History posters at Portland 2012

At the Portland meeting, HRC sponsored an entire poster session, as well as an organized oral session, devoted to history. We’ll be continuing that trend this year with new sessions in Minneapolis.
The nine posters in the 2012 session explored various ways history can help clarify current research problems or shed light on the foundations of ESA as a society and ecology as a discipline. An especially well-timed theme was Susannah Tysor’s poster on The Ecological Society of America in the wake of three waves of feminism.

Susannah’s poster attracted a lot of attention and generated some lively discussion. With much online commentary recently on the underrepresentation of women in science, this hot topic helped us bring history to the forefront. The poster was also displayed later in the week at the HRC booth.
View Susannah’s poster here.
Other posters in the session are not online at this time, but they included:

• Archives as a source of ecological history: The Victor E. Shelford Papers as a case study, by Harold Balbach
• G. Evelyn Hutchinson and the invention of new fields in modern ecology, by Nancy G. Slack
• Personal beliefs and motivations of contemporary U.S. ecologists: Uncovering patterns and associations, by William A. Reiners, Derek S. Reiners, and Jeffrey A. Lockwood
• An in-depth look at ESA’s early membership: Continuity, contrasts, and surprises, by Sally L. White, Juliana C. Mulroy, and Harold Balbach
• A short history of vegetation classification and its relevance today, by Scott B. Franklin
• From before Lewis and Clark: The history of wildlife management in the Oregon Country, by Warren W. Aney
• Learning on the job: Lessons from 30 years of habitat restoration in Central California with three case studies, by Thomas W. Mulroy and several co-authors
• Long-distance pronghorn migration in the Northern Rockies: A collaborative approach to species conservation, by Brian S. Bean

For abstracts and descriptions of these posters, please check the 2012 program page.
The 2012 Organized Oral Session on history is described on this page.
More information coming soon on history programs for the 2013 Minneapolis meeting!