The WEEKS ACT Story (1911)

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⬅️MINI-COMICS / Science+History+Civics

Here’s a comic to celebrate the Weeks Act of 1911 & the origins of the U.S. National Forest system!

Drawn during the Weeks Act Centennial (2011).

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SOURCES:

TEXT SOURCE: The “Weeks Act of 1911.” / 61st CONGRESS / SESSION III / CH.186 / p.961-63 [LOC.gov]

While the text of the Weeks Act did eventually inspire a song, it didn’t exactly tell a story…

To draw out this story, I based my comic on archival photographs from Plymouth State University’s online collection, “Protecting the Forests: The Weeks Act of 1911.”  These images tell a stark story of environmental collapse & conservation:

First, we see the arrival of the loggers in search of lumber;
This train ascends the Woodstock and Thornton Logging Railroad full of loggers…
… & descends full of logs:
… leaving behind a denuded, eroded hillside:
Here’s Mt. Larabee, clearcut along an entire face:
4 million board feet in a Mad River log drive:
Floating logs down to the mills below:
Jefferson, NH (1885) after multiple cuts:
Leftover “slash,” Upper Sabba Day Falls (1915) — a serious fire hazard!:
The Owl’s Head Fire of 1907:
An abandoned hill farm:

John Wingate Weeks:

Author of the Weeks Act of 1911!

House Speaker Cannon

Remembered for the line, “Not one cent for scenery!” (Nobody’s actually found the origin of this quote, though.)

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Published by Marek

Cartoonist, musician, teacher.

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