Monday, March 5, 2012

“From the Earth: The Environment in Virginia's Past and Future”


On March 16, the Virginia Historical Society will host the “From the Earth: The Environment in Virginia's Past and Future” conference to celebrate the launch of its new environmental history resources guide.  The day long series of lectures by notable authors like Stephen Ausband and Helen Rountree will cover the span of the commonwealth’s history and end with a panel discussion moderated by former governor Gerald Baliles.  Last week, I emailed Andrew Talkov, Head of Program Development at the Virginia Historical Society, some questions about how the conference got started and the importance of studying environmental history.  Here is what he had to say: 

How did the conference get started?
In 2008, the Virginia Environmental Endowment (VEE) awarded a grant to the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) for the Robert R. Merhige Jr. Archive of the Virginia Environmental Endowment. The goal of the project was to organize, archive, and preserve records related to the VEE’s role in the state’s environmental history. The VEE donated thousands of pages of documents related to the organization’s work over the past thirty-one years and provided funding to process those documents as well as hundreds of boxes of material already in the Society’s holdings related to environmental history.

 Thanks to this partnership the VHS accomplished three goals. The first was the processing of the Endowment’s records—making them accessible to researchers at the Society. In January 2012, the VHS published a hard copy guide to the VEE collection featuring an in-depth history of the organization. An online, searchable version of the finding aid with select digital highlights of its content is also available. The Guide to Environmental History Resources in the Collections of the Virginia Historical Society includes both VHS and VEE materials and is available on the VHS website. 

Secondly, with help from the VEE, the VHS conducted oral histories relevant to recent environmental activities in Virginia. Oral recollections of key players serve as a crucial complement to surviving documentation, amplifying, illuminating, and contextualizing the facts contained in the written word, and allowing the voices of the actual persons who participated in the events to be heard. Information obtained from the oral histories, and the resulting transcriptions of those conversations, will be added to the Merhige Archives to form one comprehensive collection. 

Lastly, the VHS processed the manuscript collections in its own holdings containing significant environmental content with an eye to bringing that content to public attention.  The grant from the VEE complemented funds already received from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Hunton & Williams law firm to archive papers from such Virginians as Governor Gerald L. Baliles, Governor Linwood Holton, W. Tayloe Murphy, Jr., and Littleton Hewitt Roden, Jr. 

The goal of the conference, entitled “From the Earth: The Environment in Virginia’s Past and Future,” is to increase awareness of VHS environmental history collections, especially the newly accessible items available because of our partnership with the VEE. We also want to advance overall education about Virginia’s environmental history. As the earliest English colony on the North American mainland, Virginia features a landscape that has been a key factor in American history—from the survival of the Jamestown colony to the various industries that closely align the environment with the economy.

What's something that you're excited to hear about at the conference?
That’s a difficult question to answer as all of the speakers and topics offer something different. I’m personally very excited to hear Professor Stephen Ausband’s discussion of his book Byrd’s Line: A Natural History. In 1728, William Byrd, a wealthy, English-educated Virginia planter, undertook a journey to determine the exact boundary between North Carolina and Virginia. Byrd was an amateur naturalist and diarist and recorded his journey in two books, The History of the Dividing Line and The Secret History of the Line. Always witty, Byrd offered keen observations of natural phenomena (as well as described his predilection for exercise and sexual conquest). Who wouldn’t be tantalized by such an adventure? Professor Ausband used Byrd’s journals and retraced the steps—through swamps, thickets and forests—that Byrd wrote about 385 years ago. I’m really interested to hear what Professor Ausband learned about the past and the present during his adventure along the border.

Another highlight of the conference will definitely be the discussion moderated by former Governor Gerald L. Baliles. He has invited former Secretary of Natural Resources W. Tayloe Murphy, Jr., Ann Jennings, the Virginia executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and Gerald P. McCarthy, the executive director of the Virginia Environmental Endowment to discuss the current status and future of the Chesapeake Bay. Each of these individuals, and the organizations they represent, have been catalysts in shaping public policy to ensure that Virginians have clean air, pure water, and the use and enjoyment of public lands. 

Why is it important to study environmental history? 
The environment and the economy continue to be in the forefront of the national conversation and we hope that attendees to this conference will be better equipped to engage in that dialog. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—the book credited with igniting the modern environmental movement. Historians reacted to the phenomenon, as they are prone to do, by looking at the relationship between humans and their environment over time. The very diverse field of environmental history currently examines the physical impact of humans on the environment; how we use nature; and the environmental consequences of a growing population and its effect on technology, production and consumption. Environmental Historians also look at how people think about nature. Although all of this is useful in building a more complete understanding of our past, environmental history informs our relationship with our environment today and how we plan for the future.

What do you want people to know about the conference?
The conference is free and open to the public, although we are asking people to register online at www.vahistorical.org/news/veeconf.htm. Interested individuals do not need to stay through the entire day in order to participate—although they do need to register. Although all of the speakers’ presentations will be enlightening—as well as entertaining—we want people to feel free to stay for as many or as few of the six hour-long sessions as they like.

No comments:

Post a Comment