James Fenimore Cooper and Susan Fenimore Cooper established a distinctive two-generation reflection on the landscape and environment of the Susquehanna Headwaters, and also helped define American views of nature there from a conservation standpoint different from the more laboratory/scientific perspective of the older Cooper’s contemporary Joseph Priestley. Bucknell students and faculty, led by Prof. Alfred K. Siewers, have been documenting the legacy and landscapes of the Coopers in video interviews and maps, in partnership with scholars at other institutions, and with the Stories of the Susquehanna Valley natural history project. Below is a map by Sam Lauer ’13 showing locations around the Susquehanna Headwaters referenced in Susan Fenimore Cooper’s writings.
Interviews by Abi Mills ’13 and Sam Lauer ’13 below:
Susquehanna Country and Bucknell Environmental College students at the Headwaters and the Onondaga Nation, by Brianna Derr: