America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie

Overview

America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie tells the rich and complex story of one of the most astonishing alterations of nature in human history. Prior to Euro-American settlement in the 1820s, one of the major landscape features of North America was 240 million acres of tallgrass prairie. But between 1830 and 1900 - in the space of a single lifetime - the tallgrass prairie was steadily transformed to farmland. This drastic change in the landscape also brought about an enormous social change for Native Americans; in an equally short time their cultural imprint was reduced in essence to a handful of place-names appearing on maps. America's Lost Landscape examines the record of human struggle, triumph, and defeat that prairie history exemplifies, including the history and culture of America's aboriginal inhabitants. The story of how and why the prairie was changed by Euro-American settlement is thoughtfully nuanced.

Directed by David O'Shields

Top cast

Murphy Guyer

Aldo Leopold (voice)

Annabeth Gish

Narrator

John Trudell

Black Hawk (voice)

P

Pauline Drobney

Self - Biologist

Dayton Duncan

Self - Writer

L

Lance Foster

Self - Landscape Historian

L

Laura Jackson

Self - Conservation Biologist

W

Wes Jackson

Self - Director, The Land Institute

C

Carl Leopold

Self - Botanist

E

Eileen Schuyler

Willa Cather (voice)

A

Anton Treuer

Self

Details