[This month we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Arbor Day, so this week I’veAmericanStudied a handful of tree-tastic stories. Leading up to this special weekend post on the holiday’s histories!]
On three
historical figures who together helped create and codify the tree-tastic
holiday.
1)
J.
Sterling Morton: Morton (1832-1902) was a prominent figure in both
Nebraskan and American history across the second half of the 19th
century: he served as Nebraska’s territorial Secretary of State and then Governor
in the 1850s; and as President Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of Agriculture (in
Cleveland’s 2nd term) from 1893-1897. But interestingly, his most
lasting legacy comes from the period in between those roles (roughly 1867-1882),
when he had largely retired from politics to serve on the Nebraska State Board
of Agriculture and its Horticultural Society. It was in that capacity in 1872
that he
proposed Arbor Day, a day when trees would be planted across the state;
over a million were planted on the first such Arbor
Day, April 10th, 1872, and the rest is history.
2)
Birdsey
Northrop: But not just like that, of course. Morton’s holiday was a
relatively local one, and it was up to others, like the Connecticut farmer, minister,
educator, and diplomat Birdsey Grant Northrop (1817-1898), to extend and
amplify the idea. In his 50s Northrop became dedicated to the idea of reviving
Connecticut’s primordial forests, and, inspired in part at least by Morton’s
holiday, in 1876
he proposed an Arbor Day for that state, encouraging every resident to
plant a tree so that “its fruits may survive 1976.” Nearly two decades later,
when the 78 year old Northrop finally realized a lifelong dream of traveling
to Japan, he focused most of the 38
lectures he delivered there on making the case for a Japanese Arbor Day, which
has indeed been celebrated (as Greenery
Day) in that nation ever since.
3)
Major Israel
McCreight: As with many conservationist efforts, Arbor Day really took off
in the United States during the Teddy Roosevelt administration. That was due in
part to Roosevelt’s Chief of the Forestry Service, Gifford Pinchot; but also
and especially to Major (his first name, not a rank) Israel McCreight
(1865-1958), a lifelong advocate for conservation (as well as Native
American rights) who in 1906 argued to Pinchot and Roosevelt that the
president’s current conservation efforts were too focused on the business
sector. Convinced by McCreight and Pinchot’s joint efforts, on April 15th,
1907 Roosevelt issued his “Arbor
Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States,” a vital step
in establishing the holiday as a truly national one that would carry forward
for the next 115 years (and hopefully beyond!).
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other tree texts or contexts you’d share?
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