Environmental History
(2016)
21
(4):
660-687.
doi:
10.1093/envhis/emw063
Luke Manget
Abstract
From the 1840s through the end of the
nineteenth century, the southern Appalachian region emerged as the
United States’ most
important supplier of so-called crude botanical
drugs to the growing pharmaceutical industry centered in the
northeastern
and Midwestern United States. This article
investigates the role of ecology, markets, and local culture in
sustaining this
trend. It argues that mountain entrepreneurs and
the remarkable biodiversity of the Appalachian ecosystems combined with
harvesters’
intimate knowledge of the landscape and a local
commitment to common rights to make the region the nation’s foremost
supplier
of crude drugs. The botanical drug trade provides
an interesting divergence from the typical narrative of commodification.
Instead of restructuring nature into productive
landscapes governed by capitalist values, the commodification of
medicinal
herbs helped reinforce common rights and expand
ecological knowledge of the landscape. This process shaped late
nineteenth-century
Appalachian life by increasing the importance of
the forests in rural economies. Although mountain people continued to
harvest
medicinal herbs well into the twentieth century,
resource depletion, habitat destruction, economic changes, and other
factors
fundamentally changed the dynamics of this
gathering commons.
