Concord, Massachusetts, 1856. Four men cut down a huge, seemingly healthy American elm tree using block and tackle, and ropes drawn by a horse. The graceful tree towered above a house whose owners heard creaking during a storm - they felt unsafe and had it removed. The event would have been long forgotten, except one of America’s greatest writers and earliest environmentalists also lived in Concord - Henry David Thoreau.  Supremely ticked-off, the removal of the stately elm inspired a flurry of journal writing by Thoreau that defined elms as symbols of virtue that looked to Concord’s past and the country’s future. Guest Thomas Campanella, Professor at Cornell University and author of Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm, shares his work. It turns out, elm trees  helped define our young nation’s sense of itself. Guest Thomas J. Campanella Professor of City and Regional Planning Cornell University Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm, Yale University Press, 2003. Henry David Thoreau and the Yankee Elm,  Arnoldia, 2001. Other Sources: Thoreau and the Language of Trees,  Richard Higgins, Univ of California Press, 2017. Podcast Consultant Martha Douglas-Osmundson Music Diccon Lee, www.deeleetree.com Artwork Dahn Hiuni, www.dahnhiuni.com/home Follow on Facebook @thisoldtreepod Instagram @thisoldtreepod Website thisoldtree.show We want to hear about the favorite tree in your life! To submit a 1-3 minute “Tree Story Short” for consideration to be aired on This Old Tree, record the story on your phone’s voice memo app and email to: [email protected] Photo American elm, First Baptist Church, Providence, RI (photo by Doug Still) This episode was written in part at the What Cheer Writers Club, Providence, RI https://whatcheerclub.spaces.nexudus.com/about