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Narrating Animal History from the Crags: A Turn-of-the-Century Tale about Mountain Sheep, Resistance, and a Nation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2016

DANIEL VANDERSOMMERS
DANIEL VANDERSOMMERS*
Affiliation:
Department of History, McMaster University. Email: vanded14@mcmaster.ca.
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Abstract

It took years, at the dawn of the twentieth century, for the National Zoo to capture Rocky Mountain sheep. The split hooves and remarkable eyesight of bighorns made these animals virtually impossible to catch alive. This is a story about a national government chasing sheep for the purpose of zoological display. This is also a story about the construction of knowledge, the ironies of conservation, and the building of the American West. More important, this is a story about storytelling. The following tale will call attention to the opportunities that zoological parks, animal history, and narrative history offer the historian.

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Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , August 2017 , pp. 751 - 777
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2016 

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References

1 Rob Roy Ramey II, “Evolutionary Genetics and Systematics of North American Mountain Sheep: Implications for Conservation,” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1993. It is also possible, however, that mountain sheep migrated from Eurasia to North America during an earlier glacial period.

2 The understanding that North American mountain sheep fall into three distinct species was forged in 1940, and, for the most part, this understanding has remained uncontested since – despite continuing debate about subspecies. See Cowan, Ian McTaggart, “Distribution and Variation in the Native Sheep of North America,” American Midland Naturalist, 24, 3 (Nov. 1940), 505–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 506–7. This seventy-five page article is still the most authoritative research on the wild sheep of North America. All contemporary research on these animals uses Cowan as a starting point.

3 Wehausen, John D., Bleich, Vernon. C., anf Ramey, Rob R. II, “Correct Nomenclature for Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep,” California Fish and Game, 91 (2005), 216–18Google Scholar; Wehausen, John D. and Ramey, Rob Roy II, “Cranial Morphometric and Evolutionary Relationships in the Northern Range of Ovis Canadensis ,” Journal of Mammalogy, 81 (Feb. 2000), 145–612.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 While the category of “the animal” has long been employed to rhetorically suppress groups of human beings, for the purpose of this article I am reclaiming “animal” as a category of which all humans are members. First, this directs attention to the imperialistic forces that, in the largest frame, threatened the livelihood of many species simultaneously – a point made very clear (yet not explicitly examined) in works like Isenberg's, Andrew C. The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Spence's, Mark David Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or even classics like Brown's, Dee Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007)Google Scholar. Second, thinking of humans as “animals” not only works to disempower anthropocentric, racist connotations of a word used scientifically to signify an entire biological kingdom, but it also seeks to underscore the point that humans and nonhumans both possess historically contingent and historically significant cultures, ones that survive “otherization” – the primary lesson underwriting the “cultural turn.” The term “culture” also holds two particular resonances that make it a thought-provoking construct to employ. First, biologists, zoologists, anthropologists, sociologists, evolutionary theorists, and “animal studies” scholars have been thoroughly exploring, over the last decade, the cultures of various animals. The narratives, controversies, questions, and hypotheses surrounding this examination of “animal culture” are voluminous and varied, but in the very least, this search for “culture” among nonhuman animals has challenged anthropocentric conceptions of the term. For a great survey of this debate see Kevin N. Laland and Bennett G. Galef, eds., The Question of Animal Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Monkeys, whales, and birds, especially, have received considerable attention. See, for example, these more scientifically oriented works: Hillix, W. A. and Rumbaugh, Duane, Animal Bodies, Human Minds: Ape, Dolphin, and Parrot Language Skills (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brakes, Philippa and Simmonds, Mark Peter, eds., Whales and Dolphins: Cognition, Culture, Conservation and Human Perceptions (New York: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar, Bonner, John T., The Evolution of Culture in Animals (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; or Heyes, Cecilia M. and Galef, Bennett G. Jr., eds., Social Learning in Animals: The Roots of Culture (New York: Academic Press, 1996)Google Scholar. On the human side of things, “culture” has long saturated the academic fields devoted to studying the human experience, past and present. Historians and American studies scholars have placed much energy into unearthing the cultures of all past peoples, placing extra emphasis on societies and groups that have been defeated, marginalized, and ignored. It does not seem unreasonable, then, to think about nonhuman animals with humans, to think about humans with nonhuman animals, and to think about both together. Indeed, they did (and do) live with each other. Indeed, they did (and do) live because of each other. Indeed, they did (and do) die together. These facts are self-evident, yet often ignored. This article should be understood as a part of the “animal turn” currently under way across academic disciplines.

5 The themes of extermination, exploitation, and extraction have pervaded the historiography of the American West since the 1980s. A few (of many) works in which these themes are central include Limerick, Patricia Nelson, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1987)Google Scholar; Cronon, William, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991)Google Scholar; Adams, David Wallace, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995)Google Scholar; Andrews, Thomas, Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; and Foley, Neil, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997)Google Scholar. On “genocidal forces,” specifically, see Madley's, Benjamin recently published An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016)Google Scholar. This list could go on and on. Employing diverse methodologies and examining heterogeneous topics, the new historiography of the American West is not bound by cowboy heroes, frontier myths, and manifest destiny, but is tied together instead by extermination, exploitation, and extraction.

6 And it seems that the processes which fuel extermination, exploitation, and extraction can and should be considered “imperialistic” in nature. Many works, like Worster's, Donald Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar, have interpreted the building of the American West through the framework of imperialism. Yet some historians have made the imperialist connections much more explicit, arguing that the “winning of the West” was part of, or led to, grander American imperialist visions. See, for example, Drinnon's, Richard Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building (New York: Schocken Books, 1990)Google Scholar; Blackhawk's, Ned Violence over The Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; and Rydell's, Robert W. All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at the American International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1987)Google Scholar. Thinking about the conquest of the American West as a chapter in the history of American international imperialism also seems obvious when reading the historical literature concerning American Indians in conjunction with works like Silva's, Noenoe K. Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 In using “contact zones,” I am referencing the important terminology of Haraway, Donna in When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

8 For images of magnificent bighorn art see Whitley's, David S. The Art of the Shaman: Rock Art of California (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and Castleton's, Kenneth B. Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah, Volumes I and II (Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Natural History, 2002)Google Scholar.

9 In using this term, I am nodding toward Greenblatt's, Stephen classic history of westward expansion entitled Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Jameson, Robert and Laurie, Thomas, “Art. XXXVII. – On the Rocky Mountain Sheep of the Americans: Remarks for the Wernerian Society on the Skin of the Rocky Mountain Sheep,” Boston Journal of Philosophy and the Arts, Intended to Exhibit a View of the Progress of Discovery in Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Chemistry, Geology and Mineralogy, Natural History, Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, Geography, Statistics and the Fine and Useful Arts, 1 (1 May 1824), 340–44, 340Google Scholar. In this article, Jameson quoted Miguel Venegas's Noticia de la California, published in 1757.

11 Duncan, M'Gillivray, “Article I: Account of the Wild North-American Sheep. Memorandum respecting the Mountain Ram of North America,” Medical Repository of Original Essays and Intelligence, Relative to Physic, Surgery, Chemistry, and Natural History, 6, 3 (1 Aug. 1803), 237–40, 239Google Scholar.

12 Allen, J. A., “Historical and Nomenclatorial Notes on North American Sheep,” in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 31 (1912), 1–29, 2–9Google Scholar. This publication represents the most complete account of North American mountain sheep until the mid-twentieth century. In this article, J. A. Allen (zoologist, ornithologist, curator, and former student of Louis Agassiz) wrote the first detailed intellectual genealogy of wild American sheep, mostly concerned with issues of classification and naming.

13 Ibid., 15.

14 Jameson and Laurie, 341.

15 PR, “Mountain Sheep,” Spirit of the Times: A Chronicle of the Turf, Agriculture, Field Sports, Literature and the Stage, 28, 16 (29 May 1858), 188.

16 “Big Horns, or Rocky Mountain Sheep, Surprised,” Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, 3, 3 (March 1877), 280–81. Dunraven, “Sheep-Hunting in the Mountains,” Littell's Living Age, 151, 1954 (3 Dec. 1881), 535–46. “Stalking the Mountain Sheep,” Forest and Stream: A Journal of Outdoor Life, Travel, Nature Study, Shooting, Fishing, Yachting, 23, 1 (31 July 1884), 4. Howard Oliver, “Capturing Rocky Mountain Sheep,” Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, 17, 102 (June 1891), 634–40. Mary Austin, “The Rocky Mountain Sheep,” St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks, 27, 11 (Sept. 1900), 954.

17 Hornaday, William T., “The Buffalo, Musk-Ox, Mountain Sheep, and Mountain Goat,” St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks, 22, 8 (June 1895), 680–81.

18 Hanson, Elizabeth, Animal Attractions: Nature on Display in American Zoos (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 136–37Google Scholar.

19 Frank Baker was previously the assistant superintendent of the United States Life Saving Service (which would eventually become the United States Coast Guard) and a professor of anatomy at Georgetown University. In 1890, he was hired as the curator of comparative anatomy in the National Museum with the understanding that upon hire he would serve as a temporary manager of the National Zoological Park until an official and permanent superintendent could be found. This position, however, proved far from temporary, for Baker would serve as superintendent of the National Zoo until 1916. “To Manage the Zoo,” Evening Star, 22 May 1890; and “New Director of the Zoo,” Washington Post, 23 May 1890; “Scrap Book, 1887–1902,” Smithsonian Institution Archives (hereafter SIA), Record Unit 74, Box 285.

20 The National Zoological Park had briefly possessed a mountain sheep in 1889, but it died from unknown causes. The Philadelphia Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo also had previously held mountain sheep in captivity. Baker to Mr. W. B. Sleeper, 8 Jan. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 2.

21 For more on these “specimen dealers” see Barrow, Mark V. Jr.’s “The Specimen Dealer: Entrepreneurial Natural History in America's Gilded Age,” Journal of the History of Biology, 33, 3 (Winter, 2000), 493–532 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Frank Baker to Professor M. G. Elrod [wrong middle initial], 1 March 1899, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 10. Elrod's papers are held at the Archives and Special Collections of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library at the University of Montana – Missoula. His papers are quite voluminous and would be interesting to anyone interested in intellectual history or the history science of the American West, specifically topics concerning Montana wildlife, the history of the University of Montana, or the history of Glacier National Park.

23 Frank Baker to R. W. Rock, 4 March 1899, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 10.

24 Frank Baker to M. G. Elrod, 13 March 1899, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 10.

25 Frank Baker to Mr. Vic. Smith, 22 Sept. 1899; Frank Baker to Mr. Leonard M. Cotton, 19 Oct. 1899, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 10.

26 S. P. Langley to Mr. Vic. Smith, 13 Nov. 1899; “Articles of Agreement,” SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 10.

27 Edward Wolcott to Professor Langley, 15 Feb. 1900; S. P. Langley to Senator Wolcott, 11 April 1900; SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11.

28 S. P. Langley to Governor Theodore Roosevelt, 18 April 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11.

29 Theodore Roosevelt to S. P. Langley, 18 April 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11. For more on Theodore Roosevelt and his passion for nature, wildlife, and the outdoors see Brinkley's, Douglas The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: HarperCollins, 2009)Google Scholar; and Egan's, Timothy The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America (New York: Mariner Books, 2010)Google Scholar.

30 Owen Swift to Mr. Supt. Frank Baker, 19 April 1900; Frank Baker to Nims B. Ferguson, 18 April 1900; Frank Baker to W. H. Root, 18 April 1900; Frank Baker to Mr. S. P. Langley, 19 April 1900; Frank Baker to Mr. S. P. Langley, 20 April 1900; SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11.

31 S. P. Langley to Doctor Frank Baker, 16 April 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11.

32 Frank Baker to Mr. S. P. Langley, 17 April 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11.

33 Charles Jesse Jones is an important figure in the shaping of the late nineteenth-century American West, deserving of further historical analysis. See Brown, Mackenzie and Easton's, Robert Lord of Beasts: The Saga of Buffalo Jones (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1961)Google Scholar. Later in life, Jones acted as the first game warden of Yellowstone National Park.

34 Frank Baker to Mr. S. P. Langley, 20 April 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11.

35 “Articles of Agreement,” SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 11.

36 C. J. Jones to Mr. Frank Baker, 20 May 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 12.

37 C. J. Jones to S. P. Langley, 22 May 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 12.

38 Baker to Colonel C. J. Jones, 1 June 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

39 “Wild Big Horns,” from unnamed Topeka newspaper, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

40 Some evidence exists, by a blurb from an unknown Western newspaper, that “Buffalo” Jones and his expedition party did not catch these two lambs themselves. According to the blurb, these two lambs were caught by a local resident of Rock Creek, Charles Smith. If this rumor is true, then Jones bought the lambs from Smith, and then simply pretended that he caught them himself. This would explain how Jones was able to acquire lambs so quickly after writing his first pessimistic letter. Unknown newspaper blurb, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 12.

41 C. J. Jones to Baker, 27 May 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 14.

42 C. J. Jones to Baker, 19 June 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

43 Ibid.

44 C. J. Jones to Baker, 26 June 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

45 Ibid.

46 Paul Redieske to Baker, 24 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 14.

47 C. J. Jones to Baker, 7 July 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

48 Jones [yet unsigned] to Doctor, 8 Aug. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

49 C. J. Jones to Baker, 16 Aug. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

50 C. J. Jones to Baker, 16 Aug. 1900, telegram, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 14.

51 C. J. Jones to Baker, 7 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

52 Frank Baker to C. J. Jones, 19 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

53 C. J. Jones to Baker, 19 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

54 C. J. Jones to Baker, 24 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

55 C. Goodnight note, undated, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

56 Baker to Captain Charles Goodnight, 26 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 13.

57 C. J. Jones to Baker, 30 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 80, Folder 14.

58 D. C. Beaman to Baker, 18 Dec. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 8.

59 Just as the “cultural turn” has located agency, resistance, and creativity across humanity, the “animal turn,” fueled by the burgeoning interdisciplinary animal studies, is locating agency, resistance, and creativity across the animal kingdom. The literature engaged in this project is large and growing rapidly – not only within the domain of animal studies, but also in the realm of environmental history, history of science, and the emerging field of “animal history.” For an important work in animal studies see McFarland, Sarah E. and Hediger's, Ryan edited collection Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration (Leiden: Brill, 2009)Google Scholar. For history that directly confronts issues of animals and agency see Nance's, Susan Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the American Circus (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; or her edited collection The Historical Animal (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015)Google ScholarPubMed; White's, Sam “From Globalized Pig Breeds to Capitalist Pigs: A Study in Animal Cultures and Evolutionary History,” Environmental History, 16, 1 (Jan. 2011), 94–120 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Benson's, Etienne “The Urbanization of the Eastern Gray Squirrel in the United States,” Journal of American History, 100, 3 (Dec. 2013), 691–710 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some readers might disagree with the above assertion that a mountain sheep could practice resistance through and in death. Death as resistance, though, is well established in cultural histories concerning humans. It would be difficult, though, to posit that sheep controlled when they let themselves die. An asseveration – from a standard historical perspective – that sheep, at times, chose to die rather than live would be, at best, without empirical evidence and, at worst, a base projective anthropomorphization. It would, further, be impossible to argue that animals died, like humans, for a cause. Nonetheless, while literal animals may not have been able to consciously resist by dying, metonymic animals could. From the perspective of an animal collector or zoo superintendent, animals dying functioned as a form of resistance. When viewed collectively, animals dying could stop both the zoo and the business of animal collecting in their tracks, making the most essential tasks – procuring and keeping animals – impossible. Concerning the specific contention of Buffalo Jones that a sheep could die from loneliness, it seems reasonable to assume that bored, miserable, lethargic, and unhappy animals were more likely to die than wild, active animals. Animals, like humans, experience emotion, including various types of melancholia. Elephants make mourning marches. Dogs and horses grieve the death of their owners, a trope long recognized in literature and folklore. And all sorts of nonhuman animals experience sadness over the loss of other animal companions and mates. It seems likely, then, even probable, that lonely, captive animals would have less “will to live” than lively, satisfied animals, and therefore the death of a lonely sheep could be read as some sort of rudimentary form of partially conscious resistance. This line of reasoning may flirt with the impossible question about whether “resistance” requires “intentionality” and “consciousness” (a problem exacerbated especially when “resistance” is applied to nonhuman animals). Nonetheless, as Claude Lévi-Strauss famously put it in his Totemism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), 89, “animals are good to think with.”

60 Baker to S. P. Langley, 4 Dec. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 1.

61 Baker to S. P. Langley, 18 March 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 3.

62 Baker to Ed. Shaffer, 20 Sept. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 1. For more on the Lacey Act see Cart's, Theodore Whaley “The Lacey Act: America's First Nationwide Wildlife Statute,” Forest History, 17 (Oct. 1973), 4–13 Google Scholar; and Barrow, Mark V. Jr.’s Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 105 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 S. P. Langley to Henry M. Teller, 17 Jan. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 2.

64 S. P. Langley to Henry M. Teller, 22 Jan. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 2.

65 Langley to Samuel V. Moninger, 21 Jan. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 2.

66 Horace Harms (?) to S. P. Langley, 28 Jan. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 2.

67 Sam V. Moninger to Baker, 5 Feb. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 3.

68 Americans had long viewed mountain lions, like other predators, as nuisances. Like wolves, coyotes, and eagles, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mountain lions were exterminated in great numbers, largely to protect the domesticated animals of farmers and ranchers. At the same time that Americans reduced the numbers of mountain sheep by hunting and collecting activities, as well as by the transformation of their habitats, they simultaneously pursued vicious predator-extermination programs that eliminated mountain sheep's primary predator. Though mountain lions themselves prefer the slower mule deer as prey, certainly Americans’ turn-of-the-century hatred for predators contributed to the survival of mountain sheep when their hooves were on the brink. For more on these extermination campaigns see Coleman's, Jon T. formative “animal history” Vicious: Wolves and Men in American (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

69 Baker to S. P. Langley, 26 April 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 4.

70 A. S. Sharp to Baker, 25 March 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 3.

71 A. S. Sharp to Baker, 19 April 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 4.

72 A. S. Sharp to Baker, 31 Aug. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 7.

73 C. J. Jones to Baker, 19 April 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 4.

74 Baker to C. J. Jones, 23 April 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 4.

75 J. C. Cosley to Baker, 18 Dec. 1900, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 1.

76 Baker to S. P. Langley, 26 April 1901.

77 Joseph C. Cosley to Baker, 5 March 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 3.

78 Baker to Colonel C. J. Jones, 24 May 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 5.

79 C. J. Jones to Baker, 21 May 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 5.

80 Baker to E. I. Shafer, 24 June 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 6.

81 Baker to Miers Fisher, 1 July 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 7.

82 Baker to J. B. Monroe, 10 June 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 6.

83 S. P. Langley to the Honorable, the Governor of Montana, 11 May 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 5.

84 W. F. Scott to Baker, 30 May 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 5.

85 S. P. Langley to George McKay, 8 March 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 3; Baker to W. R. C. Johnstone, 30 Aug. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 7; Baker to A. A. Bissell, 30 Sept. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 7; Baker to Jos. Chandler, 22 July 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 7; Baker to F. K. Hitt, 9 Feb. 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 3.

86 Baker to W. T. Hornaday, 21 May 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 5; Baker to Herbert Brown, 6 June 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 12.

87 Baker to J. Ham, 4 June 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 6.

88 Baker to W. H. Root, 16 July 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 12.

89 Baker to Will. Frakes, 25 June 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 12.

90 Geo. Walker to Director U. S. Zoo, 2 Feb. 1903, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 14.

91 D. C. Beaman to Baker, 18 Dec. 1901.

92 W. T. Hornaday to Dr. Frank Baker, 9 May 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 5.

93 Baker to F. Field, 12 June 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 6; Baker to W. C. Graham, 5 Feb. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 9.

94 C. F. Periolat to Baker, 22 June 1901, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 6.

95 Baker to Messrs. Burns and Daily, 9 Aug. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 12.

96 Burns and Daily to Frank Baker, 16 Aug. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 13.

97 Baker to Jos. Chandler, 22 July 1901.

98 James Fullerton to Frank Baker, 26 Jan. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 9.

99 W. H. Root to Dr. Frank Baker, 21 July 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 12.

100 Winnie Harwood Phillips to Baker, 17 March 1903, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 14.

101 Will Frakes to Baker, 15 Aug. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 12.

102 Sam Moninger to Baker, 12 Feb. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 9.

103 Baker to A. S. Sharp, 5 Feb. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 9.

104 Baker to Honorable C. W. Harris, 12 April 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 10.

105 C. W. Harris to Baker, 28 March 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 10.

106 D. C. Nowlin to Baker, 22 April 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 11.

107 S. P. Langley to the Honorable William A. Clark, 14 Feb. 1903, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 14.

108 Baker to Mr. J. W. Benson, 12 April 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 10.

109 Baker to Mr. J. W. Benson, 18 Feb. 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 9.

110 Baker to Mr. J. M. Underwood, 31 May 1902, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 11.

111 Barrow, “The Specimen Dealer,” 493–98. For a more detailed discussion of American natural history see Pauly, Philip J., Biologists and the Promise of American Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Dugatkin, Lee Alan, Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Slaughter, Thomas P., The Natures of John and William Bartram (New York: Knopf, 1996)Google Scholar; Porter, Charlotte, The Eagle's Nest: Natural History and American Ideas, 1812–1842 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Keeney, Elizabeth B., The Botanizers: Amateur Scientists in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Irmscher, Christoph, The Poetics of Natural History: From John Bartram to William James (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; and Lewis, Andrew J., A Democracy of Facts: Natural History in the Early Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2011)Google Scholar.

112 Evans, Victor J., Illustrated Guide Book to the National Zoological Park (Washington: Henry E. Wilkens Printing Company, 1902)Google Scholar, 10, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 120, Folder 10.

113 Baker to Col. C. J. Jones, 4 Dec. 1903, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 81, Folder 14.

114 R. Rathbun to Honorable Morris Sheppard, 5 Oct. 1917, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 82, Folder 4; Morris Sheppard to Mr. Ned Hollister, 1 Oct. 1917, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 82, Folder 4.

115 Baker to August F. Duclos, 27 July 1917, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 82, Folder 4.

116 John Cudahy to Mr. Hollister, 31 July 1922, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 82, Folder 4.

117 N. Hollister to John Cudahy, 29 July 1922, SIA, Record Unit 74, Box 82, Folder 4.

118 Historians of science now acknowledge that a society's “public sphere,” “popular culture,” and proletariat all take part, with professional scientists, in shaping science. See, for example, Kohlstedt's, Sally Gregory “The Nineteenth-Century Amateur Tradition: The Case of the Boston Society of Natural History,” in Holton, G. and Blanpied, W., eds., Science and Its Public: The Changing Relationship (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976), 173–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article is a classic history of “popular science,” possibly the first attempt at looking at the role of laypeople in the formation of scientific concerns. For other works on the “building” of science see Schiebinger, Londa, Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; and Lightman, Bernard, Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more on the Smithsonian and “building” science in the nineteenth century see Goldstein's, Daniel excellent article “‘Yours for Science’: The Smithsonian Institution's Correspondents and the Shape of Scientific Community in Nineteenth-Century America,” Isis, 85, 4 (Dec. 1994), 573–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

119 Over the course of the nineteenth century, yet especially after the Civil War, naturalists, scientists, animal rights activists, sports hunters, anglers, and romantics of various kinds increasingly began to draw attention to the plight of American wild animals. For more on this topic see Barrow, Nature's Ghosts; Barrow, Mark V. Jr., A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology after Audubon (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Jacoby, Karl, Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Turner, James, Reckoning with the Beast: Animals, Pain, and Humanity in the Victorian Mind (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Mighetto, Lisa, Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Beers, Diane L., For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Isenberg, Andrew C., The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tober, James A., Who Owns the Wildlife? The Political Economy of Conservation in Nineteenth-Century America (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Judd, Richard W., Common Lands, Common People: The Origins of Conservation in New England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

120 For an excellent discussion about this irony of early conservation movements see Warren's, Louis S. The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

121 Zoological parks still command an immense amount of interest. As Hanson, Elizabeth notes in Animal Attractions: Nature on Display in American Zoos (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002)Google Scholar, 2, “Each year more than 130 million Americans visit zoos – more people than attend professional baseball, football, and hockey games combined.” As Miller, Ian Jared notes in The Nature of the Beasts: Empire and Exhibition at the Tokyo Imperial Zoo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, globally, today, conservative zoo attendance figures can be estimated around 675 million, or approximately ten percent of global population.

122 In the 1990s, as zoos became politicized in the American public sphere, the number of zoo histories expanded. However, most of these histories were “popular histories.” Some of these works were sweeping and generalized histories of zoological parks everywhere, and others were studies of individual zoos that simply connected a local zoo to local history. Generally, this body of literature lacked intellectual depth, placing “zoo history” along an outmoded, teleological narrative of progress, where zoos rose to glory over the course of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, the sheer volume of “popular” zoo histories produced in the 1990s demonstrates the degree to which zoos were coming into view, by both scholars and the public.

123 Ritvo described zoo animals as symbolizing elite control over the lower orders, reflecting Britain's control over its empire. See Ritvo, Harriet, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987)Google Scholar. Rothfels wrote the first history to examine the complicated processes involved in establishing a zoological park. He documented the rise of large-scale international animal trading, described the Hagenbeck revolution that relocated zoo animals from cages to naturalistic enclosures, and used both topics as windows into German business and culture in an increasingly globalizing world. See Rothfels, Nigel, Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)Google Scholar. Most recently, Miller has described the animals of Tokyo's Ueno Imperial Zoological Gardens, analyzing them specifically through the idea of “ecological imperialism.”

124 For more on “animal history” see the essays by Susan Nance, Janet M. Davis, and Etienne S. Benson in the Nov. 2015 issue of American Historian, published by the the Organization of American Historians.

125 Defenders of Wildlife, “Basic Facts about Bighorn Sheep,” at www.defenders.org/bighorn-sheep/basic-facts, accessed 18 May 2015.

126 For more on mountain lions and sheep see Rominger, Eric M., Whitlaw, Heather A., Weybright, Darrel L., Dunn, William C., and Ballard, Warren B., “The Influence of Mountain Lion Predation on Bighorn Sheep Translocations,” Journal of Wildlife Management, 68, 4 (2004), 993–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 The ecological, conservationist, biological, and wildlife management literatures concerning human encroachment on mountain sheep are large and varied. For three recent examples see Jansen, Brian D., Krausman, Paul R., Bristow, Kirby D., Heffelfinger, James R., and DeVos, James C., “Surface Mining and Ecology of Desert Bighorn Sheep,” Southwestern Naturalist, 54, 4 (2009), 430–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Longshore, Kathleen, Lowrey, Chris, and Thompson, Daniel B., “Detecting Short-Term Responses to Weekend Recreation Activity: Desert Bighorn Sheep Avoidance of Hiking Trails,” Wildlife Society Bulletin, 37, 4 (2013), 698–706 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Turner, Jack C., Douglas, Charles L., Hallum, Cecil R., Krausman, Paul R., and Ramey, Rob Roy, “Determination of Critical Habitat for the Endangered Nelson's Bighorn Sheep in Southern California,” Wildlife Society Bulletin, 32, 2 (2004), 427–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

128 Sausman, Karen A., “Survival of Captive-Born Ovis canadensis in North American Zoos,” Zoo Biology, 3 (1984), 111–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

129 World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, at www.waza.org/en/zoo/visit-the-zoo/sheep-goats-chamois-and-musk-ox-1254385523/ovis-canadensis, accessed 19 July 2016.

130 For a beautiful, page-turning read about desert bighorns read Meloy's, Ellen nature writing in Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild (New York: Vintage Books, 2005)Google Scholar.