An Evening with Allen Dieterich-Ward and Cindy Adams Dunn: An Environmental History of Pennsylvania
Schedule
Thu, 27 Mar, 2025 at 07:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Midtown Scholar Bookstore | Harrisburg, PA
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The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is honored to welcome Shippensburg University professor Allen Dieterich-Ward for a conversation and signing on his new book, Cradle of Conservation: An Environmental History of Pennsylvania. Dieterich-Ward will be in conversation with Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn. This event is free and open to the public. To enter the signing line, books must be purchased from the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event, or you may preorder a copy of the book for pickup/shipment.
About the Book:
A long-term goal of the Conservation Heritage Project has come to the fruition with the publication of a new comprehensive study of Pennsylvania’s environmental history.
The story starts with forester Ralph Brock at the dawn of the conservation era and continues through the eras of energy production using coal, oil, natural gas, and other resources. Allen Dieterich-Ward also investigates how the non-human world shapes the history of the commonwealth and examines the impact of pollution.
Cradle of Conservation moves across time and place, from the Haudenosaunee people of the Susquehanna Valley, to the iron furnaces of nineteenth-century Pittsburgh, to the diesel trucks on the twentieth-century Pennsylvania Turnpike. In addition, Dieterich-Ward explores the histories of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River and the state’s anthracite region and traces the environmental movements and crises that have led to public policy changes in the face of climate change.
Cradle of Conservation deepens our understanding of how Pennsylvanians have conserved and consumed.
About the Authors:
Dr. Allen Dieterich-Ward is a professor of history and director of The Graduate School at Shippensburg University. His first book, Beyond Rust: Metropolitan Pittsburgh and the Fate of Industrial America won the 2016 Arline Custer Memorial Award from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference. His second book, Cradle of Conservation: An Environmental History of Pennsylvania is now available from Temple University Press. He is the past president of the Pennsylvania Historical Association, former editor of the Pennsylvania History Series, and a board member of PA Humanities.
Cindy Adams Dunn is the secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources which manages 124 state parks and 2.2 million acres of state forest for recreation and other values, provides conservation and recreation technical assistance and a large related grants program, and operates the Pennsylvania Geological Survey. At DCNR, she has helped position Pennsylvania as a leader in land conservation, outdoor recreation, green practices and public land management. During her tenure the department created the Pennsylvania Outdoor Corps to connect youth and young adults with job opportunities relating to the outdoors and the environment. Under her direction, Pennsylvania continues efforts to address the impacts of climate change, as well as providing leadership on planting forest buffers along streams to improve water quality. Dunn has worked in both the public and private sectors. She served in several leadership posts at leading environmental advocacy groups like Audubon Pennsylvania, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Bay Foundation and PennFuture. She is trained as a biologist, and when not at work championing conservation her hobbies include
birding, fishing, canoeing and hiking.
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Where is it happening?
Midtown Scholar Bookstore, 1302 N 3rd St, Harrisburg, PA 17102-1906, United States,Harrisburg, PennsylvaniaEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
