Cutover Capitalism: The Industrialization of the Northern Forest with Jason Newton

When Americans landed on the Moon in 1969, in the northeastern U.S. there were still workers cutting trees with axes, skidding with horses, and driving logs to the mill by river. It wasn’t the chainsaw and the feller-buncher that industrialized American logging. The power of nature did. Starting around 1870, bodies and forest landscapes were used in new and sometimes ingenious ways to move the second- and even third-growth trees from stump to mill, ultimately sustaining forest products production for nearly a century. Historian Jason Newton’s talk will describe this unique process of industrialization. He will explore how a lumberjack class formed in relation to the seasonal cycles of the forest and why these seemingly primitive technologies lasted until surprisingly recently. Join us for a discussion of logging technology that will challenge commonly held ideas of the working class, industrialization, and capitalism. For his talk Jason will draw from archival research conducted at FHS as well as historical images and videos.

Jason L. Newton is a historian of modern America specializing in the history of capitalism, labor, and the environment. He is an assistant teaching professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a two-time recipient of the Forest History Society’s Alfred D. Bell Jr. Travel Grant. His new book, Cutover Capitalism: The Industrialization of the Northern Forest, will be published by West Virginia University Press in October 2024.

This presentation is approved for 1.0 hours of CFE credit by the Society of American Foresters!

To register, visit: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6hi0svk6R_2isKaaO–HGg#/registration