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In the Museum with Roosevelt Michael Ross Canfield Enjoys a Chronicle of the Statesman’S Natural-History Legacy

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In the Museum with Roosevelt Michael Ross Canfield Enjoys a Chronicle of the Statesman’S Natural-History Legacy COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS ZOOLOGY In the museum with Roosevelt Michael Ross Canfield enjoys a chronicle of the statesman’s natural-history legacy. he head of a Cape buffalo presents killed animals. This contradiction has exer- itself just inside the door of Theodore cised many. Teasing apart aspects of ethics, Roosevelt’s historical home, Sagamore morality, manliness and environmentalism THill, on Long Island, New York. A few steps in Roosevelt’s approach to collecting, Lunde further in are mounted rhino­ceros horns, reveals how the president’s impulses over- then a trophy room framed by elephant tusks. lapped. He hunted for meat and sport — a This is, in effect, the personal natural-history common pursuit among the wealthy on both museum of the explorer, soldier and 26th US sides of the Atlantic — as well as science. president. Roosevelt also donated hundreds of That scientific strand was strong. Lunde specimens to the American Museum of Natu- describes how Roosevelt was able to “hold LIBRARY/ALAMY PICTURE EVANS MARY ral History in New York and the Smithsonian specimens in his hand”, whether bear, cou- Institution in Washington DC. Between these gar or bird, to hone his observational acuity. two kinds of museum — the private and the Roosevelt even chastised hunters who did not public — we find the Roosevelt of The Natu- learn in this way and report results appropri- ralist by Darrin Lunde, manager of the Smith- ately, because information could easily be lost sonian’s mammal collections. to science. Other areas of his life, particularly Lunde’s narrative stretches from Roosevelt’s his approach to politics and policymaking, youth to his return from a scientific safari show the imprint of these habits of observing, in what is now Kenya in 1909–10, a decade collecting disparate elements and informa- before his death. Roosevelt collected and tion, and analysing assembled parts. preserved specimens throughout his life. He Yet Roosevelt spent relatively little time chronicled his hunts (along with bar fights actually in museums. These were then grow- and chasing outlaws) in popular books such Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president. ing into prominence under pioneers such as as Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), and Spencer Fullerton Baird, the first curator at continued to collect everything from manta curatorial specialities such as conchologist, the Smithsonian, and C. Hart Merriam, who rays in Florida to moose in Canada through and papers on topics such as the migration expanded the scientific study of animals at his presidency (1901–09) and after. As Lunde of whales. In his early teens, he studied taxi- the US Department of Agriculture, both of reveals, his bursts of field work coincided dermy with John Bell, who had worked with whom Lunde discusses. Professional cura- with — and fed into — the evolving US naturalist-illustrator John James Audubon. torship was not for Roosevelt. Even at Har- scientific study of nature that is fostered by Later, at Harvard University in Cambridge, vard he gravitated toward field work, largely museum founders, such as Albert Bickmore Massachusetts, he began to study biology, but dismissing the focus on section cutting and of the American Museum of Natural History. eventually gravitated toward economics and minutiae taught at Louis Agassiz’s museum Roosevelt’s activities filled museums and history — key preparation for a dual career there. Lunde’s remark that exploring muse- inspired him to use his political mandate to in statesmanship and conservation. ums is “like traveling around the world” protect 93 million hectares of public land and Roosevelt’s field work, like that of most reflects Agassiz’s view that assemblages of establish 5 national parks. museum naturalists at the time, revolved specimens allow a naturalist to read from Born in 1858 into a wealthy Manhattan around specimen collection and prepara- “the great book of nature”. But Roosevelt was household, the home-schooled Roosevelt tion, and the window that Lunde opens on not satisfied with simply reading. He wanted avidly read natural histories in the family this is among the book’s novel contributions. to write his own accounts of the wild. library and ferreted Taxidermy involved applying arsenical soap As a curator, Lunde might have shared out animals in the to skins, boiling bones and allowing bacte- more about the scope of Roosevelt’s collec- wilder surrounds of ria or beetles to eat flesh. It was hard and tions and their current value, particularly in New York City. A dead unpleasant, and on Roosevelt’s African trip, an age of unprecedented biodiversity loss. seal that he encoun- professionals such as Edmund Heller did However, The Naturalist does highlight the tered in a Broadway much of it for him: Heller “roughed out” crucial importance of maintaining such leg- market when he was specimens by carving soft tissue from the acies. It also helps to disentangle Roosevelt’s around seven made a hides and bones. Even as a revered ex-US roles as hunter, conservationist and museum singular impression; president in Africa, however, Roosevelt man — and for anyone visiting Sagamore Hill, he recorded meas- never shied away from close observation of it enriches contemplation of objects such as urements of it and The Naturalist: specimens. Taxidermist Carl Akeley photo- the bearskin rug or rhino-foot inkwell. ■ acquired the head. He Theodore graphed him holding a camera while inves- established a collec- Roosevelt, A tigating an elephant carcass with a hyena Michael Ross Canfield lectures on tion (‘The Roosevelt Lifetime of scavenging inside it. organismic and evolutionary biology Museum of Natural Exploration, and Roosevelt’s youthful collecting technique at Harvard University in Cambridge, the Triumph of History’) in his bed- American Natural was basic, and included knocking birds’ Massachusetts, and studies how scientists room, and a natural- History nests from trees; he switched to guns in record their work. His latest book is history society with his DARRIN LUNDE maturity. Like many hunter-naturalists up to Theodore Roosevelt in the Field. peers — complete with Crown: 2016. the late twentieth century, he both loved and e-mail: [email protected] 440 | NATURE | VOL 532 | 28 APRIL 2016 ©2016 Mac millan Publishers Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. .
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