A talk by Eric Slauter, Associate Professor of English, The University of Chicago
To learn more about the Yale Program in the History of the Book, please visit https://bookhistory.yale.edu
Slauter describes his project “Walden’s Carbon Footprint: People, Plants, Animals, and Machines in the Making of an Environmental Classic,” as follows: “A blend of environmental, labor, and literary history, the project examines the supply-chain of raw materials in the 1854 first edition of Thoreau’s book (from cotton-based paper and linen thread to animal-skin glue), considers the many people who contributed to its production (including enslaved African-Americans in the South, commodity brokers, northern mill workers, European rag-pickers, and women and children in the printing trades), and reflects on the literary genealogy of our contemporary desire to know the origin as well as the environmental and social impact of objects in our daily lives.”