On this page, you’ll find a few of the unpublished papers I have presented at various conferences and universities.
Research: Papers and Presentations
Taming Ginseng: Exploring the Meanings of Plant Domestication
Presented at Southern Forum on Agriculture, Rural, and Environmental History Birmingham, AL, April 15-16, 2016 What does it mean to domesticate a plant? According to the common reading of prehistory, the domestication of grains and legumes, as well as sheep and goats, was the central most important development that led to the rise of civilization. …
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An Uncommon Commodity: The Triumph of Ginseng Cultivation in the United States, 1890-1920.
Presented at the American Society for Environmental History Chicago, IL, March 30-April 1, 2017 Since the early twentieth century, popular and scholarly writers have constructed a particular narrative to explain the rise of ginseng cultivation in the United States. It was a progressive narrative that can be briefly summarized as follows: for more than a…
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Enclosing the Gathering Commons in Nineteenth-Century Appalachia
Presented at the Agricultural History Society, Lexington, Ky, June 4-6, 2015 In 1908, a 21-year-old son of a tenant farmer named Millard Collins set out to dig ginseng in the forests of Wise County, Virginia. Married just three months earlier, Collins had recently found himself in some legal trouble, and he needed a quick source…
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Root Diggers and Herb Gatherers: How Wild Plants Shaped Post-Civil War Appalachian Society
Invited Lecture at Mars Hill University Sept. 15, 2015 Hello, and thank you all for coming tonight. I would like to thank Miss Hannah Furgiuele for inviting me here tonight. I’m super excited to be here and tell you about the research I’ve been doing for the past several 5 years. Tonight, I’m going to…
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Statement of Research Interests
My expertise is in environmental history and the history of the American South, primarily during the long nineteenth century (1790s-1920s-ish). My research explores the intersections of capitalism and nature. More specifically, I am interested in how ecology, markets, and communities created landscapes of subsistence in the southern countryside and how and why those landscapes changed over…
