Catalogue:  1890-1915
The Progressive Era

AUSTIN, Mary (1868-1934)

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The Land of Little Rain

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1903.  First edition.  Published by Houghton, Mifflin and Co., New York and London

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Greenish brown cloth boards with exceptionally crisp gilt and colored design and lettering to cover and spine.  Some scuffing to spine.  Unmarked.  Tissue-guarded frontispiece.  Offsetting on fpd and ffe.  Numerous line-drawing illustrations.  VG+

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Austin was a pioneering nature writer of the American Southwest, best known for The Land of Little Rain which "describes the fauna, flora, and people - as well as evoking the mysticism and spirituality - of the region between the High Sierra and the Mojave Desert..."  Nature is a "central character in the book."  (Quotes from Wikipedia).  Several editions were published, with the involvement of such notables as Ansel Adams, Edward Abbey and Terry Tempest Williams.  It is #2 of the "Zamorano Eighty," a list of books compiled in 1945 intended to represent the most significant early volumes published about California. 

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California: Land of the Sun:  Painted by Sutton Palmer/Described by Mary Austin

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1914.  First edition.  Published by Adam and Charles Black, London

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Green cloth boards with an unusually artful cover and spine design, crisp and largely unscuffed.  Faint owner's sig (erased?) on ffe, otherwise unmarked.  Text block sound.  The illustrations are extremely unusual - there are 32 illustrations, each consisting of a reproduction of a full-color (watercolor?) painting by Sutton Palmer, a successful English painter.  Each illustration is effectively like a postcard, pasted into the middle of an empty page over a matte background.  The facing page is empty save a short description of the scene depicted.  This style was evidently a specialty of the publisher - at the rear is a two-page catalogue of "Black's Beautiful Books," of which about 80 are shown, "All with Full-Page Illustrations in Color."  Palmer apparently illustrated several of Black's Beautiful Books.  And it is a truly beautiful book.  VG+

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Earth Horizon

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1932.  First edition.  Published by Houghton Mifflin.  Inscribed.

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This is Austin's autobiography, published two years before she died.  Inscribed on ffe:  "To Henry and Lady with love and grateful remembrance.  Mary 'A' herself."  [The "A" is more like a personalized glyph].  Natural-colored cloth boards with green ink lettering and design.  Unmarked save inscription.  

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Mary Austin was a singular character, a true bohemian for her time, feminist, Native American rights activist, Latin American rights activist and environmental activist, involved in the California Water Wars.  She separated from her husband and lived in an artist colony in Carmel, CA for a time.  In addition to many fiction and non-fiction books, she wrote, produced and directed plays and was a founder of what is now the Santa Fe Playhouse. 

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Per Brooks in Speaking for Nature:  "[A]n extraordinary woman whose nature books...have been ranked with those of Thoreau and Muir."  [p. 183].  Brooks dedicates a full, beautifully written chapter to Austin and Joseph Woods Krutch, with a full eleven pages dedicated to Austin (p. 181-192).  

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AUSTIN LETTTERS EDITED AND WITH COMMENTARY AND CONTEXT BY T.M. PEARCE

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Literary America: 1903-1934 The Mary Austin Letters - Typescript

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1979 - Typescript in two volumes, with sporadic corrections "apparently" (per seller Ken Lopez) in Pearce's hand.  Pearce was a long-time professor in the English Department at the University of New Mexico.  Letters was the third of his four books about Austin, who in the Intro to this book he describes as having called upon and met with in 1928, shortly after he arrived at UNM.  Laid in is a full-page handwritten note, from Pearce on UNM letterhead in the envelope in which it was mailed, to Clark Kimball, a Santa Fe based publisher, dated 1981 (the contents of the letter are general personal matters rather than substantive).  The book was published in 1979 as a volume in the Twayne United States Authors Series.  The book includes letters exchanged between Austin and, among others, Ansel Adams, George Bird Grinnell, Lincoln Steffens, Herbert Hoover, Jack London, Ernest Thompson Seton, Henry Holt, Willa Cather, Diego Rivera, H.G. Wells and Sinclair Lewis, among many others.  Clasp-bound cardstock covers, with typed labels.  The title page is detached.

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BAILEY, L.H. (Liberty Hyde) (1858-1954)

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The Holy Earth​

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1915 - First edition.  Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York

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Green cloth boards with crisp, attractive gilt lettering to cover and spine.  Owner's sig and other penciled notes on ffe and extensive underlining and markings, also in pencil, to first half of book.  Two items tipped in:  1) clipping describing the book, likely from print ad, on ffe, and 2) notice (circa mid-1940s) regarding a newly painted portrait of LHB opposite first page of main text.  G-

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The Library of Congress describes The Holy Earth as a "pioneering attempt to establish an ethic for the man/nature relationship which directly influences Aldo Leopold's development of an ecologically-based 'land ethic' in the 1930s and '40s."

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Bailey was the most prominent botanist of his time - he "dominated the field of horticultural literature, writing some sixty-five books, which together sold more than a million copies...." [Wikipedia entry on LHB].  He was also at the forefront of the agrarian movement, founding the College of Agriculture at Cornell University.  He was a leader of The Country Life Movement, having been the founding editor of the popular "Country Life in America" periodical.  He chaired Theodore Roosevelt's 1908-09 National Commission on Country Life -his goal was to preserve American rural civilization while at the same time freeing it from ignorance and inadequate institutions.  As such he focused on a combination of education and technology.  He helped pioneer the Extension system linking agricultural educational institutions (like the very high-profile Cornell Agricultural Extension). 

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Lyon published four essays by Bailey in This Incomprable Land, immediately after those of Thoreau, Muir and Burroughs, and immediately before Beston, an apt reflection of Bailey's importance.  Lyon writes:  "He lived through the tipping of the American balance from an agrarian to an industrial society and on into the downward environmental slide of the twentieth century, and he thought long about the human implications of these historical movements.... [H]e examined the relations between city and country, the values that were being lost in the urban ascendence, and the possibility of a relationship with nature that was both spiritually right and practically sustainable.  He was one of the early 'deep ecologists' of the modern era."  [p. 247].

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Bailey worked with Anna Botsford Comstock (1910) - see below - in Cornell's Nature Studies Department.

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BRUNCKEN, Ernest (1865-1933)

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North American Forests & Forestry: Their Relations to the National Life of the American People

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1902 edition (first published 1899).  Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.

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Green cloth boards with crisp, attractive gilt lettering to cover and spine.  Unmarked and unfoxed.  VG+

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Bruncken was a prominent resident of Milwaukee and served as Secretary of the Wisconsin State Forestry Commission.  He worked for a time as an assistant forester at the Biltmore in North Carolina, where Gifford Pinchot effectively started the practice of large-scale systematic scientific forestry in America.

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CHAPMAN, Frank M. (1864-1945)

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Bird Studies with a Camera: With Introductory Chapters on the Outfit and Methods of the Bird Photographer

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1900.  First edition.  Published by D. Appleton & Co., New York

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Grayish-green cloth boards with crisp, attractive gilt lettering and stamped black and white colored design to cover and spine.  Printed on heavy semi-coated paper.  Unmarked and unfoxed.  Small stain on spine, otherwise NF.  

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My Tropical Air Castle​

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1929.  First edition.  Published by D. Appleton & Co., New York.  Warmly inscribed.

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Green cloth boards with crisp, attractive gilt lettering and design to cover and spine.  Unmarked and unfoxed.  Small stain on spine, otherwise NF.  Inscribed:  "Dear Miss Robinson, Surely no author could ask for a more acceptable endorsement of his work than is contained in your letter and I hasten to sign myself...Sincerely yours, Frank M. Chapman.  Nov 3, 1929."

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[See the EC History chapter for more on Chapman]

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CLEVELAND, Grover (1837-1908) 

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Fishing and Shooting Sketches​

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1906.  First edition.  The Outing Publishing Company, New York

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Brown cloth boards with gilt lettering and stamped black design.  Tissue-guarded frontispiece.  Prior owner's sig dated March 1907 on ffe.  Otherwise, unmarked and unfoxed.  Illustrated by Henry S. Watson (1868-1933), a popular illustrator of primarily recreational subjects.  

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While one may not think of Cleveland as a conservationist per se, he was an avid outdoorsman.  The opening essay of the book is a stout and vigorous defense of outdoor pursuits (for which he says he was occasionally "persecuted" by the press while in public office), including the role of outdoorsmen in the conservation of fish and game and the importance of outdoor pursuits to physical and mental health.  Cleveland of course was the only US President to hold non-consecutive terms (and let us pray that remains the case indefinitely!).  Ten days before the end of his second term, Cleveland shocked the country by creating or expanding 13 Forest Reserves totaling 21 million acres, including the Teton, Black Hills, Uintas, Mt. Ranier (greatly expanded), San Jacinto, Big Horn, Priest River, Bitterroot, Lewis and Clark, and Flathead reservations.  The opposition went bananas and Congress tried to nullify the action but Cleveland's successor, William McKinley, adroitly managed the conflict and the Reserves went into effect a year after Cleveland's brave action.

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COMSTOCK, Anna Botsford (1854-1930)

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Handbook of Nature-Study: For Teachers and Parents

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1911.  First edition.  Published by Comstock Publishing, Ithaca.  Inscribed by the author and separately signed.

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938 pages.  Green cloth boards with gilt lettering and design on cover, faded to illegibility on spine.  Inscribed "To Madelaine, with love from the author" at the top of the title page and separately signed below.  Edges bumped but text block sound, unmarked save by author and unfoxed.  Clippings regarding ABC tipped into fpd and ffe.  VG

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Comstock was a badass.  She grew up on a self-sustaining farm and eventually became the first female professor at Cornell [as a lecturer - she was denied full professorship for more than 20 years - two other women achieved that before she did].  Comstock initially attended Cornell as a student but withdrew after she married John Henry Comstock, her entomology professor, in 1878.  She returned to get her degree in 1885.  Throughout her life, she illustrated her husband's lectures and many publications.  She was initially untrained but eventually studied wood engraving at Cooper Union in order to illustrate her husband's Introduction to Entomology textbook.  She became internationally known for her engravings, which appeared at various international expositions, and was the third woman to be admitted to the Society of Wood-Engravers.

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Comstock wrote several books, of which Handbook of Nature-Study is her best known - it became the standard textbook in the field for teachers both in the U.S. and internationally, and remains in print today, with well over 20 editions to date (2022).  Comstock was also a renowned educator, among the first to regularly bring her students and other teachers outdoors to study nature.  In 1895 she was appointed to the NYS Committee for the Promotion of Agriculture where she planned and implemented an experimental course of nature study for public schools, which was approved for statewide use. 

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Comstock worked with Liberty Hyde Bailey (1915) - see above - as part of the Nature Studies Department at Cornell.  Apparently, both Bailey and Comstock's husband told her that Handbook was bound to lose money.

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"Comstock's 'Nature is full of surprises' approach appealed to children directly.... She believed that 'future citizens' should be set on inheriting our Earth by learning of its environments, and of the interactions of the living systems therein.... This was a shared advocacy of many conservationists of Comstock's time including, but not exclusive to, John Muir...John Burroughs...and Ernest Thompson Seton.... Her lessons are timeless and poignant still today as The Handbook of Nature Study continues to inspire new generations of nature lovers."  [Wikipedia entry on Comstock].

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"The conservationism of Anna Botsford Comstock lies not in one particular focus of activism to preserve a particular aspect of our natural world.  She shared in inspiring the collective belief of her time that it was crucial our imprint as humans on our wild and natural landscapes be understood. Instilling this love and appreciation of the natural world around us, and to know that we also play a crucial part as participants, is the capstone achievement of Comstock’s work."  [From the Biodiversity Heritage Library's blog (April 2020) - not a well-written sentence, but does convey the idea.]  

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In 1988, Comstock was inducted into the National Wildlife Federation Conservation Hall of Fame.

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Trees at Leisure

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1916.  Likely first edition.  Published by Comstock Publishing, Ithaca.  Inscribed from the author and separately signed.

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Paper-covered chapbook reprinting an article previously published in the magazine Country Life in America, upon whose staff Comstock served.  54 pages.  Cover lightly soiled, yellowed and stained.  Text block yellowed but otherwise sound.  Inscribed: "To Mrs. Irene D. Dobroscky with kindest regards from the author" at the top of the title page and separately signed below.  Dobroscky was an entomologist colleague of ABC's husband.  Profusely illustrated with photographs of trees on the verso of every page of the main text.  VG

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COUES, Elliott (1842-1899)

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See Citizen Bird co-authored with Mabel Osgood Wright, below.  Also see Roosevelt Memorials and Powell's 1875 report on the Colorado River in Government Publications.

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About Coues, Brooks writes:  "Among the professionals who established ornithology as a science, none is remembered today with more respect - almost with awe - than a complex, incredibly productive scientist and western historian named Elliott Coues." [p.135].  He was a founder of the American Ornithological Union and published prolifically.  "His work was instrumental in establishing the currently accepted standards of trinomial nomenclature – the taxonomic classification of subspecies – in ornithology, and ultimately the whole of zoology. During 1873–1876 Coues was attached as surgeon and naturalist to the United States Northern Boundary Commission, and from 1876 to 1880 he was secretary and naturalist to the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, the publications of which he edited [note - the USGGST was defunded in 1879 but its final report under leader F.V. Hayden was issued in 1883 - see Government Publications].  He was lecturer on anatomy in the medical school of the Columbian University from 1877 to 1882, and professor of anatomy there from 1882 to 1887."  [Source:  Wikipedia].  Late in life he also edited a number of books about western exploration, including the Journals of Lewis and Clark.  And he was a well-known spiritualist (and friends with Alfred Russel Wallace, also a spiritualist).  He died at age 57.

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CRONAU, Rudolf (1855-1939)

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Our Wasteful Nation: The Story of American Prodigality and the Abuse of our National Resources

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1908.  First edition but later printing.  Published by Mitchell, Kennerley, New York

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Cover unusual for the time (although it is impossible to tell exactly when this printing was issued) - cover is a printed full-page image (I assume by Cronau) of a burning forest - it may be the earliest cover with that style of design in the collection.  Prior owner's sig on ffe, otherwise unmarked and unfoxed. Illustrated with full-page photographic plates.  VG no DJ.

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Cronau was a German artist and writer who published extensively in Germany about the American West.  He permanently emigrated to the US in 1894.  This book was written in the wake of the celebrated Governor's Conference on Conservation of 1908, called by TR and organized primarily by Gifford Pinchot.  In his preface, Cronau entertains the possibility that America's natural resources might be inexhaustible, before utterly dismissing that position.  As the title suggests, he is blunt in his assessment:  "...the natural resources of America indeed are threatened and... the story of American waste is amazing - both for its extravagance and for its stupidity."

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The book begins with two quotations, one from Nathaniel Southgate Shaler.

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EASTWOOD, Alice (1859-1953)

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A Handbook of the Trees of California

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1905.  Signed limited edition.  Published by The California Academy of Sciences.  Signed limited edition.  Presumed ownership sig of David Starr Jordan, prominent scientist, educator, pacifist, eugenicist - most notably the founding president of Stanford and long-time Sierra Club director.

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#68 of a stated limited edition of 500 signed copies bound in leather commissioned and paid for by Eastwood herself.  The book is Number IX in a "Series of Occasional Papers" published by the Academy.  In custom slipcover (as issued? - impossible to tell but likely not).  Unmarked save small ownership signature of "Jordan" on ffe.  Professionally rebound preserving original spine.  VG+.

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The book is somewhat rare as most copies, both of the limited edition and the trade edition, are thought to have been lost in the great fire which followed the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906, destroying the printing plant of Edward Bosqui.

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"Jordan" is almost certainly David Starr Jordan, who was a "widely revered ichthyologist, founding president of Stanford University, and intermittent president and curator of fish at the California Academy of Sciences."  [From piece on DSJ on calacademy.org].  Jordan also served as a Sierra Club director from 1892-1903.  His legacy has been tarnished and many schools etc. named for him have been renamed due to his fierce advocacy of eugenics and social Darwinism, including advocacy of forced sterilization.  "The committee to rename Jordan Hall at Stanford University concluded 'Jordan was not just endorsing commonplace positions but rather was a leader in moving society in the misguided direction of implementing eugenic policies.'"  [Same source].  Jordan was also an avowed pacifist, largely on the grounds that war tended to result in the death of the fittest humans.

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I found a sample of DSJ's handwriting online, including a signature (not easily I might add).  While I am no expert, the signature appears to be more or less identical in all major respects.   

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Alice Eastwood, happily, is a horse of a very different color.  One of the joys of undertaking this project has been learning about folks like Eastwood, Prudden and Comstock, among many others.  [Coincidentally, those three authors published the books in this Collection within a five-year time span, 1905-1910].  

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Eastwood was raised in Denver, Colorado and became a schoolteacher at her alma mater high school, having foregone college despite graduating as valedictorian.  She was a self-taught botanist whose collection of botanical specimens and her broad knowledge so impressed Mary Katharine Brandegee, Curator of the Botany Department of the Academy, that she offered Eastwood a job as assistant curator in 1891.  In 1892 she was promoted to joint curator and took over as Head of the Department of Botany when Brandegee retired in 1894.  She held that position until she retired in 1949 at age 90.

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There exists in the scientific world something called "Type Specimens," or holotypes, something I'd never heard of until researching Eastwood.  For literally every known species and subgroup of plant, animal and fungus, there is a preserved specimen which is THE representative of the species, against which all else is essentially compared - Type Specimens serve as the "final criterion of the characteristics of that group" says Merriam Webster.  For example, there is, according to Wikipedia, a spotted harrier in the Natural History Museum in London, scientific name Circus assimilis, which was named and described in 1828.  So, the name Circus assimilus refers, by definition, to the species of that particular Type Specimen in London.  Type Specimens are exceedingly important in taxonomy - without them one would not necessarily be able to tell whether naming conventions, or even evolutionary changes, had resulted in changes over lengthy periods of time.  Even more crucially, people's ideas of how living things should be grouped also change over time.  Who knew?

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Anyway, in 1906 the California Academy of Sciences had nearly 1,500 botanical Type Specimens in its collection.  Alice Eastwood had taken the then unprecedented step of separating them from the rest of the collection so that they might more easily be saved in case of disaster.  The California Academy of Science is in San Francisco.  In 1906 disaster struck - the great earthquake triggered uncontrollable fires which burned down most of the city...including the Academy.  Eastwood was home asleep when the earthquake struck.  She walked to the Academy, enlisting the help of a friend she met on the way.  The great fire was sweeping towards the Academy, and the stairs to the 6th floor Botany Department had been destroyed by the earthquake.  She and her friend clambered up, using intact railings and whatever else they could hold onto.  They reached the sixth floor and lowered the 1,500+ Type Specimens to the ground out a window, saving the entire collection.  She initially brought them home but had to keep moving them as the fire destroyed the city, including most of her possessions.  She focused on saving the collection.

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The Academy rebuilt in 1912.  Most of the herbarium of about 100,000 specimens had been destroyed.  By the time she retired, the collection exceeded 300,000 specimens.  Eastwood traveled avidly doing field work.  She wrote extensively - over 300 published works - including scientific papers and work for lay people.  There are currently 17 species and two genera named for her.  She worked to preserve a grove of redwoods in Humboldt County, now known as the Alice Eastwood Grove.  In short, like Barbara Comstock, she was a total badass.

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[See also McFarland's Roses (1936), containing a laid in ALS by Eastwood.]

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FINLEY, William Lovell (1876-1953)

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American Birds: Photographed and Studied from Life

[Photos]

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1907.  First edition.  Published by Charles Scribner's Sons.  Inscribed

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Inscribed on ffe:  "To the Hammonds/Who are lovers of birds.  Best wishes of the author.  William L. Finley."  Below is written:  "April 6, 1943/[Illegible] A. Hammond/From the library of his Dad and Mother."  Otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  Liberally illustrated with photos by Herman T. Bohlman and the author.  Green boards and spine with very crisp gilt lettering and a photo of baby birds being fed on the cover.  Minor bumping to corners and spine ends.  A very nice copy.  NF no DJ

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William L. Finley was an important conservationist and ornithologist whose work (including this book) led to the creation of three National Wildlife Refuges in Oregon.  A fourth is named in his honor.  Per an entry by Oliver Tatom in oregonencyclopedia.com (retrieved Dec 2024), Finley was interested in birds from an early age, forming the North-Western Ornithological Association at age 18 with several friends.  He was also an avid photographer, initially working with his boyhood friend and partner Herman Bohlman.  "Finley's foray into the developing field of wildlife photography coincided with the rise of the wildlife conservation movement....  He helped organize the state chapter of the Audubon Society and lobbied the Oregon legislature to pass a Model Bird Law, which it did the following year...but enforcement remained lax until Finley helped secure private funds to hire additional wardens."

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In 1907, inspired by photos included in American Bird, President Roosevelt created the Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge, and in 1908, following lobbying by Finley, he created two more NWRs in the state.  In 1964, the US Fish and Wildlife Service honored Finley by naming a new 5,325-acre NWR in Oregon the William L. Finley NWR.

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In 1908 Bohlman, who is considered to have been the superior photographer of the two, disengaged to get more involved in business and domestic pursuits.  However, from 1906 on, Finley's wife Irene was also very active.  There are some truly impressive photos on the website of the Oregon State Historical Society showing some combination of the three them going to some fairly extreme lengths to get themselves in a position to take their photographs.  [https://www.ohs.org/events/on-the-road-wth-finley-and-bohlman-portland.cfm]

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Finley spent eight years starting in 1911 as a state biologist, game warden and Fish and Game Commissioner.  In that role, he "expanded the state's force of game wardens, replenished the depleted elk population in the Wallowa Mountains with a herd transplanted from Yellowstone National Park, and stocked previously barren lakes with trout" per the Tatom piece.

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After leaving the state in 1920, Finley continued to pursue birds, but primarily with a movie camera.  Irene was the principal still photographer of the pair during this time.

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[See the EC History Section for more on Finley and his enormous impact]

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FORBUSH, Edward Howe (1858-1929)

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Useful Birds and Their Protection

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1907.  Second edition.  Published by The Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture.  Inscribed in year of publication to George Bird Grinnell

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Red cloth boards with crisp gilt lettering to spine.  Tissue-guarded frontispiece by Louis Agassiz Fuertes.  Inscribed on ffe:  "Hon. G. Bird Grinnell/with the compliments and kind regards of/E. Forbush/Boston Apr 13, 1907".  Otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  The frontispiece appears to be the only contribution from Fuertes - the balance of the illustrations are line drawings by EHF and colleagues.  

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The Library of Congress describes the book as "the first major work by an American to analyze the economic importance of birds and the strategies necessary for their protection."

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Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States

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1925-9.  Three​ volumes.  Vol I is second printing, dated 1928 (originally published 1925), the others first (1927 and 1929).  Published by The Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture.  With tipped and laid in materials including, among other things, an ALS and several TLS's from Forbush to Freeman B. Currier, whose bookplates grace Volumes I and II.  Currier was one of Forbush's regular tipsters on bird sightings and behavior.

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Magisterial three volume monograph in clean green cloth boards with bright gilt lettering, illustrated with 93 color plates, mostly by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, with some in Vol III also by Allan Brooks (1869-1946), who was commissioned to complete the work after Fuertes was killed in a car crash.  (See Florence Merriam Bailey's Birds of New Mexico (1928) for more on Brooks).  The work also contains copious woodcut and photographic illustrations.   This was Forbush's magnum opus - the final volume was published shortly after his death, with a portrait of him constituting the frontispiece of Vol III.  Tipped into Vol I is a letter on Mass Agriculture Dept letterhead from John B. May announcing Forbush's death and giving funeral arrangement details, and a piece from the NYT editorial page regarding Fuertes published shortly after his untimely death.  May also wrote the introductory biographical sketch about Forbush in Vol III and was Forbush's assistant in researching and writing the volumes.  Additional laid-in materials:  (1) One lengthy full-page handwritten and signed sheet (not exactly a letter) by Forbush entitled "Many birds destroyed in May by cold, hunger, and their enemies.";  (2) Three TLS's from Forbush to Currier (see below) thanking the latter for reports and observations on birds.  The first letter is dated 1914 and includes a lengthy handwritten note on verso in Forbush's hand describing unusual hummingbird behavior.  The other two TLS's are both dated in 1921; (3) a 1930 TLS by Albert P. Morse (1863-1936), curator of the Peabody museum, to Currier regarding the latter's report about an Arkansas Kingbird in Massachusetts; (4) an undated four-page folding leaflet written by Roger Tory Peterson, described as Leaflet #9 of the National Coalition of Audubon Societies and clearly a reprint from another source, describing the red-shouldered hawk, and (5) a 7x9" chromolithographic plate depicting the Carolina Paroquet published by Chicago Colortype Co., Nature Study Pub Co., Chicago, 1899, with penciled note verso "Formerly eastern U.S./Now southern Florida and Indian Ter."  Very minor wear to corners.  Light browning to page edges.  Light foxing to Vol III.  VG to VG+.  [Note to self - laid-in materials stored separately with other loose and smaller items, in an orange folder]. 

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Per seller, Freeman Burgess Currier (1874-1935) died unmarried, having lived his entire life in Newburyport with his parents and sister.  He worked at building ships like his father, as a draftsman.

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In 1966, E.B. White wrote a delightful essay about the joys of Birds of Massachusetts, which he says he had acquired twenty years prior and regularly plumbed for "refreshment and instruction...."  White writes that "I have nothing in my bookshelves that I turn to more often or with greater satisfaction than his 'Birds.'"  White particularly delights in tidbits from Forbush's tipsters, identified by name.  The essay is not long, and is definitely worth a read (but then, did White ever write anything not worth reading?)  Mr. Forbush’s Friends | The New Yorker

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Forbush was an important ornithologist who founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society and whose Birds of Massachusetts remains the definitive work on New England birds.  He was a precocious naturalist, earning appointment as Curator of Ornithology at the museum of the Worcester Natural History Society at age sixteen.  In 1893 he was named Ornithologist of the Mass Agricuttural Dept, becoming Director of Ornithology in 1908 and continuing in that position until his death.  He is described by Brooks as "a sort of patron saint of New England birders" who "wrote entertainingly of his adventures - some of them quite hair-raising - in the pages of George Bird Grinnell's Forest and Stream."  Brooks describes Useful Birds as a "pioneer work in economic ornithology," adding that his "hundreds of popular lectures on conservation, along with countless newspaper and magazine articles, must have had a lasting impact on the crustiest of New England farmers and businessmen."  He was a correspondent of Teddy Roosevelt regarding New England ornithology.

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Louis Agassiz Fuertes was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist who set the current-day standards for ornithological art.  He traveled widely studying birds and is considered second only to Audubon in his output and influence.  He is represented in a number of volumes in the Collection.  He was tragically killed when his car was struck by a train whose approach was apparently masked by a large haystack.  

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GRANT, Madison (1865-1937)

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The Rocky Mountain Goat

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1905.  First separate edition - originally published in the New York Zoological Society (NYZS) Annual Report.  Published by the NYZS, New York.  Inscribed.

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First separate printing - 36 pages including numerous photographic plates.  Inscribed on ffe "To Inglis Stuart/With compliments of Madison Grant/May 29-1905."  On fpd is a tag from Stuart's library and also the extremely attractive wildlife-themed bookplate of one Walter Rutherford Peterson (presumably the father WRP Jr, prominent New Hampshire businessman and politician who served two terms as governor beginning in 1968).  Inglis Stuart was a civil engineer and historian from New York's Hudson Valley.

 

On the title page Grant is credited as Secretary of the NYZS, which he co-founded with and led after William Hornaday.  The work is reprinted from the ninth annual report of the NYZS.  Green boards with crisp gilt lettering to cover, along with a cool embossed NYZS seal below, with a mountain goat head.  Small discoloration to cover, otherwise fine.

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Grant was an exceptionally important conservationist - and a poster-boy for the nastiest sort of eugenicist/white supremacist/social Darwinist type which was unfortunately so prevalent at this time - his ideas were embraced by, and used to justify, the Nazi movement. 

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Grant was a leader of the eugenics movement, writing the once much-read book The Passing of the Great Race, (with prefaces in several editions by Henry Fairfield Osborn) which basically attempted to explain the racial history of Europe in terms of white vs. swarthy (my word) peoples, and bemoaned the changing immigration patterns of the time (sound familiar?), advocating all sorts of horrible ways to stem the tide of southern Europeans.  He was a "Nordicist" - and his ideas bore awful fruit in the mid-20th century.  Adolf Hitler wrote to Grant: "The book is my Bible."  I could go into more depth (but I shan't - I might puke).  I'll leave you with two quotes about Grant's work, the first from Wikipedia and the second from Stephen Jay Gould:  "Grant's work is considered one of the most influential and vociferous works of scientific racism and eugenics to come out of the United States" and is "the most influential tract of scientific racism."  

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Wikipedia has an interesting quote/concept:  "Historian Jonathan Spiro has argued that Grant's interests in conservation and eugenics were not unrelated; both are hallmarks of the early 20th-century Progressive movement, and both assume the need for...stewardship over their charges.  In Grant's mind, natural resources needed to be conserved for the Nordic Race... [which he viewed] ...as he did any of his endangered species.... Grant saw modern civilization as a violation of 'survival of the fittest', whether it manifested itself in the over-logging of the forests, or the survival of the poor via welfare or charity."  [The Wikipedia quote lacks a cite].  This is not, I think, put forward as a justification.  And it isn't.  There were too many Darwinists (including Darwin) and conservationists who never went there...or anywhere close.

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On the conservationist front, Grant is credited with helping to save the American bison, he co-founded the NYZS and the Bronx Zoo, he was instrumental in the creation of Glacier and Denali National Parks, and he developed much of the discipline of wildlife management.  He "was a cofounder of the American environmental movement, a crusading conservationist who preserved the California redwoods; ...fought for stricter gun control laws; ...and worked to preserve whales, bald eagles, and pronghorn antelopes."  [Wikipedia quoting Thomas Leanord's Illiberal Reformers:  Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era (Princeton Univ Press)].  He was a friend of TR and an early member of the Boone & Crockett Club [see their books in Anthologies, to which he contributed].  He has a species of caribou named after him for fuck's sake!

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A Collection seeking to document the history of the EC movement can't ignore Grant.  He is represented.  But make no mistake - he is not celebrated.

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He also wins the booby prize for being, imho, the nastiest piece of work represented in the Collection to date, with John Mullaly (see Guidebooks (1887)) running second.

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GRINNELL, George Bird (1849-1938)

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Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People

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1892.  First edition.  Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York

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Maroon boards with crisp, silver gilt lettering and attractive embossed designs to cover and spine.  Prior owner's gift inscription on second fe.  Slight chip out of colored ffe.  Otherwise, unmarked and unfoxed.  Sound, attractive book.  VG

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When Buffalo Ran

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1920.  First edition.  Published by Yale University Press, New Haven.  With embossed ownership stamp of Zane Grey

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Brown boards with a cheap cardboard-like feel to them.  Attractive design of a bison in profile on cover.  Embossed ownership stamp of Zane Grey (1872-1939) on the half-title in upper right-hand corner.  Full-page photographic illustrations.  No other markings.  Offsetting from unknown object to ffe, otherwise VG+ to NF in a NF NPCDJ.  DJ has half-page ads for two books on back, one of which is Hornaday's Wild Life Conservation (1913).

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Zane Grey was an immensely popular pioneering writer of Westerns, a "major force in shaping the myths of the Old West."  He published more than 90 books, some posthumously.  The film industry and his career rose together, and dozens of his books were made into movies, TV shows, etc.  Not all of his books were Westerns, he also published eight fishing, three hunting, six children's and three baseball books.  I loved his Westerns as a kid.

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Grinnell was a huge force in the conservation movement as editor of Forest and Stream magazine from 1876 to 1911.  He participated in early exploratory trips to Yellowstone and what is now Glacier NP, the latter of which he was influential in protecting.  He wrote numerous articles decrying the wanton slaughter of wildlife.  He was one of the chief conservation advisers to Teddy Roosevelt, with whom he partnered (with several others) to start the Boone & Crockett Club, which was dedicated to the restoration of America's wild lands (it was active in many aspects of wildlife conservation, advocating fair chase rules and driving the elimination of market hunting).  He edited many of the B&C Club books (some with TR) and was a frequent contributor (see Anthologies section) to them.  Grinnell also organized the first Audubon Society and was an organizer of the New York Zoological Society (the Bronx Zoo).  He was also a prolific author, publishing more than two dozen books.  Grinnell was particularly interested in and enlightened about the Native Americans.  Many of his books were about Native Americans (including the two in this collection, which I acquired in deference to Grinnell's influence on conservation rather than the specific relevance of the volumes themselves), particularly the Plains Tribes, including the Cheyenne, Blackfoot and Pawnee.  More on Grinnell and B&C in the EC History Section.

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HORNADAY, William T. (1854-1937)

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Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation

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1913.  First edition.  Published by the New York Zoological Society, New York

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Blue cloth boards with crisp, gilt lettering to cover and spine.  Unmarked and unfoxed.  Full page dedication (with photo portrait):  "To William Dutcher/Founder and President of the National Association of Audubon Societies, and Life-Long Champion of American Birds/This Volume is Dedicated by a Sincere Admirer."  Below which is a four line poetry stanza by "Walsh."  Preface by Henry Fairfield Osborn.

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The book is an impassioned plea for wildlife preservation.  Hornaday allows as he was once a hunter but now believes all hunting is bad, leading to depletion and extinction of species.  Brinkley describes the book as "perhaps the single most important (if deeply flawed) book ever published on protecting endangered species."  Brinkley is also quoted as saying in an Audubon Magazine piece:  "What Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' has been for meatpacking reform, 'Our Vanishing Wildlife' [sic] was for championing disappearing creatures...."

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Wild Life Conservation in Theory and Practice: Lectures Delivered Before the Forest School of Yale University

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1914.  First edition.  Published by Yale University Press, New Haven.  Inscribed

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Red boards with crisp, gilt lettering to cover and spine.  Cover design is a pasted-on photo of a wildlife scene.  Inscribed:  "To my esteemed Friend Gustavus D. Pope, True sportsman, and conservationist.  With the compliments of the Author.  W. T. Hornaday, Dec 1, 1914."  On the fpd is the bookplate of the "Library of Cranbrook Institute of Science, Gustavus D. Pope Sportsman's Library."  'Cranbrook Institute of Science' is also embossed on upper right corner of title page, and there is a reference number sticker above publisher on spine and a card slip on rpd stamped "Released from Library."  On the inside margin of the first page of text is handwritten:  10/2/52 G.D. Pope Estate gift."  Otherwise, NF with tissue-guarded frontispiece (being the same photo as the cover, but captioned.)

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Gustavus D. Pope (1873-1952) is described in an undated Cranbrook blog piece as "a Detroit manufacturer and humanitarian...director of the Detroit Museum of Art, president of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts" and a Cranbrook board member.  An NYT death notice also describes him as a former Chair of the Detroit Red Cross Chapter.  From 1946 to 1970 Cranbrook awarded 17 medals named for Pope's wife for "noteworthy and distinguished accomplishment in the field of plant sciences."  The Cranbrook Institute of Science is part of the Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, MI and describes itself as "Michigan's Museum of Natural History."  The Community also includes an exclusive K-12 prep school.  A search of the CIS website shows no hits for Gustavus, leading one to assume the "Sportsman's Library" bequeathed by Pope is no longer maintained.

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Hornaday's Library [Photographs]

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1896 - Three (silver gelatin?) photos of Hornaday's library, mounted on cards, taken around the time he became founding ED of the New York Zoological Society, showing trophy heads, books, and a wrap-around mural of wildlife scenes around the upper walls.  Housed in custom clamshell case.  Per seller from the collection of "an important collector of sporting books."

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Thirty Years War for Wild Life: Gains and Losses in the Thankless Task

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1931 - Congressional Edition.  Published by the Permanent Wild Life Protection Fund.  Inscribed to fellow conservationist

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The first edition, printed specifically for distribution to members of Congress in support of legislation which would regulate hunting.  Red cloth boards with gilt lettering and a photo of a heath hen affixed to the front, illustrated copiously with photos.  Inscribed on ffe:  "To my esteemed friend and ally Stanley C. Arthur, a real conservationist and defender of wild life, with a record to be proud of.  With the compliments of the author, W.T. Hornaday, Stamford, Conn, March 12, 1931."  Hornaday decries the lack of bag limits, overly long hunting seasons, and the use of baiting, live decoys and automatic weapons, among other things.  He particularly directs his ire (and this book is basically a long scream) at the National Audubon Society for their lack of support for protective measures, the NPS and the US Biological Survey.  Hornaday was an ally of Rosalie Edge and the Emergency Conservation Committee, which was fighting the same battles - see the EC History Chapter 1916-62 for much more on this battle.  Edge and the ECC is mentioned several times in the text.  VG no DJ

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Stanley C. Arthur was a naturalist, journalist and author who for some years served as Director of the Wild Life Division of the state Department of Conservation.  The book was accompanied by a silver gelatin press photo of Arthur, in 1913, fully camouflaged standing on the edge of a swamp with a camera at the ready.  An article attached to the back explains the picture and gives some info about Arthur (there is little on the internet.  One of the few bits of info about him is a 1932 piece in The Auk discussing The Birds of Louisiana, which Arthur seemingly wrote but was published by the LA Department of Conservation after Arthur departed - he is thanked but not credited.  The article is actually pretty funny as Arthur was apparently not permitted to revise or revisit the piece after his departure.  According to The Auk, the main text, by Arthur, "is excellent."  However, "[t]hose who have been responsible for the publication of the work have produced some remarkable and confusing errors... All of this is proof of the danger of entrusting the publication of a semi-scientific book to editors and proof readers who are apparently unqualified for the work in hand.  Let us hope that a revised edition of what is really a most important publication may be authorized and that the revision be placed in the hands of Mr. Arthur.  We congratulate him upon the excellent work that he did in preparing this report in the first place and regret that it has been marred by errors which are obviously not of his making. -- W.S."

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William Hornaday was the most important wildlife conservationist until Rachel Carson.  He fought for conservation measures his whole life, becoming the "grandfather of the wildlife conservation movement."  As described in the EC chapters for this period and the next, in the conflict which tore apart conservation associations (in particular the National Audubon Society) between hunters and professional ornithologists on the one hand, and birdwatchers on the other, Hornaday resisted the establishment and sided with the latter. 

 

Hornaday was a zoologist and conservationist who was the first Director of what is now the Bronx Zoo, where he picked the location and was General Curator and Curator of Mammals.  He was there 30 years.  He is credited as the main force in saving the American bison from extinction - he collected some of the few remaining living animals in the country and housed and bred them at the zoo, before providing bison for reintroduction.  The American Bison Society, which he planned with Teddy Roosevelt and of which he was the first president, established nine bison herds in the US by 1919.

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Per Wikipedia entry on Hornaday:  "Throughout his career, he lobbied and provided testimony for several congressional acts for wildlife protection laws.  In 1913, he established the Permanent Wild Life Protection Fund as a vehicle to fund his tireless conservation lobbying efforts.  Through a network of conservation activists throughout the United States, Hornaday pushed at both the state and federal level for protective legislation, national parks, wildlife refuges, and international treaties.  By 1915, the American Museum Journal declared that Hornaday 'has no doubt inaugurated and carried to success more movements for the protection of wild animal life than has any other man in America'."  

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Hornaday was a bulldog - the following is printed beneath his frontispiece portrait in Thirty Years War, from the 1930 issue of Outdoor Life: 

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On every page of [hunting] limit reduction history appears in large letters the name of Dr. William T. Hornaday.  In the long and often weary annals of conservation progress, no man has been less bowed beneath reverses or less satisfied with success than Dr. Hornaday.  Determined and intransigent, it was never his policy to go around or under an opponent; smashing straight through his opposition, he has left a long trail of personal enemies in his wake - but has never looked back.  Sold out by game-hogs in high places, rebuffed by organizations purporting to have a conservation purpose, deserted even by high-principled and well-intentioned leaders who felt him too radical and truculent for his time, much of Dr. Hornaday's farseeing effort has been single-handed.  In his day of triumph, let his indomitable presence be remembered.

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The photos of Hornaday's library described above are particularly interesting since Hornaday over his career morphed from a ferociously avid hunter to adopting an anti-hunting stance in the pursuit of wildlife preservation.

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Unfortunately, Hornaday's legacy was irrevocably tarnished when a pygmy from the Congo, Ota Benga, was displayed in the monkey house of the Bronx Zoo in 1906.  New York City's black clergy protested bitterly.  While Mayor George B. McClellan refused to meet with the clergymen, the exhibit was closed after two days.  In a letter to McClellan, Hornaday praised his stance, noting:  "When the history of the Zoological Park is written, this incident will form its most amusing passage."  Benga committed suicide when his return to the Congo was delayed by WWI. 

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Hornaday is also inextricably linked to the repellant Madison Grant, with whom he co-founded the NYZS and the Bronx Zoo.  See the Grant entry above for more flavor, particularly about the eugenics/white supremacist/social Darwinist movement of the time.

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McClellan was the first leader of the Army of the Potomac in the Civil War.  He was a disaster.  How he became NYC Mayor is beyond me.

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JAMES, George Wharton (1858-1923)

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The Wonders of the Colorado Desert (Southern California): Its Rivers and Mountains, its Canyons and its Springs, its Life and its History, Pictured and Described.  Including an Account of a Recent Journey Made Down the Overflow of the Colorado River to the Mysterious Salton Sea 

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1906.  Published by Little, Brown and Co., Boston.  Two volumes

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Volumes I and II.  Illustrated with "upwards of 300" pen and ink drawings by Carl Eytel.  Tissue-guarded frontispiece reproduction of full-color painting.  Pristine folding map in Vol 1, about 16.25"x20.5", black and white, showing Wharton's routes through the area, drawn by Les Van Anderson.  Blue boards with grey spine and crisp gilt lettering and design.  Vol I has gift bookplate dated Xmas 1907, while Vol II has same info handwritten.  Otherwise, unmarked and almost entirely unfoxed.  VG++ in VG NPCDJs - DJs have one-inch damp stain at top of spine not affecting legibility, otherwise pristine. 

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James was a popular author, lecturer, photographer and journalist.  He was born in England and became a minister, coming to the U.S. with his wife to serve parishes in the west.  In 1889 his wife sued for divorce, accusing him of prodigious adultery, and he was defrocked (though later readmitted) from the Methodist Church for real estate fraud, using fake credentials and adultery.  Of his many books, Wonders of the Colorado Desert is perhaps his best known, still considered to be one of the great works on the subject.  Eytel (1862-1925) was an artist who accompanied James on his travels.  He was a successful artist, best known for his desert work.  However, he died an impoverished recluse.

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KEARTON, Richard (1862-1928) and Cherry (1871-1940)

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With Nature and a Camera; Being the Adventures & Observations of a Field Naturalist & an Animal Photographer

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1897.  First edition.  Published by Cassell & Co., Ltd., of London, Paris and Melbourne.  Inscribed by both.

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Unusual arrangement of green boards fading into reddish spine (apparently as originally issued per other photos).  Gilt embossed lettering and very cool design of a rappeler descending a cliff on cover.  Inscribed by both Richard and Cherry to "J. Farlow Wilson Esq./With the kind regards of the author and illustrator."  With 180 black and white photographic plates.

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An account of the perambulations of Richard (author) and Cherry (photographer) around the British Isles and Ireland.  Per preface, the book was requested by friends following publication of two more specialized ornithological works.  They were amongst the earliest photographers of animals in the wild.  Cherry was also a movie pioneer, primarily wildlife but also the first footage of WW I, among other things.  This was their most famous book but between the two of them they published many more.​

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LACEY, John F. (1841-1913) [Memorial Volume]

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Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume: And Report of Iowa Park and Forestry Association for 1913

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1915.  First edition.  Published by Iowa Park and Forestry Association

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Paper covers ragged at edges but sound.  Spine a bit sunfaded.  519 pages including index.  Unmarked in excellent condition.  VG+

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The book consists almost entirely of works by or related to Lacey, including biographical information, a series of memorial pieces, including one by William T. Hornaday, and over 400 pages of Lacey's writings, much of which relates to natural resource conservation (including a piece on John Muir).  Oddly and despite the title, no 'Report of the Iowa Park and Forestry Association' appears in the table of contents.  Perhaps it was a quiet year.

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Lacey is today one of the most important and least recognized figures in the conservation movement during the Progressive era.  He served as a US congressman for 16 of the 18 years from 1889 until 1907, during which time he was enormously influential in driving environmental legislation.  Among other things, he sponsored an 1894 act allowing the Interior Department to enforce bans on hunting and poaching in Yellowstone Park - this legislation became the cornerstone of future park enforcement policies. 

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John Lacey is best known today for the Lacey Act of 1900, the first federal law protecting wildlife.  The primary thrust of the law was to prohibit the interstate transport of wildlife, fish and plants that had been illegally taken, possessed, transported or sold.  The chief target was the millinery industry, which used plumage from wild birds for hats - market hunters selling to the industry decimated bird populations nationwide, and particularly in Florida.  The law also authorized the federal government to "adopt measures to aid in restoring game and other birds in parts of the U.S. where they have become scarce or extinct and to regulate the introduction of birds and animals in areas where they had not existed."

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Lacey served as chair of the House Committee on Public Lands for 12 years.  His influence was enormous.  In addition to the Acts described above, he wrote and pushed the Antiquities Act (1906) which gave the President authority to unilaterally create national monuments from public lands.  Lacey traveled to the Southwest to see the impact of looting and pothunting on primarily prehistoric Native American ruins and artifacts and his findings "provided the necessary impetus for the passage of the legislation."  [Wikipedia].  The Antiquities Act has been used more than 100 times.  Among the 130 current monuments are Canyon de Chelly, Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Chimney Rock, Ceder Brakes, Devil's Tower, Dinosaur, Craters of the Moon, the boyhood home of George Washington Carver, Giant Sequoia, Governor's Island, Grand Canyon-Parashant, Katahdin Woods and Waters, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Marianas Trench Marine, Montezuma Castle, Muir Woods, Natural Bridges, Rio Grande del Norte, San Gabriel Mountains, San Juan Islands, Statue of Liberty and Vermillion Cliffs.  The Act was incredibly powerful in taking the action of creating the monument out of the hands of Congress, thus saving millions of acres of critical cultural and environmental importance.

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In 1906, Lacey successfully opposed efforts by Gifford Pinchot to place the National Parks under the Forest Service so that they could be opened for resource development.  The Library of Congress describes Lacey as "Congressional spokesman for the preservationist approach to conservation," and also note that Pinchot's efforts backfired - the backlash against his efforts included sparking the campaign for a permanent separate bureau to administer the national parks.

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I would also note that Lacey had a distinguished Civil War record - besides environmental issues his great interest was protecting the interests of soldiers and veterans.

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This is one of my favorite books in the Collection.  I doubt it is rare, although it might be, as a softcover book.  I bought it for $25.  I started this Collection to honor the giants - Thoreau, Muir, Burroughs, Leopold, Carson, Matthiessen, Abbey.  I continue the Collection because of people like Lacey, Comstock, Eastwood and Prudden.  America owes a great deal to the legislators with the balls (male or female) to protect our nation.  Lacey, Church, and a regrettably small handful of others.  Let us Celebrate them.  

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MILLER, Olive Thorne (1831-1918)

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Little Brothers of the Air

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1892.  First edition.  Published by Houghton Mifflin and Co.  Signed

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Signed on title page.  OTM was a pen name of Harriet Mann Miller, a prolific author who published under her own name and Olive Thorne as well.  Blue boards with crisp gilt lettering.  Text block solid and unfoxed.  VG+ to NF. ​

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[See EC History for more on Miller]​​