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Crafts, Boys, Ernest Thompson Seton, and the Woodcraft Movement

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Crafts, Boys, Ernest Thompson Seton, and the Woodcraft Movement Copyright 2008 by the Studies in Art Education National Art Education Association A Journal of Issues and Research 2008, 49(3), 183-199 Crafts, Boys, Ernest Thompson Seton, and the Woodcraft Movement F. Graeme Chalmers and Andrea A. Dancer The University of British Columbia This article examines early influences on art education for boys (Chalmers & Correspondence Dancer, 2007) in areas traditionally labeled as crafts. Under review is the work regarding this article of Ernest Thompson Seton, artist, naturalist, storyteller, author, philosopher, may be sent to Graeme crusader for and supporter of indigenous American Indian ways of knowing, and Chalmers, Faculty of a co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America. Within a discussion of indigeneity and Education, University woodcraft, this article contributes to the study of masculinities and art education. of British Columbia, Seton’s Woodcraft Indians and the Boy Scouts of America were early 20th-century Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4. E-mail: f. responses to what Pinar (2001) has termed the “crisis of white masculinity.” As [email protected] Imms (2003) has stated, “Art education does own a legacy of neglecting boys” (p. 55). Applying Addison (2005), this article considers art and design in the formation of sexual identities. A focus on the life and work of Seton, with an analysis of his semi-autobiographical writing, provides select historical insight into gendered approaches to art education as well as romantic approaches to Native American art and education. Boys and Crafts How many boys have visited craft supply stores? On her webpage titled “Crafts for Boys,” Keith (2006) noted that boys “do not enjoy arts and crafts as much as girls but certain projects do capture their attention and interest.” Keith further suggested that 21st-century North American boys have been interested in building a magazine rack, a barbeque caddy, a bug house, a CD tower and that paper airplanes, toothpick bridges, computer crafts, aliens, transporters, robots, and spaceships have captured their attention. On a webpage for Sunday school teachers, Keffer (2006) added: “When you say ‘craft time,’ do the boys in your class moan, yawn, escape to the bathroom, or find other creative ways to express their displeasure? Maybe they have a point. Craft books tend to be packed with frilly, sweet-smelling projects. Do boys go for that stuff? Not the ones who live at my house!” Since the introduction of drawing into the public schools, the role of art in boys’ lives has been of concern to educators. On one hand, the first industrial drawing programs prepared working class boys (and some girls) for elementary design work in manufacturing and building trades. On the other, early art education programs acknowledged that exposure to selected ‘fine’ arts could be an uplifting and civilizing force. In early boys’ clubs too, this dual role was apparent. O’Brien (1901) described how the Columbia Park Boys’ Club, in a tough San Francisco neighborhood, used the term ‘strong work’ to describe the experiences provided for boys in clay modeling, woodwork, iron work, and rope-mat making. In addition, the club, like Studies in Art Education 183 F. Graeme Chalmers and Andrea A. Dancer the earlier Mechanics’ Institutes [which provided evening educational and recreational programs for young men], subscribed to “some of the best art magazines” (p. 251). Woodcraft and Masculinity What types of art and craft activities have captured boys’ attention in the past? Rogers (1995) claimed that “Boys prefer images that imply action, suspense, danger, or rescue, and/or that include male characters or vehicles” (p. 1). McNiff (1982) added that images drawn by boys often have related to conflict and power, struggle, exotic locations, and sport. Ernest Thompson Seton (1860–1946), naturalist, artist, and American Indian crusader, noted that activities of particular interest to boys ranged from the making of willow beds, picturesque tepees and decorated tents, war clubs for ceremonial dances, boats, bird houses, bows and arrows, painted paddles, fire sticks and drums to tackle boxes, bird call whistles, picture frames, and photographs of wild birds and animals. For Seton (1921), boys’ crafts were intimately connected to woodcraft, by which he meant “outdoor life in its broadest sense” (p. v)—the love of which had been with him since his own boyhood. A founder of both the Woodcraft Indians and the Boy Scouts of America, Seton stated that, “Woodcraft is the first of all the sciences … it was wood- craft that made man out of brutish material, and woodcraft in its highest form may save him from decay” (p. v). Seton (1917b) presented masculine examples by claiming that: All the great men who have made history were trained first in the school of Woodcraft. Nimrod, the mighty hunter, who built the city of Nineveh; Sardanapalus, the lion-killer, the Monarch of Assyria, who by force of his own arms overcame two lions that attacked him at one time; Brennus, the Gaul, who could shoe his own horse and who was able to master all Rome; Rollo, the sea king, who could 1We acknowledge that steer his own ship in the wildest water and landed in Normandy to the terms Seton used to establish order and lay down laws that are now accepted all over the denote the First Nations world; William the Conqueror of England, the hunter whose bow (specifically Plains) peoples are problematic. was the strongest among all the archers of his day; Charlemagne, When referring to the the great hunter, careful farmer, world master; William of Orange, Woodcraft movement hunter fisherman, sportsman, horseman, arbiter of the destinies of all Seton named the Woodcraft Indian the British Empire; Washington, hunter, woodsman, frontiersman, League, we use Seton’s farmer, and army scout, able to run, wrestle, command or obey; terms of reference Abraham Lincoln, hunter, pioneer, woodsman, axeman, farmer, deck- despite stereotypical overtones. When hand; Robert E. Lee, hunter, woodsman, horseman, planter, farmer; referring to the First U.S. Grant, back-woodsman, frontiersman, farmerboy, soldier, big Nations peoples as the brother to five little ones. (p. 1) Aboriginal peoples of 1 North America, we use But, despite these “great men,” the Native American Plains Indian was at the term First Nations. the heart of the Woodcraft movement. Seton (1921) believed that: 184 Studies in Art Education Crafts, Boys, Ernest Thompson Seton, and the Woodcraft Movement The Redman can do a greater service now and in the future. He can teach us the ways of outdoor life, the nobility of courage, the joy of beauty, the blessedness of enough, the glory of service, the power of kindness, the super-excellence of peace of mind and the scorn of death. (p. 8) As White (2001) demonstrated, the art and crafts of Native Americans were being brought to the attention of American art educators during this same period through publications such as School Arts. A crafts influence existed in the Boy Scouts of America—an influence initially based on Seton’s Woodcraft Indians. This influence contrasted British Scouting, where a military factor was strong under the leadership of Lord Baden-Powell and where the approach to art equalled drawing similar to that taught to army officer cadets (Chalmers & Dancer, 2007). Seton stated that his aim was to make a man, whereas he felt Baden-Powell’s was to make a soldier (Chalmers & Dancer, 2007). As the Boy Scouts of America history website has noted, boys were taught to “rejoice in the natural beauty of creation” and to “walk in beauty.” The Woodcraft Leagues in North America2 eventually curbed 2 Woodcraft Indian the role of the First Nations peoples as models; it also changed to a co- practice remains active in Central Europe, educational program, thus, influencing the types of arts and crafts that were specifically in the Czech practiced. Like Baden-Powell, Seton believed that to keep a boy interested, Republic, Slovakia, he needed to something to do with his hands, something to think about, Poland, and Russia. and something to enjoy in the woods. Among Seton’s own happiest hours, 3The notion of the “picturesque” reflects the he identified as best time spent in the family workshop and learning to work empire building ethos of with tools to make things both beautiful and useful (Seton, 1941). Seton’s era, where exotic places and peoples, Boys and the Picturesque as well as the animal Seton (1906) believed that it was “picturesqueness”3 (p. 9) that attracted world, were configured as empty landscapes boys. Seton posited that such picturesqueness had been found when dressing upon which civilization and playing Indian, while practicing what he termed “Indiancraft” (p. 9). The could inscribe itself. Woodcraft program integrated Indian names for the months and symbols This was part of the controversy that hovered or pictographs for weather conditions, referred to members as “braves,” around Seton’s writing and required participants to assume Native American names and wear and painting during his “wampum” medals made of beautiful shells. In this way, Seton attempted lifetime, as he resisted these hegemonies and to disrupt the negative stereotyping of First Nations peoples. Based on his actively countered them formative experiences, Seton shifted the emphasis away from aesthetics with the naturalist toward the cultivation of an ecological consciousness (an anomaly for the (ecological) thrust of his animal stories and era) through “doing.” Specifically, Seton appropriated Indian practices that Indian practice (Dancer, nevertheless reified an equally entrenched positive stereotype. For example, in press). each Woodcraft tribe required a standard used by the “Head War Chief” to make proclamations. This was “a staff about eight feet long, painted red and ornamented with any of the designs shown in the illustrations [Illustration 1], the drawing on the shield always being the totem of the Tribe.
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