Northland lecture series explores founding fathers’ attitude toward nature

March 7, 2013

Author Andrea Wulf will speak on how the attitudes of America's founding fathers toward nature influenced a budding nation. Wulf will speak at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 15, at the Presbyterian First Congregational Church in Ashland. The event, part of the Northland College Community Connections series, is free and open to the public.

"George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison regarded themselves foremost as farmers and plantsmen and for them gardening, agriculture and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating," writes Wulf.

Wulf's lecture will offer an examination on how politics, nature and the nation's early leaders came together to influence the foundation of America.

Wulf is the author of three books: "The Brother Gardeners, Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession" and "Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation." The book "Brother Gardeners" received the American Horticultural Society's 2010 Book Award. The "Founding Fathers" was featured on the New York Times Best Seller List after it was released in 2011. Wulf published her most recent work "Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens" in May 2012.

Wulf is the 2013 Eccles British Library Writer in Residence and the three-time fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. Wulf has contributed articles and radio pieces for the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio, All Things Considered and more.

The Northland College Student Association is sponsoring the event as part of its 2013 Lecture Series: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Agriculture.