Artifact Road Trip - Indiana

This carving was sent to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 by the maker, Henry Weber of Oakville, Indiana. The white oak tree, from which the wood for the piece was taken, stood beside the trail leading from Abraham Lincoln’s cabin to the cemetery - and near the grave - of Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in Spencer County, Indiana. When the tree died in 1933, it was estimated to be 350 years old. The stump was shipped to Weber by his son, Horace S. Weber, a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

Find out more about this #ArtifactRoadTrip carving on our Digital Artifact Collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/627

Follow along each week as we feature a different artifact in our Museum Collection from each of the United States.

jfkthedilf:

solarpunk-aesthetic:

tilthat:

TIL that in 1935 the US Government planted 220 million trees in 7 years to combat Dust storms. It was a huge success and if it was repeated today it would help in the fight against the climate crisis immensly.

viareddit.com

Don’t let anyone tell you there’s nothing our governments can do to combat climate change. They can. They simply choose not to, because they don’t consider anything worth doing unless it’s immediately profitable. Profit takes precedence over progress. This has not only caused virtually every environmental problem we’re facing, but it’s also why our entire society is stagnating under a culture of consumerism and disposable commodities.

This is referring to the CCC (civilian conservation corps), basically a tree planting army under FDR. Overall they planted about 3 billion trees all over the country, it was so successful that most Americans really don’t know that a solid chunk of their forests are only about 100-85 year old new growths. Volunteer conservationist groups nowadays could potentially recreate this at a notably smaller scale if the government were to provide a store of local seeds and land to remediate.

The Canadian government is doing this, with an aim to plant 2 billion trees. Right now they’re starting with seed banking to make sure they have seeds for indigenous varieties, to plant native species in their correct locations.  

Former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong is also backing reforestation with his company Terraformation, by creating mobile seed bank labs that fit in shipping containers, that are self-contained and solar-powered.