“Strong Winds and Widow Makers: A History of Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country, 1900 to the Present”

Steven Beda, History, and 2020-21 OHC Faculty Research Fellow

Those who follow environmental politics in the Northwest know that debates over the region’s forests tend towards the vitriolic, often pitting timber workers who want to protect their jobs against environmentalists who want to protect forest ecologies. My book shows that Northwest forestry politics needn’t be so acrimonious. Focusing on timber workers’ forest conservation efforts throughout the twentieth century, I uncover a largely forgotten history of cooperation between environmentalists and people from Northwest timber working communities, examine why this partnership dissolved, and offer solutions for how this partnership might be restored.