The Cultural Politics of American Sport Hunters, 1880-19101
Journal of Leisure Research Copyright 2003 2003, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 455-474 National Recreation and Park Association The Hunter's Aim: The Cultural Politics of American Sport Hunters, 1880-19101 Daniel Justin Herman Department of History Central Washington University American sport hunters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries "aimed" to reclaim the frontier past, to sanctify individualism, and to demon- strate their superiority to women and immigrants. Sport hunters, however, achieved ironic results. In proposing that hunting had made Americans great, hunters forgot that Americans had once attributed their greatness to farming. In protecting their sport as a rite of individualism, hunters gave new powers to government. In identifying their sport as a badge of ethnic superiority, hunters undermined hunting as a badge of sexual superiority. In demonstrating their imperial control over the world, hunters demonstrated their fear of a world out of control. At the same time, however, hunters bequeathed to modern Ameri- cans an important legacy: the conservation of game. KEYWORDS: Ethnicity, gender, hunting, imperialism, Theodore Roosevelt, sport. Judging by its appearance in national periodicals, sport hunting in the United States reached its pinnacle in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Between 1865 and 1900, no less than thirty-nine weekly and monthly American journals were devoted to field sports, including Forest and Stream, The American Sportsman, The American Field, Outdoor Life, Recreation, Outing, and Turf, Field, and Farm. In perusing these journals, one immediately discovers that hunting was the most ubiquitous of American fields sports (apart from fishing) and the most symbolically charged.
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