A
superb portrayal of environmental change in Southeastern Ohio
that uses a masterful combination of techniques -- including
"first person" interview footage carefully linked
with rare photographic images from the past, and comparative
views of the "same" landscapes today. "A Forest
Returns" confirms how interesting local environmental history
is, and how inspirationally it can be portrayed on film. Richard
Francaviglia, author
Hard Places: Reading the Landscape of America's Historic Mining
Districts [American Land & Life Series]
“The
Civilian Conservation Corps made significant contributions to
Ohio’s forest system, including the Wayne National Forest.
Newsman Ora Anderson covered the transformation from barren,
over-worked farms to lush wooded hillsides. Skillfully blending
Anderson’s eyewitness account with historical material
and contemporary scenes, producer Jean Andrews has captured
an important slice of Ohio’s New Deal experience.”
Pat Williamsen,
Ohio Humanities Council
“Jean
Andrews won “Best Documentary” at the Second Appalachian
Film Festival in Huntington in June for her MA thesis film,
“So Here I Am:
An Eye Witness Account of the Beginning of the Wayne National
Forest in Appalachian, Ohio.” The 29-minute film uses
local newspaper editor/reporter Ora Anderson to recount the
tale of the CCC coming to southern Ohio in the 1930s to create
a forest where denuded
land stood. I greatly enjoyed the film, recalling B.J. Gudmundsson’s
film on Cal Price and Bill Richardson’s film, “Mine
Wars,” which competed with the film in Huntington. It
shows the desolation caused by a century of clear-cutting and
stripmining and the current beautiful woods.
I am sure that anyone who loves the vast Appalachian forest
would love to see this film, especially the people who manage
the many other forests created by the CCC during that era. For
more information, check the Web site at www.ohiolandscape.org/ora.html.
It will be available for
purchase this fall.”
Steve Fesenmaier, West Virginia’s Graffiti Magazine
“Coal
was the biggest story of the 19th Century in the region. What
we
never realized is that the return of the forest was probably
the biggest
story of the 20th Century. A Forest Returns supports this insight
by
telling this little told story using Ora Anderson's lovely narrative
and an
impressive array of visual documentation."
John Winnenberg,
Little Cities of Black Diamonds Council
“This
video is about the Wayne National Forest, the only national
forest in Ohio. Its story is told by 93-year-old Ora E. Anderson,
former newspaperman, lobbyist, conservationist, and bird carver,
who was involved in the project, as a newspaperman and citizen,
from its inception. His words are accompanied by imaginative
video work, wonderful archive photographs, and soothing music.
The
idea for the forest started in the depths of the Great Depression,
Mr.
Anderson tells us, as a means of putting money into the pockets
of
destitute farmers by buying their lands at $6 to $8 an acre,
land that had
been almost completely deforested by farming and timbering.
Young men in
the Civilian Conservation Corps lent their young muscles to
the task of
planting a million trees and stopping erosion. However, Mr.
Anderson makes
clear that the main reason for the success of the project was
that it
encouraged failing farmers to move off the land, and when they
stopped
farming it, trees grew back. Today, the Wayne National Forest
encompasses
833,990 acres of private and public land.
This video is a wonderful tribute to one of the great
programs of the much
maligned New Deal era. It also allows the remarkably articulate
Ora
Anderson, who personally planted 30,000 trees, to shine as a
storyteller.
Jean Andrews and Steve Fetsch have produced a winning documentary.”
Historian Loyal
Jones, Former director of the Berea College Appalachian Center
