From the Beginning
History of the Appalachian Society of American Foresters:
1921-2018
This project was initiated two decades ago by APSAF, desiring a chronological record of the organization and its membership. The main themes of the project are the history of forestry as reflected by the history of APSAF and the role of APSAF and its members in the history of forestry. The development of forestry in the Carolinas, Virginia and adjacent areas prior to APSAF’s founding is included to illustrate the events and trends that led to creation of APSAF. Below, highlights and imagery from the exhaustive history. Click the button below to read the historical record in its entirety.
Roots
The roots of Appalachian Society of American foresters are closely intertwined with the roots of professional forestry in America. Both the “Cradle of Forestry” and the birthplace of the APSAF lay in western North Carolina, where the forested slopes of the southern Appalachian mountains proved a fertile nursery for forestry as a whole and for the APSAF in particular.
APSAF was founded at a meeting held at the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, on October 28 and 29, 1921.
Pictured - The French Broad River in Asheville, North Carolina: the remaining railroad span went out shortly after the photo was taken. Severe flooding occurred from Mobile, AL northward into the Appalachians as a result of a hurricane.
The beginning
The establishment of national forests in the southern Appalachians was directly connected to the founding of the Appalachian Section of the Society of American Foresters. Most of the founding members of the APSAF either were or had been federal employees who came to the southern mountains to work on the Gate to Pisgah National Forest federally-owned lands.
During its first few years, four of the fifteen members of the Society of American Foresters were “Biltmoreans”: Carl A. Schenck (at right), Overton Price, Frederick E. Olmsted, and Edwin M. Griffith, first state forester of Wisconsin.
Biltmore Forest School
Alumni of the Biltmore Forest School, founded in 1913, by Schenck, helped shape American forestry in the twentieth century.
Civilian Conservation Corps
A New Deal program, the Civilian Conservation Corps joined older forestry and agricultural programs in a massive expansion of forestry across the nation. The first CCC camp in the country opened on George Washington National Forest on April 17, 1933, and operated until May 25, 1942. CCC workers held a number of jobs, including road building and maintenance, fish and wildlife management, forest culture and improvement, telephone line construction, fire hazard reduction and fire fighting, boundary survey and renewals, and recreational improvements.
Other New Deal programs included Soil Conservative Service, the AA, and NRA.
Top photo - CCC workers in Virginia at lunch.
Bottom photo - CCC workers plant seedlings;
CCC played an important role in helping to solve some of the problems that arose during the large-scale reforestation efforts in the 1930s
Expansion into universities and colleges
Between 1900 and 1920, nearly thirty schools of forestry were established in the United States.
New programs were established at a rate of six per decade, a rate, which held steady into the 1940s and 1950s.
Notable programs within the APSAF region include Clemson, Duke University, North Carolina State College, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. The College of Charleston introduced pre-forestry into its offerings in 1937, and University of Virginia vegan offering an intro course in 1921.
Photo - Duke Forestry class of 1966 in front of the Biological Sciences building.
Industrial development
The South Carolina Commission of Forestry cooperated with the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory in 1931 to produce the report Possibilities of Pulp and Paper Making in South Carolina.
To demonstrate the suitability of southern pines, the report was printed on white paper made from slash pine grown in South Carolina. The text promoted expansion of the southern pulp and paper industry from kraft into newsprint, stressing the state’s many advantages: a long growing season, inexpensive raw materials and power, cheap labor, good transportation facilities, and forestry assistance provided by state agencies.
Forestry activities besides promotional publications helped lay the foundations for industrial expansion in the APSAF territory. Forestry research played an equal or greater role in attracting pulp and paper companies’ interest.
APSAF in World War II
Although World War II’s impact on Americans was incalculable, its influence on American forestry was quite concrete. Military-industrial demands on forest resources made forestry essential to the American economy. Concurrently and congruently, military service provided opportunities for foresters to develop and use skills that were related to their profession.
Environmentalism and the APSAF
The earliest practicing foresters, including Gifford Pinchot and Carl Schenck, were among the first advocates for environmental awareness in this country. Even so, it wasn’t uncommon in the past for considerable site damage to occur during harvesting operations. Related issues, such as habitat protection, were often not factored into management planning.
“People love trees and forests but how each person loves them is a matter of perspective. Some see the forest as majestic and something to be preserved at all cost; others, while also appreciating the beauty and ecological value of the forest, see it as a source of revenue and a driver of rural economies.
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Forest Industry Evolution
The forest industry, after what in retrospect seems like a period of great stability, began in the 1990s to undergo a significant transformation that continues today. For many decades the “integrated forest products company” was the norm. These companies typically owned and managed forest land and produced a wide range of forest products such as paper, pulp, lumber and other building materials.
“SAF is in a unique position to inform foresters, decision-makers and the public as we seek to “ensure the continued health, integrity, and use of forests to benefit society in perpetuity.””
Please contact Barry New (ApSAF Historian & Activist) at barry.new@ncagr.gov if you have any questions.