Library lecture examines history of fly fishing

A man fly fishes on the South Fork of the Boise River.
A man fly fishes on the South Fork of the Boise River (photo by Henry Fraczek on Unsplash).

The history of fly fishing is the subject of a Washington State University Libraries’ lecture at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 5, in the Terrell Library atrium. Environmental historian and WSU alumna Jen Brown will explore the sport from ancient times to the modern world, drawing from books in the WSU Libraries’ Gallup Collection.

“Dr. Brown’s talk will illustrate the significance of five key books among the more than 16,000 texts in the collection,” said Trevor Bond, WSU Libraries’ associate dean of digital initiatives and special collections.

Closeup of Jen Brown.
Jen Brown

Co-sponsored by the WSU Department of History and the Honors College, the lecture will also be livestreamed.

Interested in the history of fisheries, animals, conservation, and natural resource policy, Brown wrote the book “Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West,” based on her WSU doctoral dissertation. 

Brown is an independent scholar and writer based out of Bozeman, Montana. Before that, she was a tenured history professor at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Brown is finishing a book on dolphins in Cold War America and the story of the first successful animal liberation act in U.S. history.

For more information, contact lecture organizer Lipi Turner-Rahman, ilipi@wsu.edu.

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