Theodore C. Blegen Award

The Forest History Society's (FHS) Theodore C. Blegen Award recognizes the best scholarship in forest and conservation history published in a journal other than Environmental History. FHS initiated the award in 1972.
Recent recipients.

Blegen Award Details

Named for Theodore Blegen, one of the founders of the Forest History Society, the Blegen award consists of a $500 cash award and a plaque. Editors of scholarly journals in the fields of forest and conservation history annually submit up to two articles from their publications for award consideration. An award subcommittee of the FHS board evaluates submissions and select the article that best exemplifies (1) contribution to new knowledge, (2) strength of scholarship, and (3) clarity and grace of presentation.

Recent Recipients

2008 Blegen Award Hsiung, David C. "Food, Fuel, and the New England Environment in the War for Independence, 1775-1776" published in The New England Quarterly 80, No. 4 (December 2007):614-651. Discusses the impact of agricultural and forest products on the first year of the Revolution and the importance of local production and supply systems on the fight for control over the rebelling colonies.
2007 Blegen Award Willis, Roxanne. "A New Game in the North: Alaska Native Reindeer Herding, 1890-1940." Western Historical Quarterly 37 (Autumn 2006): 277-301. Assesses the introduction of domesticated reindeer to Alaska by the missionary Sheldon Jackson, ostensibly for the benefit of native communities. Explores new ground with a compelling narrative and a keen sense for the complexities of the interaction between Native Alaskans, do-gooding Anglo-Americans, and the shifting economy of the far north.
2006 Blegen Award Fiege, Mark. "The Weedy West: Mobile Nature, Boundaries, and Common Space in the Montana Landscape." Western Historical Quarterly 36 (Spring 2005): 22-47. Examines the movement of weeds across human boundaries in Montana during the 20th century, and how collective responses to that movement created common geographic space in which people adjusted land allocation to ecology.
2005 Blegen Award Feldman, James "The View from Sand Island: Reconsidering the Peripheral Economy" Western Historical Quarterly 35 (Autumn 2004): 285-307. An intriguing assessment of the relationship between local communities and their economies and the broader sweep of western environmental history.
2004 Blegen Award Senter, Jim. "Live Dunes and Ghost Forests: Stability and Change in the History of North Carolina's Maritime Forests." North Carolina Historical Review 80 (July 2003): 334-371. Argues that sea level rise and increased storm frequency since the end of the Little Ice Age, rather than human activity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have been the primary causes of vegetation change on the barrier islands along the coast of North Carolina.
2003 Blegen Award Wondrak, Alice K. "Wrestling with Horace Albright: Edmund Rogers, Visitors, and Bears in Yellowstone National Park. Part I; Part II" 52 Montana the Magazine of Western History (Autumn; Winter 2002): 2-15; 18-31. On the establishment and difficulties of prohibiting bear feeding practices within the Yellowstone National Park during the 1930s and 1950s.	(large file; 1.8 MB)
2002 Blegen Award Ewert, Sara E. "Evolution of an Environmentalist: Senator Frank Church and the Hells Canyon Controversy," Montana the Magazine of Western History 51 (Spring 2001): 36-51. Examines the gradual evolution of the views toward environmental politics held by Senator Frank Church of Idaho.	(large file; 2.62 MB)

Past recipients