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Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country
Winner of the 2022 Philip Taft Labor History Book Prize
Often cast as villains in the Northwest's environmental battles, timber workers in fact have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues. Steven C. Beda explores the complex true story of how and why timber-working communities have concerned themselves with the health and future of the woods surrounding them. Life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers. Beda's sympathetic, in-depth look at the human beings whose lives are embedded in the woods helps us understand that timber communities fought not just to protect their livelihood, but because they saw the forest as a vital part of themselves.
Often cast as villains in the Northwest's environmental battles, timber workers in fact have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues. Steven C. Beda explores the complex true story of how and why timber-working communities have concerned themselves with the health and future of the woods surrounding them. Life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers. Beda's sympathetic, in-depth look at the human beings whose lives are embedded in the woods helps us understand that timber communities fought not just to protect their livelihood, but because they saw the forest as a vital part of themselves.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
308 pages, Paperback
Published December 13, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 11, 2026
This is an interesting look at how workers in the timber industry see themselves and the changes throughout the 20th century have harmed both the environment and the livelihoods of these workers. Beda's key argument here is that timber workers themselves have been written out of both environmental and labor historians who romanticize the IWW and are uncritically reliant on IWW sources despite their (Beda alleges) lack of popularity/creation of a durable labor movement, and the largely urban observers who see environmentalism and timber extraction as inherently incompatible.
Beda condemns New Left or Progressive Era historians or journalists like Morgan Murray, Melvin Dubofsky and Philip S. Foner for lacking qualitative data or secondary sources on the Wobblies' purported victories, arguing that the IWW saw in timber workers "ideal revolutionary subjects" due to the stereotype that timber workers were itinerant independent men who lacked any sense of place or stability. While noting that the IWW responded to real dangers and poor working conditions in their propaganda, Beda argues that most timber workers actually did have families and sought stability, caring deeply about their sense of place in the forests, and taking pride in their work.
Beda then turns to the radical International Woodworkers of America, a radical CIO union that fought for environmental protections in addition to traditional workplace interests of labor unions. For Beda, the IWA is a perfect example of the false dichotomy between environmentalists and rural timber workers, encapsulating the best ideals of the New Deal era.
The next few chapters are about the impacts of post-1970s large-scale shifts in American society, arguing that New Left activists created new stereotypes of rural timber workers as backwards and conservative, inverting the earlier romantic depictions by Wobbly sympathizers or Old Left/New Deal novelists. Beda essentially argues that these workers are misunderstood and that while they may use conservative/libertarian framings of issues rather than embracing the language of environmentalist organizations, they do in fact want to manage forests responsibly, not destroy them.
These debates over environmentalism reached their peak in the 1990s in the so-called "Timber Wars," well-publicized confrontations between environmentalists who wanted to protect the Spotted Owl and rural timber workers who faced declining prospects due to globalization, automation, declines in rates of union membership, and in their view, misguided environmentalism. Beda's argument here is that timber workers themselves are "the best environmentalists" because they are the ones who actually work and spend time in the forests, and therefore they care deeply about preserving the forests while extracting timber. Both timber workers and environmentalists used hyperbolic rhetoric at this time and used shocking slogans and bumber stickers, creating new urban/rural divisions and political realignments within the broader framework of the 1990s culture wars.
Beda's conclusion of this study calls for tolerance and understanding of rural timber workers to find out why they feel threatened for their jobs, and why forest management and environmental protections are not inherently contradictory. While Beda makes a strong case, and his arguments are insightful and counterintuitive, it is still sometimes hard to see timber workers as independent actors despite the obvious motives of large timber companies to deregulate their industries. It seems that many of these efforts to fight forest regulations are backed by large timber companies, even if independent timber companies and workers agree. This is not an issue limited to the timber industry, as other environmentally harmful industries like mining, oil, agriculture and others face similar tradeoffs between sometimes well-intentioned but out of touch activists, jobs, global markets, and industry-backed lobbying. While I'm not always convinced by Beda's arguments, he has indeed succeeded in presenting timber workers as complex actors with their own interests distinct from timber corporations who are far from the stereotypical one-dimensional low-class luddites that they are sometimes portrayed as.
Beda condemns New Left or Progressive Era historians or journalists like Morgan Murray, Melvin Dubofsky and Philip S. Foner for lacking qualitative data or secondary sources on the Wobblies' purported victories, arguing that the IWW saw in timber workers "ideal revolutionary subjects" due to the stereotype that timber workers were itinerant independent men who lacked any sense of place or stability. While noting that the IWW responded to real dangers and poor working conditions in their propaganda, Beda argues that most timber workers actually did have families and sought stability, caring deeply about their sense of place in the forests, and taking pride in their work.
Beda then turns to the radical International Woodworkers of America, a radical CIO union that fought for environmental protections in addition to traditional workplace interests of labor unions. For Beda, the IWA is a perfect example of the false dichotomy between environmentalists and rural timber workers, encapsulating the best ideals of the New Deal era.
The next few chapters are about the impacts of post-1970s large-scale shifts in American society, arguing that New Left activists created new stereotypes of rural timber workers as backwards and conservative, inverting the earlier romantic depictions by Wobbly sympathizers or Old Left/New Deal novelists. Beda essentially argues that these workers are misunderstood and that while they may use conservative/libertarian framings of issues rather than embracing the language of environmentalist organizations, they do in fact want to manage forests responsibly, not destroy them.
These debates over environmentalism reached their peak in the 1990s in the so-called "Timber Wars," well-publicized confrontations between environmentalists who wanted to protect the Spotted Owl and rural timber workers who faced declining prospects due to globalization, automation, declines in rates of union membership, and in their view, misguided environmentalism. Beda's argument here is that timber workers themselves are "the best environmentalists" because they are the ones who actually work and spend time in the forests, and therefore they care deeply about preserving the forests while extracting timber. Both timber workers and environmentalists used hyperbolic rhetoric at this time and used shocking slogans and bumber stickers, creating new urban/rural divisions and political realignments within the broader framework of the 1990s culture wars.
Beda's conclusion of this study calls for tolerance and understanding of rural timber workers to find out why they feel threatened for their jobs, and why forest management and environmental protections are not inherently contradictory. While Beda makes a strong case, and his arguments are insightful and counterintuitive, it is still sometimes hard to see timber workers as independent actors despite the obvious motives of large timber companies to deregulate their industries. It seems that many of these efforts to fight forest regulations are backed by large timber companies, even if independent timber companies and workers agree. This is not an issue limited to the timber industry, as other environmentally harmful industries like mining, oil, agriculture and others face similar tradeoffs between sometimes well-intentioned but out of touch activists, jobs, global markets, and industry-backed lobbying. While I'm not always convinced by Beda's arguments, he has indeed succeeded in presenting timber workers as complex actors with their own interests distinct from timber corporations who are far from the stereotypical one-dimensional low-class luddites that they are sometimes portrayed as.
February 5, 2024
Beda provides great insight into the cultural nuances between labor movements and environmental movements. The immense attention to detail in the ways that timber workers of the 20th century asserted their autonomy from companies in addition to their reliance on the forest throughout the century provides an incredibly important contextualization to an analysis of the infamous spotted owl conflict.
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January 2, 2024this was one of my favorite books for the envs hist class
November 14, 2024
best book i've had to read for a class. honestly gives an entire different perspective on conservation and environmentalism.
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February 5, 2026Having had 2 classes with Beda, it was very funny to experience his storytelling quirks in print form. "Perhaps."
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews