William Temple Hornaday and the Progressive Era Nature Study Movement

Finally clearing out some of the books I bought at the ASEH conference in April, and just finished Kevin Armitage's The Nature Study Movement: The Forgotten Popularizer of America's Conservation Ethic (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009).

Armitage examined the Progressive Era nature study movement and concluded that it was a primarily a romantic movement (not a scientific one), that questioned modernity. I see that this is especially true of men like Thornton Burgess, William Temple Hornaday, and Ernest Thompson Seton, just to name some of those I am more familiar with. Although Hornaday was the dean of American zoologists during the thirty years he served as director of the Bronx Zoo (1896-1926), he was hardly a devoted scientist. In fact, he waged a personal war against what he considered the corrupting influences of the Teutonic scientific method. He criticized the academic scientists for removing nature study from the field and taking it to the laboratory, and for replacing buckskins and guns with lab coats and microscopes. Hornaday's scientific ideal was more grounded in a 19th century generalist movement. He felt the proper experience of wildlife took place in the outdoors where one observed animals whole, not in parts.

Yet, Hornaday had a very quirky attitude. While denying a certain fashion of science, he still maintained he followed the scientific principles and methods. He strongly criticized Reverend William Long and the nature fakers for ascribing unnatural skills to animals. But, no one anthropomorphized animals more than Hornaday himself. He ascribed a wide variety of human emotions to animals. Wolves were criminals, for example. Read his Wild Animal Interviews (1928) for a series of fictional conversations he had with animals. It is great stuff, and quite humorous (he was a funny man, a trait often overlooked in accounts of him), but it is not science. In Minds and Manners of Wild Animals (1922) he attempted to rate animal intelligence. Although maintaining he followed the scientific method, it is obvious that his data resulted not from verifiable tests, but from a lifetime of accumulated observations and anecdotes repackaged as objective truth. All this could be overlooked more easily if he had not spent much of his career attacking other people's views of science.

Hornaday's entire wildlife conservation program was based on the assumption that modernity, through improved firearms (pump and automatic shotguns) and transportation (automobiles) improved humanity's killing exponentially, while animals breeding remained an arithmetical calculation. Yes, that was a Malthusian view. Hornaday believed there would be no wildlife by 1950 at the rate at which human killing capacity improved.

Armitage does an excellent job of tying together various strands of the nature study movement. Back to rural living, bird day, gardening, woodcraft, etc., all receive their due. And he also explains how this nature study movement fit so well with the new curriculum of progressive education, as developed by John Dewey and others. Our generation is not the first to feel their children do not spend enough times outdoors. Hornaday had little interaction with Dewey or the progressive educators, but followed some of their ideas. Over 44 million people visited the Bronx Zoo during Hornaday's tenure as director. Many of them were school children who came on field trips. In this way Hornaday's zoo was one of the greatest contributors to the nature study movement.

Review of Wind Across the Everglades (1958)

In Wind Across the Everglades a game warden named Walt Murdock (played by Christopher Plummer) confronts plume hunter Cottonmouth Smith (played by Burl Ives) in early 1900s Florida. It is based loosely on the experiences of Guy Bradley, an Audubon warden who was killed by a plume hunter (also named Smith) in 1905. The Smith in the movie does not kill the game warden, although he made several failed attempts to rig a "natural" death. The cinematic game warden differed from the real one in ways other than that he survived his confrontation with his Smith. As where Bradley was a native Floridian familiar with the 'glades, Murdock is well educated northerner (often referred to as a "Yankee" when not called "Bird Boy") who came to Miami to teach natural history at the high school. He was fired literally as soon as he gets off the train because he pulled some plumes off one a woman's hat. This immediately draws him to the one Audubon representative in Miami who convinced the judge to release Murdock to serve as a warden in the Everglades. The views of the business community are crystallized in two individuals. One wants to profit from the plume trade, the other wants to drain the Everglades to make room for development. In contrast, Murdock becomes instantly infatuated with the swamps and rejects both of these positions.

In many ways I find the market hunter Smith the more interesting character. He leads a colony of violent outlaws, the misfits of society who believe their lifestyle is both the ultimate expression of individualism and a form of protest against modern society. Smith holds sway over this community as a sort of king. He is lord of nature and man in the swamp. He dispenses justice as he sees fit, punishes transgressions, and holds the power over life and death. In the end he miraculously decides to bring the "Bird Boy," as he calls Murdock to Miami and risk prosecution, but as he went to grab his hat he was bit by a snake and died with a buzzard circling overhead. This is a Hollywood movie after all!

Having read a great deal on the Progressive Era wildlife conservation movement, I really enjoyed this film. I think it captures a lot of the indifference that existed to the plumage issue at the time as well as the crusading spirit that motivated the early conservationists. By casting Murdock as a "Yankee" in the south, it also captured some of the conflict between local and outside values over nature that exist in conservation battles. But, I think the depiction of the market hunters is a little off. Many were family men following a tradition of their fathers and who shot game (for plumes or meat) to make extra money. This is not  to defend them, but by and large they were much more ordinary than Smith's counter-cultural Robin Hood's band of the Swamps.

If I was teaching an environmental history class I think I would try to incorporate this film into the syllabus somehow. It could be a good vehicle for discussion on the points I enumerated above. As far as the film is concerned, the cinematography is phenomenal, especially given the date. There are many great scenes of wildlife and swamps, and there are no computer generated heron flocks in this movie.

The Ides: Caesar's Murder and the War for Rome

As they say in Monty Python, "And now for some thing completely different." I do teach a course on Western Civilization I every spring and do devote a considerable amount of reading time to that subject. I recently completed Stephen Dando-Collins, The Ides: Caesar's Murder and the War for Rome. Earlier I read and posted on his book concerning the great fire of Rome during Nero's reign. Dando-Collins is an engaging writer who draws the reader into the Ancient Rome.

There are two points Dando-Collins makes in The Ides I wish to call attention to in this posting. First, Julius Caesar was not a benevolent dictator out improve the lives of the poor. He was, instead, and accurately, a power hungry dictator who played the politics of class with the best of them. One of the many mistakes his assassins made was their failure to win over the populace, something Caesar excelled at. In fact, it was his ability to win over the populace at the expense of the senatorial class that motivated his assassins. Personally, I think this message needs to be amplified. If there is one thing I fear about our current political situation is that I really do hear people (including friends) say we need a benevolent dictator. It is my belief that there is no such thing as a benevolent dictator.

Second, Caesar's assassins had no real post-assassination plan. It appears they put absolutely no thought into it. Their largest concern was in not being charged with murder. For this reason they focused on tyranicide, which was not a crime under Roman law. Cicero, who was not part of the plot, felt they should have knocked off Mark Anthony as well. Undoubtedly he was correct, but to kill Anthony would have been murder. The assassins made no provisions for amassing troops and had no real plans to restore the Republic. Anthony walked into this void and showed them to be, in the vernacular of my students, total noobs. When Octavian entered the scene it further complicated the lives of the assassins. Now there were two men vying for Caesar's dictatorial legacy. And both parties wanted to punish the assassins. There is a real message here: Think out your actions! History is full of such examples. Please feel free to share your favorite example of an action driven by the best motives that totally backfired.

Colonel Roosevelt

Ever since my father took me to the TR birthplace when I was 10 or 11 the Rough Rider has been my favorite American historical figure. Frequent trips to Sagamore Hill, about a 20 minute drive from our house on Long Island, fostered my growing interest with TR. Naturally, I turned to biographies which in turn led me to the study of the Progressive Era.

Theodore Roosevelt has had his fair share of biographers, ranging from flat out hagiograpies to the far less flattering variety. I just finished Colonel Roosevelt, the third and final installment in Edmund Morris's expansive biography of Theodore Roosevelt. I really wish I could turn a sentence like Morris. He has a great style and wit. Yes, wit, not snark. I know some historians have criticized him for not providing enough historiographical context, a fair comment, but he more than compensates in my opinion by drawing such a vivid human portrait. The Roosevelt I came away with from the book is a man very much lost in the world, uncertain of his place, and struggling to remain relevant.

I think Roosevelt redefined the post-presidency. Prior to him past presidents led fairly quiet lives out of the public eye. Roosevelt, on the other hand, continued to publish books, essays, op-ed pieces, and reviews. He made his opinions known on a wide variety of topics. He traveled the world, going on safari in Africa, hobknobing with European royalty, and exploring the Amazonian jungles. Heck, he even ran for president on a third party. Grover Cleveland, of course, ran for president, but he did that on a major party ticket, and had intended on running from the moment he left the White House in 1889. Ulysses Grant unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in 1880. TR may have lost the 1912 election, but he did change the political landscape. Woodrow Wilson abandoned many of his own New Freedom ideas in favor of TR's New Nationalism.

In one other important way, TR served as a harbinger for future post-presidents. He spent a significant amount of time managing his legacy. In some ways his battle with his hand picked successor, William Howard Taft, was as much about legacy as any thing else. In reversing part of his predecessor's conservation policy, Taft was also attacking that cherished legacy. Roosevelt defended his legacy with a his Autobiography, another trend he established for post-presidents. Beyond that TR used his other writings to support and re-interpret his positions and attack his detractors. He even sued a newspaper writer who alleged he drank too much.

Wild Horses of the American West

Here is a link to my review of J. Edward de Steiguer's Wild Horses of the West: History and Politics of America's Mustangs on the Colorado Book Review website.



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A Gilded Age lesson about the Flat Tax

I was sitting at dinner with my family the other night and the I overheard a discussion about the flat tax at the next table. My mind drifted back to another era, the Gilded Age and the contentious issue of the tariff.

In the presidential election of 1880, the Democratic candidate, General Winfield Scott Hancock, uttered a gaffe when he called the tariff a local issue. Republican opponents seized on this statement as an example of the General's obvious ignorance in economic policies. How, they asked, could the the trade policy that drove the national economy, contributed so much to the federal coffers, and protected the jobs of millions of workers be remotely considered local? Well Hancock might not have been clear in his meaning, but the historian can see much accuracy in his statement. The tariff was the sum of many rates on thousands of items, which was the product of political deals to that often had the goal of satisfying local constituencies. In other words, no matter how much the Democrats of Louisiana supported a tariff on principle - as sound Democrats were expected to do - they inevitably opposed lowering the rates on sugar imports from the Caribbean or the Philippines out of fear it would damage their local economies. In other words, local political considerations trumped ideals.

The tariff, however, did not exist in a vacuum. As American industry grew in the late 1880s and early 1890s a new economic concern developed. Instead of fearing competition from cheap markets, American industries had so dominated the home market, that they became troubled by the idea that would build up an excess of product they could not sell. They not only feared the loss of revenue and economic decline from a shut down, but also the attendant social unrest, especially after the Haymarket Square riot of 1886. Moreover, they were concerned about another type of surplus, too much money in the federal treasury. In a deflationary period, having money collecting dust in a federal vault was a net loss to the economy.

To deal with this the Republicans came up with one novel idea and one not so new one. The novel idea was to reform the tariff to include a reciprocity agreement clause. This would allow the president to negotiate trade deals outside the normal tariff rules. It was you scratch my back and I will scratch yours kind of arrangement. I always considered this a really clever way of dealing with a real policy conundrum. How to keep a protectionist tariff (increasingly sold as a jobs saving measure) and lower the rates at the same time? Reciprocity provided the answer. At the same time, the McKinley Tariff of 1890 (named after then Congressman and future president William McKinley) lowered or eliminated rates on consumer items to reduce the surplus. Exports significantly increased as President Benjamin Harrison negotiated agreements with other countries to exchange specific items at lower rates. The less novel approach was the old fashion idea of lets eliminate the surplus by spending it. In this case, increasing payments to Civil War pensioners and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act that had the United States government purchasing nearly all the silver mined in the country. How is that for a subsidy! Such lavish spending earned the 51st Congress the sobriquet, the Billion Dollar Congress.

After having let the Republicans take a whack at the problem of surplus, the public turned to the Democrats. Grover Cleveland, elected in 1892, then entered one of the most miserable terms of office experienced by any president, as the economy crashed within months of his having taken office. Cleveland lowered spending, by eliminating the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and attempted a tariff reform. His proposal called for replacing revenue lost from general rate reductions with an income tax. Congress, however, proved incapable of producing the reform he demanded. Instead, it was a case of each member of Congress protecting the interest of their district. Cleveland was disgusted, but there was little he could do. In the end the Wilson-Gorman Tariff became law without the president's signature.

Why did a nearby discussion on the flat tax make me think of the tariff as an issue over one hundred and twenty years prior? I think it is because of the one striking similarity between today's tax code and the tariff of those days. It is no coincidence that as the tariff faded away the income tax replaced it. Not only as the government's source of revenue, but also as one of the chief means in which lawmakers can encourage local businesses. Instead of raising the rates on their foreign competitors, we give them a tax break as an incentive. I am little bit more of a loss to explain how the tariff was used to encourage people to engage in certain behaviors, in the way that the current tax code promotes home ownership and higher education, and, for whatever reason, corporate jets, but I might think of one if I was not so tired at the moment :-)

Wild Horses

A few notes about horses in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era I learned in J. Edward De Steiguer's Wild Horses of the West: History and Politics of America's Mustangs (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011).

During the mid-19th century the wild horse population numbered about 2.5 million animals. They descended from Spanish horses that escaped the missions in the 17th and 18th Century either on their own or with the aid of Native Americans. Combined with millions of buffalo and cattle, the hoofed animals did significant damage to the fragile ecosystem. During the Gilded Age their range shrunk as cattle ranches and farms moved further west. One of the forces protecting the wild horses was the great open breeding programs. Cowboys preferred to send their horses out to the wild herds to breed. But a series of disasters decreased the demand for new horses. Although De Steiguer does not mention it, I think the Blizzards of 1886-88 had to have had some effect on the horse population. Not so much from the snow itself, but the effect it had on the cattle industry and thus the need for mounts. De Steiguer does attribute a decline in horse demand to the depression of 1893 and the automobile, which seem reasonable enough. What remained of the wild horses were sold off in several large shipments, mainly to the British Army during the Boer War and later during World War I. Those animals not shipped off to war, fared no better. Although the total horse population in American reached its zenith in 1920 at 20 million head, the wild percentage of the total would shrink even more dramatically. As prosperity spread, people purchased homes and pets, wild horses were round up and slaughtered for pet food and glue, made into baseball covers, and canned for food to be sold in overseas markets. The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 with its fencing provisions vastly compounded the ill fortunes of the wild horse. By channelling horses off of farm land and funneling them into an increasingly narrow area, they became easier prey for the slaughterers. By 1940 they were about gone.