[E&E seminars] FW: MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History Friday, October 26, 2007

[Beth Conlin]

  _____  

From: Margo Collett [mailto:mcollett at MIT.EDU] 
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 10:10 AM
To: Recipient list suppressed
Subject: MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History Friday,
October 26, 2007

 

MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History
 
 Popular By Their Misery: The British Response to a Colonial Disaster,
1825
 
Alan MacEachern 
Professor of History, University of Western Ontario

 
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.  
 

Friday, October 26, 2007
2:30 to 4:30 pm
Building E51 Room 095
Corner of Amherst and Wadsworth Streets, Cambridge

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