This is the second story in a two-part series on the public history of trees, centered on the essay collection Branching Out: The Public History of Trees. Read the first part here. Until the 20th century, more than 4 billion American chestnut trees stretched from southern Canada down to Mississippi and Alabama. “To those who lived in the eastern United States, especially Appalachia, the tree was invaluable,” writes Carolyn Barske Crawford in the opening of her essay “ ‘The Most Usefu...
