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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> Margo Collett
[mailto:mcollett@MIT.EDU] <br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Thursday, October 11, 2007
10:10 AM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Recipient list suppressed<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> MIT Seminar on
Environmental and Agricultural History Friday, October 26, 2007</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><i><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold;
font-style:italic'>MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History<br>
<br>
Popular By Their Misery: The British Response to a Colonial
Disaster, 1825<br>
</span></font></i></b> <br>
Alan MacEachern <br>
Professor of History, University of Western Ontario</p>
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12.0pt'> <br>
In 1825, a huge forest fire swept across the British colony of New Brunswick
and parts of Maine, wiping out communities along the Miramichi River and
killing hundreds. The Miramichi Fire is the largest recorded forest fire
on North Americas Eastern seaboard, and perhaps the largest in Canadian
history. News of the disaster quickly reached Britain, which launched an
extensive relief effort. People were greatly moved by the thought of a
poor white society, made up largely of recent British immigrants, living on the
edge of a vast wilderness, experiencing a holocaust of unprecedented ferocity,
and, having survived, looking forward only to the loss of livelihood and a cold
Canadian winter. But it is clear that British interest in the disaster
also reflected very pragmatic concern about what this fire would mean for
Britains own wood supply, and called into question British dependence on
the colonies. <br>
</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Friday,
October 26, 2007<br>
2:30 to 4:30 pm<br>
Building E51 Room 095<br>
Corner of Amherst and Wadsworth Streets, Cambridge</span></font></b></p>
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