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Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia
The harvesting of wild American ginseng ( panax quinquefolium ), the gnarled, aromatic herb known for its therapeutic and healing properties, is deeply established in North America and has played an especially vital role in the southern and central Appalachian Mountains. Traded through a trans-Pacific network that connected the region to East Asian markets, ginseng was but one of several medicinal Appalachian plants that entered international webs of exchange. As the production of patent medicines and botanical pharmaceutical products escalated in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, southern Appalachia emerged as the United States' most prolific supplier of many species of medicinal plants. The region achieved this distinction because of its biodiversity and the persistence of certain common rights that guaranteed widespread access to the forested mountainsides, regardless of who owned the land.
Following the Civil War, root digging and herb gathering became one of the most important ways landless families and small farmers earned income from the forest commons. This boom influenced class relations, gender roles, forest use, and outside perceptions of Appalachia, and began a widespread renegotiation of common rights that eventually curtailed access to ginseng and other plants.
Based on extensive research into the business records of mountain entrepreneurs, country stores, and pharmaceutical companies, Ginseng A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia is the first book to unearth the unique relationship between the Appalachian region and the global trade in medicinal plants. Historian Luke Manget expands our understanding of the gathering commons by exploring how and why Appalachia became the nation's premier purveyor of botanical drugs in the late-nineteenth century and how the trade influenced the way residents of the region interacted with each other and the forests around them.
Following the Civil War, root digging and herb gathering became one of the most important ways landless families and small farmers earned income from the forest commons. This boom influenced class relations, gender roles, forest use, and outside perceptions of Appalachia, and began a widespread renegotiation of common rights that eventually curtailed access to ginseng and other plants.
Based on extensive research into the business records of mountain entrepreneurs, country stores, and pharmaceutical companies, Ginseng A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia is the first book to unearth the unique relationship between the Appalachian region and the global trade in medicinal plants. Historian Luke Manget expands our understanding of the gathering commons by exploring how and why Appalachia became the nation's premier purveyor of botanical drugs in the late-nineteenth century and how the trade influenced the way residents of the region interacted with each other and the forests around them.
306 pages, Hardcover
Published March 8, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 21, 2023
3.5 stars
March 21, 2024
This book, by an assistant professor of history, is a product of his dissertation and so contains almost 1,000 footnotes. The author descends from a family of Kentucky root diggers, dedicating the book to his grandmother. The author structures the chapters with an introduction describing what the chapter will be about, the contents of the chapter and then a summary of the chapter.
American ginseng was one of the first Appalachian herbs traded on a global scale, mainly to China. In the U.S. it was not raised in gardens prior to the 20th century, rather dug up in "the commons," forested mountainsides which were not fenced and were open to general foraging. Root diggers included native American indian tribes such as the Cherokee who traded the root and other "crude botanicals" for general goods and foodstuffs at Appalachian stores. The colloquial term for ginseng is "sang" so the local mountain families who participated in the ginseng market were called "sangers." Daniel Boone dug ginseng. Who knew?
American ginseng was one of the first Appalachian herbs traded on a global scale, mainly to China. In the U.S. it was not raised in gardens prior to the 20th century, rather dug up in "the commons," forested mountainsides which were not fenced and were open to general foraging. Root diggers included native American indian tribes such as the Cherokee who traded the root and other "crude botanicals" for general goods and foodstuffs at Appalachian stores. The colloquial term for ginseng is "sang" so the local mountain families who participated in the ginseng market were called "sangers." Daniel Boone dug ginseng. Who knew?
August 31, 2022
In Ginseng Diggers, Luke Manget explores the economic, legal, and social implications of an 18th, 19th, and early 20th century trade most readers probably know very little about. For me this was an unexpectedly personal tale, as my family comes from western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee and I started at least tangentially recognizing names early on in the narrative.
I suspect the average reader will be a little less immediately drawn in, but it’s still an interesting book that will appeal to those curious about medicine in the days before Big Pharma, what life looked like in the Appalachian mountains in this era, or how we went from the notion of a commons where anyone could benefit from gathering and selling medicinal “roots and herbs” to a more familiar landscape of No Trespassing signs and barbed wire fences.
While Manget’s enthusiasm about an alternative take on capitalism didn’t quite pan out for me, and I found the historical details dry at times, this book added quite a lot of color to my sense of regional history and helped fill in some of the details around my family history.
What I found most interesting was how this story destabilizes certain categories through its rather odd twists and turns. For example, while you might think of trusting in herbal medicine and singing the praises of natural abundance as a hippie or witchy perspective in modern times, in the 19th century gathering medicinal plants had both a nationalist and a Christian tone.
Mountain people gathered medicinal plants to support Confederate troops when access was cut off to other kinds of drugs, while religious enthusiasts encouraged relying on God’s bounty in the form of botanical medicine rather than using mineral-based remedies. And as those minerals were mainly imported, botanical drugs were also linked to national pride.
Manget also illustrates connections to evolving ideas of masculinity and of course to financial freedom for those involved in the trade, albeit with a certain instability. The book digs into the surprising trade networks between the North, the South, and even China (in the case of ginseng, where he focuses most of his attention), but also into shifting cultural norms that governed who was considered respectable and who was lampooned as a “sang digger” posing a threat to the capitalist order.
While there was money to be had in this industry, especially for foothills entrepreneurs who bought roots and herbs, including ginseng, from those who lived in the backcountry, in the later parts of this history the tide shifted and the complexities were reduced down to mountain stereotypes. Manget links this shift to the erosion of mountain land as a last bastion of the commons—a legal free-for-all-zone where anyone can harvest natural resources, even if the land is technically privately owned, and benefit from their labor.
At the height of the trade, unique access to a valuable commodity gave small farmers in the Southern mountains stability despite a lack of ready access to cash, selling to country stores in exchange for needed supplies. This in turn allowed small farmers to stay afloat and avoid wage labor as economic models shifted. However, there was still a dependence on national markets, as well as a push to cultivate ginseng and eliminate the role of the small farmer or landless local.
As over-harvesting became a serious issue, the labor itself was less desirable and in some regions became more heavily stigmatized, particularly as post-war diggers (especially in West Virginia) tended to be nomadic and seen as encroachers rather than resourceful locals. Eventually, the commons was no longer a viable alternative to owning property or earning wages, and thus the region followed the rest of the country into the now-familiar capitalist model. The advent of newer medications such as antibiotics further reduced demand as supplies dried up, and stricter enforcement of property laws made the trade less attractive for those taking part illegally.
Manget contextualizes all these interlocking trends fairly clearly, relying on a range of sources including popular references to the trade, store logs, and other historical evidence. He challenges the idea of mountain locals as ignorant about conservation and thus to blame for over-harvesting, for example, by documenting how locals engaged in practices to keep the trade sustainable when they could. Manget points to local intimacy with the land and personal experiential knowledge of the plants in question, in contrast with the practices of businessmen who tried to cultivate ginseng.
For the most part I found Manget to be a compelling storyteller in the tradition of other writers exploring social history through the threads around a single commodity. I did get a little confused trying to put different pieces together given a mixed thematic and chronological organization, though, and there are sections of this text that are quite dry in the name of conveying all the facts.
I also hesitate to consider this story illustrative of the possible benefits of capitalism overall, given the undeniable story of how white settlers profited from the removal of Native peoples and also relied heavily on exploitative markets to keep the local trade going. But the history of this commodity does complicate the overall narrative of economic history, and provides detail that is missing from common understandings.
Perhaps some of the greatest relevance is in historiography. The way we tell cultural tales will always be tied to motive, and often this specificity gets lost over time. In digging up (pun intended) this somewhat niche story, Manget shows how facts can get twisted by an overarching historical narrative that needs a convenient scapegoat.
I was struck, for example, by how West Virginian sang diggers could be portrayed as culprits against natural bounty when railway and logging industries were in fact far more disruptive. Perhaps we can learn something in our own time by comparison—are personal carbon footprints really the most crucial focus for sustainability, or might we turn our eye to corporate oil and gas giants? While the point Manget intended to make didn’t quite land with me, I still found relevant comparisons between the past and our present day.
(ARC provided through Edelweiss.)
I suspect the average reader will be a little less immediately drawn in, but it’s still an interesting book that will appeal to those curious about medicine in the days before Big Pharma, what life looked like in the Appalachian mountains in this era, or how we went from the notion of a commons where anyone could benefit from gathering and selling medicinal “roots and herbs” to a more familiar landscape of No Trespassing signs and barbed wire fences.
While Manget’s enthusiasm about an alternative take on capitalism didn’t quite pan out for me, and I found the historical details dry at times, this book added quite a lot of color to my sense of regional history and helped fill in some of the details around my family history.
What I found most interesting was how this story destabilizes certain categories through its rather odd twists and turns. For example, while you might think of trusting in herbal medicine and singing the praises of natural abundance as a hippie or witchy perspective in modern times, in the 19th century gathering medicinal plants had both a nationalist and a Christian tone.
Mountain people gathered medicinal plants to support Confederate troops when access was cut off to other kinds of drugs, while religious enthusiasts encouraged relying on God’s bounty in the form of botanical medicine rather than using mineral-based remedies. And as those minerals were mainly imported, botanical drugs were also linked to national pride.
Manget also illustrates connections to evolving ideas of masculinity and of course to financial freedom for those involved in the trade, albeit with a certain instability. The book digs into the surprising trade networks between the North, the South, and even China (in the case of ginseng, where he focuses most of his attention), but also into shifting cultural norms that governed who was considered respectable and who was lampooned as a “sang digger” posing a threat to the capitalist order.
While there was money to be had in this industry, especially for foothills entrepreneurs who bought roots and herbs, including ginseng, from those who lived in the backcountry, in the later parts of this history the tide shifted and the complexities were reduced down to mountain stereotypes. Manget links this shift to the erosion of mountain land as a last bastion of the commons—a legal free-for-all-zone where anyone can harvest natural resources, even if the land is technically privately owned, and benefit from their labor.
At the height of the trade, unique access to a valuable commodity gave small farmers in the Southern mountains stability despite a lack of ready access to cash, selling to country stores in exchange for needed supplies. This in turn allowed small farmers to stay afloat and avoid wage labor as economic models shifted. However, there was still a dependence on national markets, as well as a push to cultivate ginseng and eliminate the role of the small farmer or landless local.
As over-harvesting became a serious issue, the labor itself was less desirable and in some regions became more heavily stigmatized, particularly as post-war diggers (especially in West Virginia) tended to be nomadic and seen as encroachers rather than resourceful locals. Eventually, the commons was no longer a viable alternative to owning property or earning wages, and thus the region followed the rest of the country into the now-familiar capitalist model. The advent of newer medications such as antibiotics further reduced demand as supplies dried up, and stricter enforcement of property laws made the trade less attractive for those taking part illegally.
Manget contextualizes all these interlocking trends fairly clearly, relying on a range of sources including popular references to the trade, store logs, and other historical evidence. He challenges the idea of mountain locals as ignorant about conservation and thus to blame for over-harvesting, for example, by documenting how locals engaged in practices to keep the trade sustainable when they could. Manget points to local intimacy with the land and personal experiential knowledge of the plants in question, in contrast with the practices of businessmen who tried to cultivate ginseng.
For the most part I found Manget to be a compelling storyteller in the tradition of other writers exploring social history through the threads around a single commodity. I did get a little confused trying to put different pieces together given a mixed thematic and chronological organization, though, and there are sections of this text that are quite dry in the name of conveying all the facts.
I also hesitate to consider this story illustrative of the possible benefits of capitalism overall, given the undeniable story of how white settlers profited from the removal of Native peoples and also relied heavily on exploitative markets to keep the local trade going. But the history of this commodity does complicate the overall narrative of economic history, and provides detail that is missing from common understandings.
Perhaps some of the greatest relevance is in historiography. The way we tell cultural tales will always be tied to motive, and often this specificity gets lost over time. In digging up (pun intended) this somewhat niche story, Manget shows how facts can get twisted by an overarching historical narrative that needs a convenient scapegoat.
I was struck, for example, by how West Virginian sang diggers could be portrayed as culprits against natural bounty when railway and logging industries were in fact far more disruptive. Perhaps we can learn something in our own time by comparison—are personal carbon footprints really the most crucial focus for sustainability, or might we turn our eye to corporate oil and gas giants? While the point Manget intended to make didn’t quite land with me, I still found relevant comparisons between the past and our present day.
(ARC provided through Edelweiss.)
July 28, 2024
While this does cover some of the botany and ecology of the plant -- and other gathered plants -- it is chiefly focused on the development of the trade in crude botanicals.
Ginseng in particular was important to the China trade, but there were all sorts of barks and roots and flowers that were deemed useful. Physicians preferred mineral based ones. There were all sorts of effects. The American Civil War introduced more botanicals into the Confederate pharmaceuticals than Union ones, because of the blockade, and after the war, the ginseng trade was valued because it could bring cash to areas impoverished by the war.
It was the legal practice that anything growing wild could be harvested from unimproved land, whoever owned it. This produced a lot of issues.
Also, it was heavily women's work. One shop had a third of its customers women, but half of those who traded in herbs. On top of that, there were men who would offer the "yerbs" the womenfolk had gathered; perhaps some were hiding their own gathering, or cooperation in the gathering, but others were actually bringing the plants the women of the family gathered.
Over-harvesting, and conservation efforts when they occurred. Green vs. dried vs. "clarified." The changes from using it to buy from stores to selling to dealers. And more.
Ginseng in particular was important to the China trade, but there were all sorts of barks and roots and flowers that were deemed useful. Physicians preferred mineral based ones. There were all sorts of effects. The American Civil War introduced more botanicals into the Confederate pharmaceuticals than Union ones, because of the blockade, and after the war, the ginseng trade was valued because it could bring cash to areas impoverished by the war.
It was the legal practice that anything growing wild could be harvested from unimproved land, whoever owned it. This produced a lot of issues.
Also, it was heavily women's work. One shop had a third of its customers women, but half of those who traded in herbs. On top of that, there were men who would offer the "yerbs" the womenfolk had gathered; perhaps some were hiding their own gathering, or cooperation in the gathering, but others were actually bringing the plants the women of the family gathered.
Over-harvesting, and conservation efforts when they occurred. Green vs. dried vs. "clarified." The changes from using it to buy from stores to selling to dealers. And more.
August 12, 2022
Very interesting. My family has dug ginseng and yellow root to sell in past years. Quite a comprehensive coverage of the subject, can't imagine the amount of research that was done to complete the book. Kudos to the author. If you have even a slight interest in the history of ginseng and herbs and how it all became part of our local, state and national history read the book.
August 9, 2025
A fascinating insight, not only into the actual history of botanical drug gathering, but also of the importance of the forest commons in America. Commons enclosure is a historical subject that I feel is, sadly, not discussed nearly enough.
Really makes you realize how much we take commoditization as an inevitability, and how things weren’t always that way, nor must they be.
Really makes you realize how much we take commoditization as an inevitability, and how things weren’t always that way, nor must they be.
March 12, 2022
I'm interested in herbs and I found this book informative and well researched.
I learned something new and was fascinated by what I read.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
I learned something new and was fascinated by what I read.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
December 17, 2022
Fascinating and impressively researched. This book thoughtfully examines ecology, gender dynamics, ongoing renegotiation of the commons, and more while illuminating the history of ginseng gathering in Appalachia.
July 7, 2024
Fascinating. Have always wondered about the history of ginseng collecting in the mountains. Well researched. Glad I came across this book at the library.
August 7, 2025
This was an outstanding book. I highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews