The Herbal History Project is a fluid, multi-modal exploration of herbal medicine and regional history. We are inspired by the diverse and flourishing regional herbal geography of the United States. We are curious about the mutual relevance of history, herbalism, and the health humanities writ large.

This project creates the foundation for storytelling and storylistening for "plant people" - herbalists, ecologists, conservationists, foragers, gardeners, cooks. What are the ruptures and continuities in histories of our relationships with plants? This project also creates and preserves oral history interviews with herbalists. If you are an herbalist or herb community member and you’d like to participate, please contact us at maceyflood at gmail dot com.

This project also has a long-standing educational arm. We have taught history to herbalists through Lise Wolff’s Three Seasons of Herbs, the Minnesota Herbal Education Festival, the North Country Herb Guild, and through independent offerings. We have brought herbalists in to engage with rare books of their tradition at the Wangensteen Historical Library and Hennepin County Library’s Special Collections. We’ve taught herbalists and the general public through the University of Minnesota’s LearningLife program as well as independent offerings in a style more typical of the regional herbal community. These have included outreach with the Wangensteen Historical Library, Hennepin County Library’s rare book collection, and MIA. We've run a trans-disciplinary, community-university study group on herbal history. We have presented on our work at the International Health Humanities Consortium, and we are currently working our findings into several publications.

If you’d like to collaborate with us, get in touch!