Program areas at FHS
Library & archives - the fhs maintains the foremost collection in the world of Forest and conservation History books, journals, and other materials for current and future generations. It houses over 200,000 historic photographs, 12,000 books, maps, moving footage, artwork, and over 350 oral History interviews. It provides free online databases for remote researching for k-12 and college students, teachers, journalists and other researchers. Over 5,000 searches annually are conducted in the databases and over 100,000 users reach fhs web pages for information. The archives preserve almost one-mile of unique records from individuals, families, companies, and institutions and hosts on-site researchers from around the world. The fhs serves as the first stop for global inquiries in Forest History.
Awards & education - the fhs provides travel grants to researchers in need in order to access the fhs collections. To encourage scholarly work in Forest and conservation History the fhs offers awards for the best wrting in journals, books, and the popular press. Two annual fellowships support graduate students studying Forest History. To convey an understanding of Forest History to a wide variety of publics, fhs provides the free online "if trees could talk" curriculum for middle school students that reaches hundreds of teachers and thousands of students. A live-streamed lectureship in collaboration with duke university reaches thousands annually and the general public is served by a variety of social media outlets including the award-winning blog "peeling back the bark."
Research and pulications - conduct research and promote writing and publications that synthesize the substantial historical literature in Forest and conservation History. The Society's impressive list of publications includes the "Forest History today" magazine, and "environmental History", the leading scholarly journal in the field. Its issues series books have reached over 25,000 classrooms, households, and natural resource managers and are used in teacher education across the united states. The recent film, "america's first Forest" was broadcast over 5,000 times, on 450 pbs stations, in 47 states, with over 5 million viewers. The fhs has published dozens of book-length publications and is currently working on a book about private family forests.