History Honours student Sydney Mills has won the Pro-Vice Chancellor’s prize for her essay, “Weyerhaeuser’s Advertising Throughout the 1950s and 1960s: The Articulation of Environmental Ideas and Fears.” Written for the course HIST 4125, Environmental Ideas in Canada and the United States,” the paper traces the many ways forestry giant Weyerhaeuser used environmental marketing as a way to alleviate fear about clearcutting and declining access to wilderness areas in the United States. Professor John Sandlos, who taught the course, said, “Sydney’s paper is a remarkable analysis of the many ways Weyerhaeuser appealed to the idea of wilderness in their marketing materials.

The paper is not only a fantastic case study, but connects the forestry advertisements to broader changes in the way Americans thought about nature in the 1950s and 1960s. The paper is superb and the award is richly deserved.” Congratulations Sydney!