sentinel encouraged others to head to the roost because “the pigeons are unusually fat and most excellent eating.” In 1854, another roost ten miles long by five miles wide near Brookville, Indiana attracted persons “coming many miles to enjoy the sport.” An Indiana Herald journalist reported that:

the roar of their wings on arriving and departing from the roost is tremendous and the flocks, during the flight, darken the heavens. The ground is covered to the depth of several inches with their manure. Thousands [of pigeons] are killed by casualties from breaking limbs of trees.

Yet, the Indiana American assured readers to come to the roost as “There are pigeons enough for all.”

Example of pigeon updates in the Marshall County Republican [Plymouth, Indiana], September 10, 1857, pg. 3, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.
Pigeon flocks that blocked the sun and toppled trees supported many Americans’ belief that their nation supplied an endless bounty of natural resources. No matter man’s actions, there would always be an inexhaustible amount of pigeons. Though the concept sounds a bit irrational today, historian Jennifer Price notes in her book Flight Maps that 18th- and early 19th-century Americans would probably have to stretch their own imaginations to envision our landscape as it now exists, crisscrossed with highways, dotted with skyscrapers, and cleared for agriculture. Most European settlers came from nations that had been over-hunted for centuries, so the incredible amounts of game they encountered in America seemed impossible for humans to eradicate. Additionally, Price explains that the freedom to hunt (like shooting a pigeon) became a social, political, and ecological act unique to America. In many European nations, only the upper class who controlled most of the lands where game remained could hunt. She observes “To hunt meant so much more than mere utilitarian gain. To go hunting was to tap into the continent’s bounty, to supplement the table, to exercise your skill with a shotgun, perhaps to band together with neighbors after plowing.”

This strong hunting tradition Price describes still plays out in present day Hoosier culture. For example, during the 2016 election Hoosiers voted to include an amendment that protects the right to fish and hunt, subject to state wildlife regulations, in the state constitution. Joel Schumm, a clinical law professor at Indiana University, told the Indianapolis Star this protection reflects the fact that “hunting and fishing is deeply ingrained in our culture and our state.”

During the latter half of the 19th century, revolutionary transportation advancements put the purportedly inexhaustible pigeon population to the test. Roads, canals, and railroads connected the far corners of the country and created a national market. As the railroad expanded into rich game areas in the west, market hunters could capture or kill millions of pigeons at vast nesting sites in the North and ship them east for huge profits, instead of just selling a few at local markets.

Indiana State Sentinel [Indianapolis, Indiana], 8 May 1851, pg. 3, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.
High class restaurants and trap shooters supplied much of the demand for all these pigeons. In the 1830s, the first fine dining establishments, as opposed to the more common tavern or eating house, appeared. Passenger pigeons became a delicacy wealthy Americans ate in rich sauces or alongside truffles, instead of baking them at home in pies. Trapshooting arrived in the United States from England in the 1830s and became a popular sport in the 1870s. Contestants shot at targets, namely live passenger pigeons, launched into the air from traps. Sportsmen’s associations across the country hosted events that required thousands of birds for contestants to shoot at.

Can you find pigeon or squab (a young pigeon) on the menu? Delmonico’s, New York City, April 18, 1899, accessed New York Public Library.

As trains began to ship thousands of pigeons across the nation daily to supply demand, Révoil predicted that the passenger pigeon was “threatened with destruction . . . if the world endure a century longer, I will wager that the amateur of ornithology will find no pigeons except in select Museums of Natural History” in 1847. The last large flocks of pigeons appeared in the 1870s. Throughout the 1880s, ornithologists and sportsmen reported smaller and smaller flocks, until they began to worry none were left.

At the turn of the 20th century, ornithologists and naturalists called for increased wild game protection. Many sportsmen began advocating for conservation, or wise use, of natural resources and tried to overturn the widespread assumption that America’s natural resources were unlimited. Sportsmen worried that without intervention, hunting as a leisure activity would disappear because no game would be left. In 1900, Congress signed the Lacey Act into law. Championed by sportsmen and naturalists alike, the law protected the preservation of wild birds by making it a federal crime to hunt game with the intent of selling it in another state.

Martha, the last passenger pigeon, accessed Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

However, it was too late for the passenger pigeon. During the 1910s, some ornithologists offered cash rewards to the individual that could bring them to a flock or nest of passenger pigeons, as a last ditch effort to save the species. All rewards went unfulfilled, since no passenger pigeons could be found. Historian Joel Greenberg recently found new evidence, further examined in his book A Feathered River Across the Sky, that the last verified passenger pigeon in the wild was shot here in Indiana, near Laurel on April 3, 1902. A young boy shot the bird and brought it to local taxidermist Charles K. Muchmore, who recognized it at once, and preserved it until ornithologist Amos Butler verified it was indeed a passenger pigeon. Unfortunately, a leaky roof destroyed the specimen around 1915. No more substantial evidence appeared in front of Butler, or any other ornithologist for that matter, of the passenger pigeon’s existence. Butler concluded in 1912 “The Passenger Pigeon is probably now extinct,” in the wild. The last captive passenger pigeon, Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914, marking the official extinction of the species.

National Association of Audubon Societies, c. 1920, accessed Errol Fuller, The Passenger Pigeon, pg. 50.

According to Iowa Representative John F. Lacey, creator of the Lacey Act, the extinction of the passenger pigeon spurred necessary support from the public, often from hunters and sportsmen, for broader wildlife protection. Though the passenger pigeon could not be saved, other animals in danger of a similar fate, like the American bison, the egret, and the trumpeter swan, survive to this day.

On April 3, 2017, 115 years after the last verified wild passenger pigeon was shot in Indiana, the Indiana Historical Bureau will unveil a state historic marker dedicated to passenger pigeon extinction. It will be located in Metamora, Indiana, five miles from where the last passenger pigeon was shot.

Check back on our Facebook page and website for more details on the marker dedication ceremony, open to the public.

“Is Your Christmas Tree a Hoosier, too?”

photo-1_christmas_tree_sale
Richard A. Greene, “Christmas Tree Sale,” 1958, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, accessed Indiana Memory.

In 1950, the Indianapolis Star asked its readers “Is your Christmas tree a Hoosier, too?” Turns out, there was a good chance it was. The article reported that by December 17, 1950, Indiana State Forests and private growers had already cut 100,000 pine trees for the Christmas season. How did the state get into the Christmas tree business?

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The royal family with their tree in Illustrated London News, December 1848, accessed British Library.

German immigrants brought the Christmas tree tradition to America in the 1700s. However, the practice didn’t catch on for the rest of the nation until the mid-19th century when England’s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, popularized it. In 1848, an illustration of the royal family celebrating around a Christmas tree appeared in the Illustrated London News. Eventually, putting up a Christmas tree spread from Britain to the United States as individuals sought to emulate the fashionable royal family.

By the time Christmas trees became a relatively common American tradition, American forests were dwindling, including in Indiana. European-American settlers had cleared much of Indiana’s original 20 million acres of forests for farming, fuel, and lumber by the mid-1800s. As forests disappeared, Americans began to realize the natural resources in their vast country were not inexhaustible. A new conservation ethic emerged, which championed rational use and planning of natural resources, including forests so enough lumber (and of course, Christmas trees) would be available for future generations.

For some, the new conservation ethic clashed with the Christmas tree tradition. How could conservationists approve chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees every December for the holiday festivities? According to legend, President Theodore Roosevelt, an ardent conservationist, refused to have a Christmas tree in the White House because he was opposed to excessive lumbering practices. During his presidency, journalists speculated in newspapers whether the Roosevelt family would put up a tree. According to some accounts, in 1902, Roosevelt forbade his family to have a Christmas tree. In retaliation, Roosevelt’s son, Archie hid a tree in a closet, had a White House electrician hang some lights on it, and surprised his family with it on Christmas Day.

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Unlike the Roosevelts, President Grover Cleveland and his family celebrated with a Christmas tree in the White House, 1894, accessed whitehousehistory.org.
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Early advertisement for a Christmas Eve Festival in Indianapolis, Indianapolis Star, December 24, 1863, accessed newspapers.com.

Hoosiers too were conflicted between their new commitment to conservation and love of holiday festivities. The first advertisements for Christmas trees for sale appeared in Indiana newspapers around the 1860s. At the same time, Christmas parties or festivals for children, all featuring Christmas trees and gift giving, began to be held.

On the other hand, Indiana started its state forestry program in 1901 and established the state’s first forest reservation in Clark County, later known as the Clark State Forest, in 1903. The state began experimental plantings at the state forest in 1904 to determine the trees best suited to Indiana soils and thus reforest the state.

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“The Artificial Tree,” Indianapolis Journal, December 10, 1903, accessed newspapers.com.

As state foresters slowly repopulated the state with trees, Hoosiers debated whether they could be conservationists, without also being a Scrooge. James S. Whipple, state forest, fish, and game commissioner issued a statement in 1907 encouraging families to use artificial trees instead of cutting down young evergreen trees for the holidays. Whipple said “To destroy millions of these trees every year when we are in such need of more timber in this country . . . seems very wasteful.”

In 1911, the Angola Herald of Angola, Indiana printed an article titled “Sacrifice of the Christmas Trees,” complete with several photos of logging operations. One photo of a pile of freshly cut pines next to trucks laden with logs was captioned “Defacing Nature for a Night’s Pleasure.” The article asked “Will the children in 1925 have Christmas trees? . . . Indications point to the supposition that within the next 15 years the supply of the evergreen trees with which we deck our living rooms annually at the feast of St. Nicholas will be so small that folk in ordinary walks of life will not be able to afford a tree.” The article noted that trees were so scarce on the east coast and Midwest, most Christmas trees had to be imported from Canada.

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Angola Herald, December 13, 1911, p. 2 accessed newspapers.com.

Luckily, most Hoosier conservationists recognized the beloved Christmas tree could be used to advance forestry in the state. Frank N. Wallace, the state entomologist, frankly told the Indianapolis News in 1924 “Let’s have Christmas trees.” Wallace said he believed the Christmas tree custom “can be utilized as a boom to forestation, for the American Christmas traditions are built around the tree and in order that future generations may have the privileges of the present generation,” the present generation must support reforestation. The next year, esteemed botanist and state forester Charles C. Deam encouraged the local communities to begin growing enough Christmas trees to satisfy local demand. Deam noted that large waste lands unsuitable for agriculture all over Indiana could be used to grow common Christmas tree varieties, including Norway spruce, white spruce, balsam fir, and Douglas fir. Since prices on imported fir and spruce had increased that year by 30%, Christmas tree farming could be quite profitable for the Hoosier economy.

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Christmas trees trucked out at Morgan-Monroe State Forest (Martinsville, Indiana), Outdoor Indiana, December 1957, accessed Indiana University Digital Collections.
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Part of Kern Christmas Tree farm in Fulton County, Outdoor Indiana, December 1964, accessed Indiana University Digital Collections.

Christmas tree farms began to spread across the state, especially after World War II. State foresters provided guidance on forestry management, tree trimming and cutting. Farmers could jumpstart their Christmas tree farm by purchasing and planting pine seedlings nurtured at one of several state forests. However, farmers had to be dedicated; growing a Christmas tree was time consuming. In 1964, Outdoor Indiana featured the Bob Kern Christmas Tree Farm in Fulton County, Indiana. Kern established his farm in about 1947. He managed 400 acres of Scotch and white pine, as well as other species of spruce and fir. Kern emphasized Christmas tree growing was so difficult because farmers had to pay particular attention to cultivating richly colored, symmetrical trees that consumers would want in their homes. Weeds had to kept down and each tree pruned to its desired taper. Furthermore, a six foot tree generally took at least six years to grow. Since it took so much time to produce just one tree, seedlings had to be planted soon after a tree was cut to replace it.

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Bob Kern and his wife shearing Christmas trees to get them in the perfect shape. Notice the stark difference between sheared (left) and unsheared (right). Outdoor Indiana, December 1964, accessed Indiana University Digital Collections.

While Christmas trees survived the conservation era, similar doubts arose in the 1970s during the environmental movement. Postwar affluence fueled by factories, cars, and consumer goods resulted in increasingly polluted water, air, and land. Growing numbers of people, including Hoosiers, lobbied for stronger environmental legislation and adopted new practices, like recycling, to reduce their impact on their natural surroundings. Some still worried cutting down trees for the holidays had a detrimental impact on the environment.

EJ Lott, Purdue University Extension forester assured environmentalists in 1972 that for every tree cut, two or three more were planted the next spring to replace it. He emphasized that “an acre of growing Christmas trees will produce daily oxygen requirements for 18 people.” Furthermore, tree plantations provided not only aesthetically pleasing landscapes, but quality habitats for wildlife. In reality, Christmas trees were a crop, just like soybeans or corn. As long as consumers bought trees, Christmas tree farmers would plant even more to replace those they harvested. As the Herald of Jasper Indiana noted succinctly,

If there was no market for Christmas trees, growers would not plant them. Enjoy your tree.

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League of Women Voters and youth group tagging trees with recycling tags at Higbee’s Christmas Tree Farm in Anderson, Indiana, Anderson Herald November 29, 1975,  accessed newspapers.com.

Environmentalists also attempted to halt the tendency to burn or throw out Christmas trees once the holidays were over. Various groups in Indiana began fitting Christmas trees into the new “reduce, reuse, recycle” attitude. In Anderson, Indiana, the League of Women Voters started a tree recycling program in 1972.  Instead of throwing out old Christmas trees, they would be chopped up into chips for mulch that could be used later in landscaping and gardening. The Anderson Daily Bulletin noted that “by recycling these trees, we’re not wasting a valuable natural resource and actually are saving taxpayers’ money by not using up much-needed space in the city landfill.” To raise awareness, League of Women Voters members put tags on Christmas trees for sale that asked future owners to recycle the tree once the Christmas season was over. In 1973, the group reported that they had recycled over 700 trees. In a letter to the editor featured in the Anderson Daily Bulletin, the co-chairman of the group wrote “While other cities were still burning trees, Anderson was taking a step forward in ecology.” Other organizations encouraged the purchase of living Christmas trees that one could replant in a park or their backyard after the holiday season was over.

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Schneider Nursery advertisement, The Tribune [Seymour, Indiana], December 22, 1973, accessed newspapers.com
Some practices from the conservation era and environmental movement endure in Indiana. Today, the Indiana Christmas Tree Growers Association recommends buying a Hoosier tree to support the local economy and recycling it after the holidays. The Association lists almost 50 Hoosier Christmas tree farms on its website. It also notes Indiana ranks 11th in the nation for Christmas tree production, and produces 200,000 harvestable trees a year. Apparently, a lot of people can still say their tree is a Hoosier, too.

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“Family cutting down a Christmas tree, Beech Grove, Indiana, ca. 1960,” The Indiana Album: Historic Photographs from the Attic to the Web, accessed Indiana Memory

Charles C. Deam: From Typhoid Survivor to the Great Hoosier Botanist

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Charles Deam, c. 1914. Photo from Robert C. Kriebel, Plain Ol’ Charlie Deam (Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press/Indiana Academy of Sciences, 1994), n.p.

In the summer of 1881, typhoid fever swept through small town Bluffton, Indiana. Sixteen-year-old Charles C. Deam was one of the many Wells County residents who caught the disease. In the time before antibiotics, basic medical practice offered few treatments, especially in rural America where trained doctors were scarce. According to Deam’s biographer, Robert Kriebel, Deam survived after drinking an old pioneer remedy: milk boiled with an herb called Old-Field Balsam. This incident marked the first chapter in Deam’s dedication to studying and promoting Indiana’s plant life as a botanist, first state forester, and author.

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Charles Deam outside his drugstore in Bluffton, 1908, Photo courtesy of Get Your Botany On! blog.

Charles Deam was born on August 30, 1865 in Bluffton, Indiana. He grew up on a typical pioneer farm, attended country school and later, the town’s new high school. He completed several consecutive stints teaching public school, attending DePauw University, and working as a farm laborer before deciding to enter the drugstore business in 1888. After an apprenticeship in Marion, Indiana, and a brief assignment as a druggist in Kokomo, Deam returned to Bluffton to run a drugstore in 1891.

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Deam and his wife, Stella, examining a pinecone at their arboretum in 1940. Image from Robert C. Kriebel, Plain Ol’ Charlie Deam, n.p.

Each job required long hours. At Kokomo, he worked a tiring 84 hours per week to keep the store open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. To deal with the stress, a doctor advised Deam to get out of the drugstore and take a walk through the countryside each day. However, Deam’s incredible work ethic refused to let him simply take leisurely strolls. Instead, Deam and his wife, Stella drew on their passion for collecting things, such as stamps, rocks, or coins, and picked samples of plants and flowers they found on their walks.

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Gray’s New Manual of Botany, courtesy of Archive.org.

Deam’s curiosity about the various plants he encountered grew. Luckily, he met Bruce Williamson, a zoology student at Ohio State University, in 1896. One day, Deam and Stella discovered an unusual looking plant and brought it to Bruce to identify. Bruce simply handed over a copy of Gray’s Manual of Botany so they could figure it out themselves. Deam enjoyed going through the book’s key to uncover the plant’s identity; a moth mullein, Verbascum blattaria.

From then on, Deam was hooked. Bruce taught Deam botany basics: how to take field notes, the proper methods to collect specimens, and which books to use to help identify plants. Deam mounted his first specimen on September 13, 1896, a snapdragon called Ilysanthes dubia. Deam, ever the perfectionist, mounted it according to botany standards, on 11.5 by 16.6 inch paper. Eventually Deam collected more than 73,000 specimens, each meticulously catalogued this way. He even collected specimens from every one of Indiana’s 1,008 townships.

Don’t be fooled, though. For Deam, botany was more than a quest to grow a large collection of rare specimens. Robert Kriebel described Deam’s passion for botany as a vehicle to “detect subtle changes in nature, the spreading of some plants, and the disappearance of others. These ongoing changes were baffling, exciting, and unexplored.”

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A specimen Deam collected of an oak tree in Wells County, Indiana in 1944, now held at Purdue University. Photo courtesy of Purdue Herbaria.

In his early years as a fledgling botanist, Deam spent his Sundays biking to neighboring Indiana counties to find more specimens to study. He and Stella also took collecting trips to Florida, Guatemala, and Mexico. On these trips, the two often found a few rare or previously unidentified plants. He sent specimens to notable, professional botanists at Harvard, University of Michigan, Purdue University, Indiana University and other institutions, who later named them for the first time and shared Deam’s discoveries with the broader scientific community. Botanists saw the value of Deam’s carefully mounted specimens. Deam carefully chose the specimen that most accurately represented its species, and noted the date, place of collection, and description of the surrounding habitat and environment. These connections helped Deam evolve from an amateur botanist into a nationally-known professional.

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Charles Deam working at his home in Bluffton, 1949. Image from Kriebel, Plain Ol’ Charlie Deam, n.p.

Around 1905, Deam began to realize that the most successful botanists focused on a specific area of the field and limited their work to a certain geographic area. He decided to focus on Indiana plants only, and gave away hundreds of specimens he collected outside the state to herbariums housed in universities, museums, and other institutions around the country. This new statewide focus allowed Deam to publish his findings in the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science and he slowly became somewhat of a star in the scientific community in the state.

As Deam’s renown spread, Governor Thomas Marshall asked Deam to act as the first full-time Indiana state forester in 1909. The job would require him to live in Indianapolis for part of the year and spend the other part supervising the newly created Clark State Forest near Henryville, Indiana. At first, Deam denied the appointment. Between his drugstore business and his collecting trips in the field, he felt he had no time to spare. However, after much persuasion from colleagues, as well friends and neighbors in Bluffton who had lobbied hard to secure Deam the appointment, Deam realized that he would wield tremendous influence as the state forester over botany, as well as forestry in Indiana. The position permitted state-paid travel and further opportunities to botanize on weekends. Furthermore, the ability to flash a state badge (in dire situations only, of course) would allow him entrance to lands that before had been restricted.

Deam worked as state forester from 1909-1913 and 1917-1928. Under Deam’s supervision, a period of outstanding forestry education and research began in Indiana. He kept detailed, official records of the state’s important experimental tracts at Clark State Forest. These experimental tracts were part of Indiana’s attempts to reforest the state. Indiana’s first settlers had long ago cleared much of the state’s widespread, dense hardwood forests for farming, fuel, and lumber. The experimental tracts, which tested methods of planting, pruning, and reforestation, would help determine which tree species were best suited to Indiana’s soil, topography, and climate.

Through these experiments, Deam debunked the myth that original species of trees, in Indiana’s case, hardwoods, grew best if replanted in the same soil. Deam applied the practice of agricultural crop rotation and discovered that conifers actually thrived on land that once held hardwoods. Thereafter, planting pine trees became common in reforestation projects in Southern Indiana.

In addition to guiding this reforestation process, Deam worked hard to educate Hoosiers about the value of forestry in the state for both economic and environmental purposes. Deam held an annual forestry essay contest for students, created a forestry exhibit for the Indiana State Fair, issued educational press releases, and held special visitor days at Clark State Forest to show off the work being done.

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Forestry exhibit Deam created for the Indiana State Fair, September 1913. Photo from Indiana, State Board of Forestry, Annual Report of the State Board of Forestry (Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1914), 66, accessed hathitrust.org

In 1921, Deam wrote and lobbied for the passage of the Forest Classification Act, which established methods to keep the state’s private forests intact. The law created standards that landowners maintain in order to exempt their woods from taxation. The program, perhaps Deam’s most important legacy in Indiana forestry, currently includes 410,000 acres of forested land. After passage, other states created similar laws modeled after this one.

By 1928, Deam decided to leave forestry behind to pursue his true passion, plant taxonomy and writing. The state of Indiana didn’t seem to want to give Deam up, though. Since a “state botanist” position didn’t exist, the state made Deam a “research forester,” so he could be paid to continue his work cataloging the natural history of Indiana.

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Deam working with a plant press in the field, 1926. Photo from Kriebel, Plain Ol’ Charlie Deam, n.p.

His first book Trees of Indiana, signifies the first phase of this process. Published in 1912, it became the most comprehensive book of its type published in the state. As a drug store owner, Deam had long been writing Deam’s Almanac for his customers, chock-full of wit, flashy advertisements, weather reports, and sensational cures for various ailments. This experience writing for popular audiences expanded the readership of Trees of Indiana beyond scientists. While the book included biological keys for identification, tables, charts, and scientific data for serious scholars, it also contained anecdotes, sermons, and Deam’s own personal commentary.

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Trees of Indiana, 1919, accessed internetarchive.org.

The resulting familiar style made the book’s appeal extend to students, teachers, and hobbyists, in addition to professional botanists and foresters. Indiana printed 10,000 free copies, which were exhausted within three years. Thousands of requests for additional copies could not be filled until 1919, when additional funds allowed for a reprinting. These 1,000 copies were all given away within 5 days. Over the next four decades the book was reprinted and revised, and often used as a key text for forestry students in universities around the nation.

The popularity of Trees of Indiana launched Deam’s fame within the state and nation. He wrote three other similar books, Shrubs of Indiana (1924), Grasses of Indiana (1929), and Flora of Indiana (1940) in order to help record Indiana’s natural surroundings before advancing agriculture, industry, and urbanization destroyed it.

Somehow, Deam still found time to get out in the field and botanize. In 1915, he bought a Ford Model T and equipped it specially to supplement his collecting practice. He fitted a truck type body he bought from a Bluffton wagon-maker to the car. He also attached canvas flaps, drawers, shelves, and storage cubicles to it to house all his tools, materials, and collected specimens. He even included enough sleeping space for him and Stella, as well as a hammock if another of his colleagues joined them. This vehicle, christened the “weed wagon,” carried him to every Indiana township. The weed wagon, much speedier than travel by horse, bike or on foot, helped Deam dramatically increase his collection. Before acquiring the vehicle, he averaged an addition of 1,500 specimens per year; in 1915 he added 3,764 specimens.

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Deam eating breakfast outside his weed wagon, 1923 near Marble Hill, Indiana. Photo from Kriebel, Plain Ol’ Charlie Deam, n.p.

After Deam finished Flora of Indiana in 1940, he began to slow down, but not by choice. He suffered from arthritis, poor eyesight, loss of hearing, and gout. He still collected, but at a much slower pace. Still, by the time of his death in 1953, he had collected more than 70,000 specimens, all contained in his in-house herbarium at his home in Bluffton. In 1931, he arranged to have his entire collection sold to Indiana University at Bloomington at the price of $10 per 100 sheets. Botany students can still peruse his collection housed in the Smith Research Center on the Bloomington campus.*

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A hybrid oak tree Deam discovered and named, now known as the Deam oak in his honor. Photo courtesy of Get Your Botany On! blog.

Today, Deam’s legacy lives on. He currently has a tree, a lake, a national wilderness area, and 48 small plants named after him. Numerous universities, including Wabash College, DePauw University, Indiana University, and Purdue University awarded him numerous honorary degrees and distinctions throughout his life. Even though Deam wrote modestly in 1946, “I am just plain Charley Deam and I never want anyone to think anything else,” he clearly helped Hoosiers realize the importance of their forests and flora, and ensured it would be studied for generations to come.

*For information about how to use the data portals please see this guide and Zoom presentation.

 

Roughing It in Clark State Forest: The Purdue Forestry Summer Camp

 

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Students from the first Purdue Summer Forestry camp, 1929 at the Clark State Forest. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources, FNR.1929.PRI.010.

A Purdue forestry student wrote in the forestry department’s satirical yearbook, The Log, in 1934,

If you can read, sometime and somewhere you have read of great discoverers that have made what we call History. Some of these famed discoverers and explorers were men such as Columbus, Balboa, and Magellan, but they are the past. Now, what I want to tell you about is the explorers of today, and the vast areas that have yet to be trodden by mankind.

These contemporary explorers were the freshman class of the Purdue forestry school, who braved the “Wilds of Southern Indiana,” every summer to practice forestry at the Purdue Forestry Summer Camp at the Clark State Forest, near Henryville, Indiana from 1929-1958. The summer camp, still in operation today in Michigan, provided a place for forestry students to apply the theories they learned in the classroom, bond with fellow classmates, and facilitate sustainable forestry management in Indiana and the greater Midwest.

Purdue first offered forestry classes during the 1905-1906 school year, and by 1926, Purdue had its own forestry department within the School of Agriculture. Though Purdue forestry students had been taking week-long trips to the Clark State Forest to study and practice forestry for years, the new department head, Burr Prentice, decided that a longer, more formal period of study was needed to prepare Purdue forestry students for the job market. Prentice established the first forestry camp in the summer of 1929. For eight weeks, the entire forestry student body roughed it in the Clark State Forest, and completed surveys, conducted research, and learned how to properly manage timber to ensure a sustained timber yield. It was so successful that students returned to the forest to work every year until 1958.

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First forestry school campers at work estimating the amount of timber on a tract to determine what can be cut and what left behind for further growth, 1929. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources, FNR.1929.PRI.007.

Clark State Forest, Indiana’s first state forest, served as an ideal place for the students to practice forestry. Indiana established the forest in 1903 to lead the way in the state’s reforestation. Originally, half the land that currently comprises the United States was covered in forests; Indiana alone contained 20 million acres. However, like many forests nationwide, European-American settlers cleared much of Indiana’s forests for farming, fuel, and lumber by the mid-19th century. The widespread clearing of forests helped foster a new conservation ethic in the nation and Indiana in the late 19th century that advocated a different perception of natural resources. Instead of viewing natural resources, including forests, as inexhaustible, conservationists advocated using science and technology to rationally plan efficient development and use of natural resources to ensure enough would be available for future generations.

Foresters, including Indiana’s first state forester, the noted botanist Charles C. Deam, started practicing scientific forestry to help conserve enough trees for future use. They made sure annual cutting did not exceed annual growth of trees, employed methods to reduce disease and fire damage of trees, and conducted experiments to discover which trees were best suited to their specific location. By the time the Purdue forestry students arrived in 1929, the forest had grown from an original 2,000 to 5,000 acres. It also featured a large reserve of hardwood timber and evergreens, as well as over 100 experimental tracts Deam had created and monitored for years to help determine the trees that grew best in Indiana’s soil and climate.

The first camp site at the forest was far from glamorous. The only building for the students was an old red barn, which served as a kitchen, dining room, and study hall.

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Student foresters relaxing in their tents, 1934. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources.

Students lived in tents pitched over wooden platforms, which were only big enough for two bunks and a small walkway. There was no running water or electricity. Students had to take turns carting water from the Forest Supervisor’s home for drinking, cooking, and bathing, so it was used sparingly. The rustic accommodations, and hot and dirty surroundings, inspired the students to christen their camp “Camp Butt.” Students nicknamed Stinky, Shiny, and Rosey even lovingly built a sign bearing the name for their camp in 1932 that the director of the camp, Professor Geltz, allowed them to keep for “the admiration and reverence of the coming generations.”

In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began work in the Clark State Forest. Part of their duties involved building a mess hall, study hall, modern bathroom, an instrument shed, and student and staff tent frames for the forestry camp. Students in The Log expressed uncertainty about their new campsite, saddened that their original campgrounds would “no longer flourish in all its simple grandeur.” One student wrote

Electricity and running water can’t always be a companion of the ambitious forester. Those facilities, in my opinion, are for foresters that can’t take it.

However, the thirty nine students who arrived at the new camp in 1935 found it unfinished. Thankfully, there was still no electricity, running water, or showers.

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New cabins built in 1947 to help modernize the camp, circa 1954. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources.

But, there was a big mess hall and study hall complete with two fire places. Even when the entire modern camp was finished in 1936, Professor Geltz created a side camp to keep the tradition of rough living conditions alive that would show the students what field work in forestry was like. The students began spending a week of their experience living in the side camp, sleeping under the stars in tents, cooking for themselves, and writing field notes by lantern light in the evenings.

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Campers cooking in the side camp mess tent, at Clark State Forest, 1935. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources, FNR.1935.PRI.007A.

Since the students spent so much of their time working, they seemed to have spent little time in their new, luxurious accommodations anyway. The work day was from 8AM to 5PM, Monday through Friday, and from 8AM to 4PM on Saturday. The students spent most days in the field, practicing dendrology (study of trees), silvics (growing and cultivation and trees), mensuration (measuring the growth and yield of timber), entomology (study of insects), and surveying, building roads or trails, maintaining the state forests’ buildings, or working in the nursery. In addition to forestry work, each student also had a special assignment to help cook meals, clean, chop wood for fuel, hall water, and other chores. After supper, students studied together in the study hall.

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Campers completing surveying work at the forestry summer camp in Clark State Forest, 1935. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources, FNR.1935.PRI.004.

When the camp was shut down during World War II, Purdue forestry professors decided students could handle even more work and revised the curriculum. The department increased the camp from eight to ten weeks long and required the students to complete three courses (forest surveying, applied silviculture, and forest measurements) while attending. Instead of attending after their freshman year, students now arrived ready to work at Henryville after their sophomore year.

However, true to form as young college students, the campers still found ways to have fun in their off time. They played hockey, swam, and hiked. During the 1930s,

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Date Night at the Purdue Summer Forestry Camp, 1950. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources.

the students played baseball games against the CCC men also working in the state forest, who had their own athletic field. On Wednesday and Saturday nights, the students were allowed to leave the camp. Many of them went to nearby Henryville to play pool or date the local girls. Most years also included a special trip to Louisville to tour Churchill Downs, the Slugger baseball bat factory, and a saw mill.

The students also dabbled in sketching and writing poems, essays, and jokes to express themselves in their free time. Existing copies of The Log contain humorous recollections of daily activities in the camp, cartoons, and poems about forestry work. Clement Bryan, a forestry student from 1933-1937 who edited the summer camp yearbook in 1934 wrote the following simple poem after a hard days’ work as a forester at camp:

Tired and weary,
Sweaty,
Dirty,
Lagging step and listless hands;
His work done

–the forester.

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“Surveyin” cartoon created by a forestry student, The Log, 1932, p. 21. Courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources.

Unfortunately, in 1954 rumors started that the US Highway 65 (now Interstate 65), which roped around the forest, would be rerouted through the campsite. The students spread through the forest to investigate and found a State Highway Commission crew surveying the area for the new highway that would pass within a few feet of the camp. In 1958, the Purdue Forestry department acquired 17 buildings for a new campsite along the shores of Lost Lake in the Nicolet National Forest, near Tipton, Wisconsin. The last camp held at the Clark State Forest ended in August 1958.

Forestry students included an article in their 1959 Log year book dedicated to the closing of the camp at Clark State Forest to show how embedded the camp was in Purdue forestry tradition.

Since the summer of 1929 nearly 800 students and staff have studied, and taught, and cried, and laughed, and sweat[ed], and learned, and lived, at the Forestry Camp, Henryville, Indiana. But on August 1, 1958…the camp was abandoned. But memories of the camp will never die, and for years to come Purdue foresters will talk about ‘when the camp was at Henryville.’

Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources is one of a few universities that still offers a residential camp for students. Increasing expenses led many universities to eliminate their camps. Purdue’s camp survived because of the generosity of John S. Wright, who endowed the program to keep it affordable for students. The camp now also includes students in other disciplines, such as fisheries, aquatic sciences, and wildlife. Participants focus on land measurement, surveying, inventory of natural resources, and resource management. The 2016 summer camp was held in Iron River, Michigan. To enjoy more of the school’s history, explore their FNR Past and Present webpage, which contains histories and photos of the summer camp, copies of The Log year book, and class photos from 1938.

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Purdue summer practicum group, 2016 at Iron River, Michigan. Photo courtesy of Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources.

 

Edwin Way Teale: “Traveler in Little Realms”

"Teale Working Outside," photograph, 1960, Edwin Way Teale Papers,University of Connecticut Digital Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/11134/20002:199714571
Edwin Way Teale, “Teale Working Outside,” photograph, 1960, Edwin Way Teale Papers, University of Connecticut Digital Collections, accessed http://hdl.handle.net/11134/20002:199714571

[This post is adapted from a footnoted research paper created to support the text of the Edwin Way Teale state historical marker.]

American naturalists have been cited for combining philosophy and writing in ways that affect how concerned citizens value and care for their environment. Edwin Way Teale is considered one of the twentieth century’s most influential naturalists, stemming from his ability to combine the artistic, philosophical, and scientific in his writing. According to the extensive Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists, “Through his popular books [Teale] convinced Americans they had a personal stake in the preservation of ecological zones [and] convinced them to support national parks and conservation movements.” Teale credited his renowned career to his rich childhood spent in the Indiana Dunes, where he developed a love for nature, an eye for photography, and an accessible writing style.

He immortalized his boyhood adventures in Dune Boy and later works, including Wandering through Winter, for which he became the first naturalist to win a Pulitzer Prize. Teale is included in the “heyday of dunes art and literature begun and perpetuated” by a group of artists of the “Chicago Renaissance” movement, according to J. Ronald Engel’s Sacred Sands: The Struggle for Community in the Indiana Dunes. Naturalists, conservationists, writers, and critics have ranked Teale among the renowned American naturalists, including John Muir, John Burroughs, and Henry David Thoreau.

Born Edwin AlfredTeale on June 2, 1899 in Joliet, Illinois. He later wrote of his disdain for the dismal industrial landscape of his parents’ home. Instead, Teale favored the holidays and summers he spent with “Gram and Gramp” exploring their Lone Oak farm in the Indiana Dunes. In Dune Boy (1943), Teale wrote that “to a boy alive to the natural harvest of birds and animals and insects, [Lone Oak] offered boundless returns.”

As he grew up, Teale’s interest in nature grew as well. At the age of seven or eight Teale looked through his first microscope, and at nine he declared himself a naturalist. By the age of ten he finished his twenty-five chapter “Tails [sic] of Lone Oak,” and at twelve he changed his name to “the more distinguished” Edwin Way Teale.

"Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore," photograph, National Parks Foundation, http://www.nationalparks.org/explore-parks/indiana-dunes-national-lakeshore
“Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore,” photograph, National Parks Foundation, http://www.nationalparks.org/explore-parks/indiana-dunes-national-lakeshore
Earlham Hall, postcard, 1916, Morrison-Reeves Library, Digital Collection, accessed Indiana Memory.
Earlham Hall, postcard, 1916, Morrison-Reeves Library, Digital Collection, accessed Indiana Memory.

In 1918, Teale enrolled at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana; he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1922. On August 1, 1923, Teale married his college sweetheart Nellie Imogene Donovan, who would become his “partner naturalist.”

Teale Home (undergoing roof repair), photograph, 2013, Indiana Historical Bureau file.
Teale Home (undergoing roof repair), photograph, 2013, Indiana Historical Bureau file.

The Teales moved to New York City in 1924, where Edwin attended Columbia University, and continued writing. After a period of rejection, he obtained regular work assisting Frank Crane, a popular religious writer, with his daily editorial column. The Teales’ only child, David, was born in 1925. In 1926, Teale received his M.A. from Columbia in English literature. In July of that year, he also took possession of his grandparents’ property in the Indiana Dunes, where he and his family built a brick cottage. They maintained the property until selling it in 1937.

Edwin Way and David Teale, photograph, (date cited inaccurate), University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://digitalcollections.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A199724976
Edwin Way and David Teale, photograph, (date cited inaccurate), University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://digitalcollections.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A199724976
Popular Science, October 1928, Popular Science Archive, accessed http://www.popsci.com/archives
Popular Science, October 1928, Popular Science Archive, accessed http://www.popsci.com/archives

In 1928, Popular Science hired Teale as a staff writer. Over the next thirteen years, he perfected his photography skills at the magazine, which led his pioneering technique for photographing insects and launched his career. Teale used an icebox to immobilize his insect subjects, placed them in a natural surrounding, set up a camera with magnifying lens, and waited for the subject to reanimate. Using this technique, he represented insects in a novel way – up close and larger than life. After successfully exhibiting his photos around New York City, they were published in nature magazines. His first critically acclaimed book, Grassroot Jungles, displayed a collection of over one hundred of these photos.

Edwin Way Teale, Grassroot Jungles (Dodd, Mead and Company,) 19) accessed the Ecotone Exchange, http://theecotoneexchange.com/category/edwin-way-teale/
Edwin Way Teale, Grassroot Jungles (Dodd, Mead & Company,) 1937) cover photograph accessed the Ecotone Exchange, http://theecotoneexchange.com/category/edwin-way-teale/

In January 1941, Teale’s The Golden Throng was published, receiving praise for the photographs of bees. On October 15 of that year, Teale left his job at Popular Science to become a freelance writer and photographer. He called that day his “own personal Independence Day.”

Teale’s decision to undertake freelance writing and photography also gave him time to work in his insect garden. For several years, Teale paid ten dollars a year for “insect rights” for a plot of land near his Long Island home. He planted “sunflowers, hollyhocks, spice bush and milkweed,” as well as “troughs offering honey and syrup to bees and butterflies (and) hidden pie pans with putrid meat to attract carrion beetles” to his garden. Teale’s biographer and publisher, Edward H. Dodd, wrote that “this small plot of land, undesirable for real-estate purposes, even in Long Island became his outdoor laboratory, his photography studio, his wilderness to explore.”

Edwin Way Teale (studying insects), photograph, 1935, Teale Papers University of Connecticut, Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://digitalcollections.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A860118213
Edwin Way Teale (studying insects), photograph, 1935, Teale Papers University of Connecticut, Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://digitalcollections.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A860118213

In October 1942, Dodd, Mead & Company published the result of these photography experiments, Near Horizons: The Story of an Insect Garden. Prominent publications praised the book, including the New York Times, Scientific Monthly, and The Scientific American, which proclaimed Teale one of few scientists “heavily gifted with literary charm.”  In this latest book, Teale described himself as “an explorer who stayed at home, a traveler in little realms, a voyager within the near horizons of a hillside.”

https://archive.org/details/duneboytheearlyy011553mbp
Edwin Way Teale, Dune Boy (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1943, reprint 1957) https://archive.org/details/duneboytheearlyy011553mbp

In October 1943, Teale published Dune Boy: The Early Years of a Naturalist.   In this work, Teale recollected the years he spent among the natural wonders of the Indiana Dunes, surveying his surroundings from the roof of the farm house, the shores of Lake Michigan, and the floor of the surrounding woods. In the book, he credits his grandparents for giving him freedom to develop his interest in nature. “At Lone Oak there was room to explore and time for adventure. A new world opened up around me. During my formative years, from earliest childhood to the age of fifteen, I spent my most memorable months here, on the borderland of the dunes.”

Anita Moffett, “A Boy Grows Up Beside Lake Michigan,” New York Times, November 7, 1943, BR10, accessed http://timesmachine.nytimes.com
Anita Moffett, “A Boy Grows Up Beside Lake Michigan,” New York Times, November 7, 1943, BR10, accessed http://timesmachine.nytimes.com

Dune Boy received a long and glowing review in the New York Times. The reviewer alluded to the book and Teale’s childhood, as representative of something inherently American. The reviewer stated that “Dune Boy is not only the record of a naturalist’s beginnings but one of our many-sided American way of life.”

Edwin Way Teale, Dune Boy, Armed Services Edition (Council on Books in Wartime, 1944), accessed amazon.com
Edwin Way Teale, Dune Boy, Armed Services Edition (Council on Books in Wartime, 1944), accessed amazon.com

Indicative of the book’s popularity, the army distributed more than 100,000 copies of Dune Boy during World War II. These “armed service editions” were printed by the Council on Books in Wartime.”  Their slogan was “books are weapons in the war on ideas.”Teale commented that “he heard from many who had read it while engaged in battle for freedom in all parts of the world” and some scholars have suggested that the book presents “a timeless model of the democratic common life, for many . . . an image of their real American homeland.” The Teales’ son, David, served as part of an assault team under General George Patton during the war. After a period of considering him missing in action, in March 1945 the Teales’ received word that their nineteen-year-old son had been killed. The Teales claimed that only their love of nature got them through this difficult time.

Despite the personal tragedy, Teale’s career flourished. On November 19, 1945, The Lost Woods: Adventures of a Naturalist was published with critical acclaim and, beginning in January 1946, newspapers across the country began running Teale’s Nature in Action column.  That November, Dodd, Mead & Company released a version of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, “lovingly prepared” by Teale, who wrote an introduction and provided 142 of his own photographs.

Edwin Way Teale, photograph, 1935, Teale Papers, University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://digitalcollections.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A860118193
Edwin Way Teale, photograph, 1935, Teale Papers, University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://digitalcollections.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A860118193
Edwin Way Teale, North with the Spring (Dodd, Mead & Company, ), photograph of cover Audubon Society Florida Newsletter, March 22, 2012 accessed http://audubonoffloridanews.org/?p=11137
Edwin Way Teale, North with the Spring (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1951), photograph of cover Audubon Society Florida Newsletter, March 22, 2012 accessed http://audubonoffloridanews.org/?p=11137

In November 1951, Dodd, Mead & Company released North with the Spring, the account of the Teales’ 17,000-mile, four month long pursuit of spring across America. According to one New York Times reviewer, the book was “packed with solid learning” about the plants, animals, and weather they encountered, but it was also a “warm and moving” story of husband and wife naturalists. Contemporary environmentalists, such as Rachel Carson, embraced North with the Spring‘s environmentally conscious message.

 

 

Edwin Way Teale, “Skyscrapers, Scaup, Skimmers and Skunks,” New York Times, December 16, 1951, 189, accessed http://query.nytimes.com via subscription.
Edwin Way Teale, “Skyscrapers, Scaup, Skimmers and Skunks,” New York Times, December 16, 1951, 189, accessed http://query.nytimes.com via subscription.

On December 16, 1951, Teale began writing for the New York Times, producing the first of many nature articles and book reviews. In his first article, Teale wrote of the efforts to protect the wildlife areas and lamented the increasing urbanization and encroaching suburbs. Teale also wrote about the importance of contact with nature “to restore mental tone and health,” a common concern among conservationists during this time period.

Over the next few years, Teale produced compilations of selected nature writing, including Green Treasury: A Journey through the World’s Great Nature Writing (1952) and The Wilderness World of John Muir (1954), which made the New York Times “outstanding books of the year” list. [Buy it at the IHB Book Shop.] Reviewers called Teale “one of our most sensitive and observant naturalists” and among the “best of Americans writing about nature,” comparing him to Thoreau and Burroughs. Teale attended conservation fundraisers and entomological meetings. As his popularity grew, his earlier books were reprinted and adapted into children’s versions.

Edwin Way Teale, Autumn Across America (
Edwin Way Teale, Autumn Across America (W. Clement Stone, 1956), cover image accessed amazon.com.

In August 1956, Teale published Autumn Across America, the second book in the American Seasons series. This time, the Teales followed fall through twenty-six states from Cape Cod to California over three months. Autumn Across America received even greater acclaim than North with the Spring. It was presented to the White House Library and described as a “revelation of the seasonal wonders that lie around us and the reflections they caused in the searching mind and genial soul of the author.”

In 1959, the Teales left their Long Island home, due to increased population and suburbanization, and moved to a 130-acre estate in Hampton, Connecticut, which they named Trail Wood.

Richard Telford, "Edwin Way Teale’s writing cabin at Trail Wood," photograph, 2014, accessed Connecticut Audubon Society, http://www.ctaudubon.org/2014/01/trail-woods-artistwriter-in-residence-program/#sthash.4EEwoBKM.dpbs
Richard Telford, “Edwin Way Teale’s writing cabin at Trail Wood,” photograph, 2014, Connecticut Audubon Society, accessed http://www.ctaudubon.org/2014/01/trail-woods-artistwriter-in-residence-program/#sthash.4EEwoBKM.dpbs
Edwin Way Teale, Wandering Through Winter (Dodd, ) cover image accessed Amazon.com.
Edwin Way Teale, Wandering Through Winter (Dodd, ) cover image accessed Amazon.com.

In fall 1965, Teale published Wandering through Winter, the most celebrated of all his works. Teale covered a wide range of topics from beetles to whales to sunsets. The New York Times ran a laudatory review of Wandering through Winter, praising Teale’s work as without fault and his writing as combining the best of Thoreau, Hudson, and Muir. In May 1966, Teale became the first naturalist to win a Pulitzer Prize (for general nonfiction) for Wandering through Winter.

Although he continued to contribute introductions and chapters to colleagues’ books, and have his own books reprinted and adapted as children’s stories, his publishing slowed somewhat over the next decade. On October 10, 1970, Indiana University presented Teale with an honorary degree. In 1978, Teale produced his last work, A Walk through the Year. The book summarized a year with his wife Nellie at Trail Wood, highlighting the memorable experiences they shared.

Edwin Way Teale (at desk), photograph, 1970, Teale Papers, University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://archives.lib.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A199714567
Edwin Way Teale (at desk), photograph, 1970, Teale Papers, University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections, accessed http://archives.lib.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A199714567

On October 18, 1980, Teale died at the age of 81. On May 17, 1981, the Connecticut Audubon Society dedicated Trail Wood as the Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary, and it became steward of the property. Nellie remained at the farm until her death in 1993. In 1998, the University of Connecticut initiated the Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series. Visitors come to hike the grounds to see Teale’s landscape of “woods, open fields, swamps, two good-sized brooks and a waterfall.” Teale’s works continue to be reprinted, including a reissue of Dune Boy in 2002.

In 2009, the Indiana Historical Bureau, with the support of the Musette Lewry Trust, installed a state historical marker at the “Lone Oak” site where the brick cottage built by Teale still stands.

Edwin Way Teale State Historical Marker Dedication, May 30, 2009, photograph, Indiana Historical Bureau, accessed http://www.in.gov/history/EWTealeDed.htm
Edwin Way Teale State Historical Marker Dedication, May 30, 2009, photograph, Indiana Historical Bureau, accessed http://www.in.gov/history/EWTealeDed.htm