Securing forests from the scourge of chestnut blight: The biopolitics of nature and nation

Bringing a biopolitical framework to bear on historical geographies of nature, this article traces the recent history of the American chestnut, with a focus on the pivotal time period in the early 20th century (1905–1925) during which the tree’s ecological, economic, and cultural roles changed dramatically. Once an ecologically dominant and culturally important forest tree in eastern North America, the American chestnut was rendered functionally extinct following the accidental introduction of a fungal pathogen, known as the chestnut blight, at the turn of the 20th century. Calling attention to the historical ties between nature and nation, I demonstrate how blight control, chestnut breeding, and restoration efforts were formulated in conversation with broader anxieties about the fate of the American nation in the wake of social, environmental, economic, and racial change. Through an exploration of three themes distilled from archival research—chestnut blight as national threat, fear and desire for exotic nature, and the shared histories of plant breeding and racial improvement—this paper illustrates the role that nature has played in the construction and circulation of biopolitical discourses, nationalist sensibilities, and gendered and racial logics.