DOCSLIB.ORG

Ecocriticism, Textual Criticism, and William Bartram's Travels

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ecocriticism, Textual Criticism, and William Bartram's Travels Text and Trail: Ecocriticism, Textual Criticism, and William Bartram’s Travels Mark Sturges Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, Volume 14, Number 1, 2012, pp. 1-20 (Article) Published by Penn State University Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/467954 [ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] • Text and Trail: Ecocriticism, Textual Criticism, and William Bartram’s Travels mark sturges Long ago, Cheryll Glotfelty defined ecocriticism as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (xviii). Ecocriticism, she wrote, emphasizes “relationships between things . between human culture and the physical world” (xx). In recent years, Glen Love has promoted a more practical ecocriticism, which he describes as “a discourse that aims to test its ideas against the workings of physical real- ity” (7). Today, this faith in the physical world continues to fuel ecocriti- cal scholarship, inspiring the same old song: we need a more empirical methodology, a new interdisciplinary approach. As a result, ecocritics often retreat into the refuge of science, a discipline that digs down to the bed- rock, embraces the natural facts, and promises the catharsis of contact. In this article, I’d like to suggest that an empirical methodology has long been within reach of literary critics. We don’t need to walk across campus to find it. It often lives right at home in our English departments, holed up in an archive, or secluded in a basement office. It goes by many names—textual editing, book history, bibliography, textual criticism—and it conducts some practical fieldwork of its own, collecting data, checking facts, and going to the source of literary production. This article has two parts. First, from a theoretical standpoint, I con- sider the relationship between ecocriticism and textual criticism. In the process, I expand on Michael Branch’s article “Saving All the Pieces” (2001), and his edition of early American nature writing, Reading the Roots (2004), both of which encourage ecocritics to recognize the value of textual interdisciplinary literary studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2012 Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA ILS 14.1_01_Sturges.indd 1 04/02/12 1:02 PM 2 mark sturges editing. Branch defines textual editing as the scholarly work of discovering, recovering, and presenting previously unknown or unavailable documents. According to Branch, ecocritics have been slow to tackle editorial projects because we focus too narrowly on post-Thoreauvian nature writing, we overlook early and obscure texts, and we lack the requisite training. Branch envisions textual editing as a practical tool for broadening the canon of nature writing and legitimizing ecocritical discourse. Unlike Branch, I focus on the theoretical similarities between ecocriticism and textual editing, and I use the term textual criticism to refer more broadly to the arena of book history, bibliography, editorial procedure, and textual theory. Further, while Branch insists on the value of textual editing, he does not consider spe- cific methodologies, whereas I propose a hybrid methodology that merges ecocritical reading practices with the physical act of textual editing. By grafting these approaches together, I move toward a theory of ecotextual criticism. Second, I shift from theory to praxis by telling the story of a particu- lar work, William Bartram’s Travels (1791), and the editorial project that inspired both the Naturalist’s Edition of 1958 and the rediscovery of the Bartram Trail. In the process, I consider what happens when a scientist enters the field of textual editing. During more than twenty years of field- work, the biologist Francis Harper carried Bartram’s book into the woods and wetlands, tracking down its plants and places, in order to establish a link between the text and the physical world. Harper studied the place as part of the archive—its pretext, context, and paratext—and the book became his field guide; it brought him back to the land, even as he brought the land into the textual apparatus.1 Thus, Harper employed a practical, interdisciplinary methodology well before the invention of ecocriticism. To conclude, I argue that going to the source of literary production, physically tracking the events of a text, has long been a viable, promising, and neces- sary endeavor. Let us hope that it remains so. from black riders to green trackers Like ecocritics, textual critics—editors, bibliographers, and book histori- ans—value the material world. They study the physical book, its printing and production, its transmission and dissemination. While ecocritics debate the relationship between text, author, and the physical world, textual critics ponder the relationship between text, author, and the physical document. ILS 14.1_01_Sturges.indd 2 04/02/12 1:02 PM text and trail 3 Textual critics ask ecological questions; they identify and catalog speci- mens; they think about evolution. Their lexicon resembles ecocritical par- lance: production and reproduction, adaptation and evolution, index and appendix, genetic text. For textual critics, the book itself is a physical space; its production is ecological; it evolves; it rots and decays. But the book is also a human construct, a capitalist commodity, a material fetish. We often think of the book—especially a work of nature writing—as an ecotone, a marginal zone between author and environment, reader and place, culture and nature. Like ecocritics, textual critics are often accused of author wor- ship; they belong to author societies; they go on pilgrimage to the source of authorial experience. Despite these similarities, few textual critics have extended the study of the book beyond the boundaries of human culture to consider its ecological context, its environmental history. Meanwhile, few ecocritics have conducted studies of the physical book.2 Lawrence Buell once came close to merging the fields, but few (if any) took notice. Today, readers of The Environmental Imagination (1995), enam- ored of its ecocritical gospel, often overlook its debt to textual studies. Yet Buell leans heavily on the material evolution of Walden, the seven stages of the revision process as outlined in J. Lyndon Shanley’s study of the physi- cal manuscripts. Taking his cue from Shanley, Buell argues that authorship itself is an “ecological process” (173). Similarly, in “The Book of Nature and American Nature Writing” (1997), Barton Levi St. Armand observes that the physical book has roots in the natural world. Codex, the technical term for a bound volume, comes from the Latin for “tree trunk,” and liber, as in “library,” once referred to the inner bark of a tree. Both Buell and St. Armand have faith in books; they see books as links to the natural world. Others have objected to that faith. In The Practice of the Wild (1990), Gary Snyder writes: “Metaphors of ‘nature as books’ are not only inaccurate, they are pernicious. The world may be replete with signs, but it’s not a fixed text with archives of variora” (74–75). For Snyder, the physical book privi- leges Western culture and fails to represent the variability of the natural world. Similarly, in The Spell of the Sensuous (1996), David Abram argues that writing technology—the book itself—has historically severed the link between nature and culture. “Transfixed by our technologies,” he says, “we short-circuit the sensorial reciprocity between our breathing bodies and the bodily terrain” (267). In other words, the physical book shuts down direct experience; it breaks the bond between word and world, reader and place. Abram calls on nature writers to recover that bond, to write language back into the land.3 ILS 14.1_01_Sturges.indd 3 04/02/12 1:02 PM 4 mark sturges Similar debate has occurred in textual criticism. Since the 1980s, two principal camps have contended for dominance of the field, staging their own battle within the wider theory wars. On the one side, intended text theorists (or intentionalists) such as W. W. Greg, Fredson Bowers, and G. Thomas Tanselle have argued for an editorial approach that rescues authorial intent from the corruptions of printers and publishers. On the other side, social text theorists (or materialists) such as Jerome McGann and D. F. McKenzie have challenged the romantic notion of literary author- ship as solitary genius, insisting instead on the collaborative and cultural act of textual production. These camps have generally adopted competing approaches to editorial procedure. While intentionalists favor editorial dis- cretion in order to construct an eclectic text, materialists prefer the presen- tation of multiple and discrete versions of a work to approximate historical reality. At times, other approaches such as geneticism have attempted to complicate the debate, but the primary conflict has remained between the intentionalists and the materialists.4 Within this debate, the work of Jerome McGann has been especially influential. Over the years, in three major works—A Critique of Textual Criticism (1983), Black Riders (1993), and Radiant Textuality (2001)— McGann has challenged literary critics to discard the myth of solitary authorship and embrace instead a social concept of literary authority. The meaning of a work, McGann argues, depends largely on context and the bibliographical coding of the physical book. In other words, we should expand our vision of literary interpretation beyond the narrow scope of the word—the black riders on the page—to include the world as well: the mate- rial book, its visual rhetoric and social construction. Thus, McGann taps into a basic principle of poststructuralism, that literature is a product of the discursive network, but unlike Barthes and Foucault, McGann stresses the material nature of textuality. In Cheryl Glotfelty’s words, we might say that McGann “studies relationships between things . between human culture and the physical world” (xx). In this way, McGann alludes to the most basic principle of ecology, that everything is connected to everything else.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Migration Into Florida of the Seminoles, 1700-1820
    Florida Historical Quarterly Volume 46 Number 4 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 46, Article 6 Number 4 1967 Migration into Florida of the Seminoles, 1700-1820 James W. Covington Part of the American Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Article is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Historical Quarterly by an authorized editor of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Covington, James W. (1967) "Migration into Florida of the Seminoles, 1700-1820," Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 46 : No. 4 , Article 6. Available at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol46/iss4/6 Covington: Migration into Florida of the Seminoles, 1700-1820 MIGRATION OF THE SEMINOLES INTO FLORIDA, 1700-1820 by JAMES W. COVINGTON * HE SEMINOLE INDIANS were relatively late arrivals to the Florida peninsula; the Apalachees, Calusas, Timucuans, and smaller tribes had settled the area much earlier. The Seminole migrations into Florida came in three distinct phases: in the period between 1702-1750, they made raids against the Spainards and their Indian allies, and although the Seminoles acquired much knowledge of the Florida terrain, no significant settlements were made. In the period 1750-1812, six or more villages were estab- lished in the northern part of Florida, and small parties explored the entire peninsula in search of deer, bear, and other game, and to make contact with Cuban fishermen. The third phase came between the years of 1812-1820, when pressures in Alabama and Georgia forced the Upper and Lower Creeks to move south into Florida.
    [Show full text]
  • The Creek "Migration Legend"
    UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Dancing Breath: Ceremonial Performance Practice, Environment, and Personhood in a Muskogee Creek Community Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qm3x2bd Author Koons, Ryan Abel Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Dancing Breath: Ceremonial Performance Practice, Environment, and Personhood in a Muskogee Creek Community A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology by Ryan Abel Koons 2016 © Copyright by Ryan Abel Koons 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Dancing Breath: Ceremonial Performance Practice, Environment, and Personhood in a Muskogee Creek Community by Ryan Abel Koons Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Tara Browner, Chair This dissertation presents an ethnography utilizing a multispecies perspective of the "busk" ritual cycle as performed by the southeastern Muskogee Creek American Indian community, Pvlvcekolv (Apalachicola). Humans construct humanity and personhood partially via interactions with other-than-human persons, such as animals, plants, and objects. I examine ritualized interactions between humans and others-than-human in a southeastern Indigenous "natureculture," exploring the intersections of ontology, personhood, and performance practice. Pvlvcekolv, an animistic Florida-based tribal town with a ceremonial Fire that pre-dates European Contact, maintains a centuries-old ritual tradition, the busk. Sometimes known as "Green Corn Ceremonialism," many Native communities share this tradition, including ii Cherokee, Chickasaw, Seminole, Yuchi, and other Creek peoples historically and in the present day. Performing the songs, dances, and ritual actions of the busk places participants into dialogue with other-than-human persons.
    [Show full text]
  • 2011 Spring.Pdf
    The A NewsletterTraveller of the Bartram Trail Conference Spring 2011 The Road to Whatoga By Jim Kautz “Although Watauga Creek enters the riv- ticulously organized in his computer. His er from the east, the Indian town of that monitor, commanded by quick moves of mong William Bartram’s descriptions name (“Whatoga”) is shown on the west his mouse, flashes from Hunter’s 1731 of Cherokee towns is the pleasant side by some authorities (Hunter’s maps map to Benjamin Hawkins’s journal anecdoteA of his visit to Whatoga. He rode of 1730 and 1751; Swanton, 1922: pl. 7), (1796) to recent photos of deeply worn three miles from Nucasse (now Nikwasi, probably about opposite the creek. On the paths that lie on routes detailed by Bar- in the town of Franklin, NC) and found other hand, Mooney (1900: pl. 3) places it tram and other early travelers. himself beside Whatoga’s council house, on the east side. Perhaps this settlement, He shows me Gen. James Grant’s 1761 which was “situated on the top of an an- like Cowee, occupied both sides of the map and tells me that what Grant and cient artificial mount… .” river.” (389) others called the “Iona-Canara” road was He wrote: The Bartram Heritage Report cites the primary link from the Lower Settle- I was now at a stand how to proceed Harper and goes one step farther: “Nu- ments in South Carolina to Tomotla (near farther, when observing an Indian man casse was on the west side of the river, and Andrews, NC). His finger traces the route at the door of his habitation, three or if it had been necessary for Bartram to on the old map.
    [Show full text]
  • 2003 Summer.Pdf
    TheTraveller "The aftentionof a traveller,should be particularlyathrned, in the first place,to the Variousworks of Nature ...." FollowingBartram's Alabama Trail As he traveledtoward the gulf coast,Bartram exploredthe forestsalong the Alabamariver conidor earFriends: In lateJune 1775, William and encountered"a very remarkablegrove of Dog Bartramleft the Georgiafrontier with a wood trees(Cornus Florida), which continuednine "companyof adventurers,"bound for or ten milesunalterable." There were magnolias, Mobile. The parly reachedthe banksof the Chatta- oakleafliydrangeas, wild plums, "a perfectyellow" hoocheeRiver a few weekslater and were met by primrose,and numerousother wonders. CreekIndians from the Yuchi town. who assisted And therewere adventuresgalore. Bartram their passageacross the river. Bartrammarveled at swamthe AlabamaRiver at flood stage,witnessed theirtown, declaringit "the largest,most compact, the solemnblack drink ceremonyat the Creektown and best situatedIndian town I ever saw; the of Otasseand was regaledby deerskintraders with habitationsare largeand neatlybuilt." The town was talesof the Creek-ChoctawWar then raging along "populousand thriving." the lower Tensawwatershed. Bartram'sfirst experiencewest of the Chafta- This fall, the BartramTrail Conferencewill hoocheeRiver at the "beautiful"town of the Yuchi revisit Bartram'sAlabama journey. The 2003 was only the first of many incredibleexperiences in BartramTrail ConferenceBiennial meetingwill be the land we now call Alabama.He visitedthe towns held October24-26,2003,
    [Show full text]
  • Toward Decolonized Conceptions of Space and Literature of Place in Ecocritical
    Toward Decolonized Conceptions of Space and Literature of Place in Ecocritical Analysis: The Process and Production of Landscape in William Bartram’s Travels and Samuel Hearne’s A Journey to the Northern Ocean A thesis submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Richard Milligan, Jr. © Copyright Richard Milligan, Jr., December 2006. All rights reserved. Permission to Use In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my thesis work or, in her absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of English University of Saskatchewan 9 Campus Drive Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 i Abstract The tendency to stage appreciation for and attention to nature as a passive, guiltless enterprise was necessary for eighteenth-century colonial claims to space, but it also remains a very deeply entrenched aspect of environmentalist attitudes today.
    [Show full text]
  • 2018 St. Johns River Bartram Frolic by Sam Carr Illiam Bartram’S First Frolic Took Place Near Palatka in 1774
    The A NewsletterTraveller of the Bartram Trail Conference Fall 2018 2018 St. Johns River Bartram Frolic By Sam Carr illiam Bartram’s first Frolic took place near Palatka in 1774. In the pastW four years the St. Johns River Bar- tram Frolic has become an annual event that celebrates Bartram’s heritage and his beloved St. Johns River. The St. Johns Riverkeeper’s educational director, Emily Floore, and the Putnam County School System’s Helen Muir used the 2018 Frolic as an opportunity to introduce the county’s second graders to the St. Johns River. Throughout the week students from area schools visited the St. Johns River Center to learn about river heritage and natural history. Jim Sawgrass regales the audience as Long Warrior The highlight of this field trip was the opportunity for students to meet the • Longleaf Pine and Prescribed Fires, Welaka National Fish Hatchery released Long Warrior, Trader Job Wiggens, and Florida Parks Service large striped bass into the river. The Fort (of course) Billy Bartram. They learned • Estuary Explorers, Guana Tolomato Mose Historical Society thrilled all by fir- about plants and animals of the St. Johns Matanzas National Estuarine Research ing their muskets and sharing their heri- River, how to make fire without a match, Reserve (GTM) tage. and the importance of trade to the Na- Three themed cruises on the Pride of tive Americans. The Long Warrior taught At the VIP Frolic on Friday evening, Palatka riverboat completely sold out. them about Puc-Puggy and how the Putnam County dignitaries and living Later in the evening, Revitalize Historic Seminoles lived in 1774.
    [Show full text]
  • Establishing a Bartram Trail in Putnam County
    Volume 1, Issue 4, 2015 and fauna, and his eloquent musings about nature made his book a worldwide sensation. Although many Establishing a Bartram Trail in people know that Bartram came from Putnam County Philadelphia to explore Florida during Dean Campbell and Sam Carr, this period and have read his Travels, Bartram Trail in Putnam County few are aware that it is possible to travel the St. Johns River in the wake of William Bartram. The Bartram Trail Readers of Bartram’s Travels have longed to follow William’s small boat as it made its way up the St. Johns River. Although his wake has long ago Sam Carr explains it all to JFS editors Hallock dissipated and the Florida of Bartram’s and Blanton. Photo Credit: Eric Breitenbach. Travels is vastly different today, the Introduction watery path still remains. Much of the William Bartram’s exploration of flora and fauna described so vividly by Florida is familiar to people throughout William can still be seen along the the world, thanks to the publication of banks of the river, and thanks to his Travels in 1791, a book describing those confining banks, even today we his journey throughout eight southern can follow with some certainty, if not colonies during the years 1773-1777. the identical route, closely to it. The Bartram's florid and vivid descriptions Bartram Trail in Putnam County was of his encounters with the indigenous formed in order to re-establish the people, nature at its best and at its sites of William Bartram’s travels in worst, his discovery and illustration of our region and make them accessible hitherto undocumented tropical flora via waterway, hiking, biking, and Travels is so sadly confused as to driving routes.
    [Show full text]
  • Muscogee Constitutional Jurisprudence: Vhakv Em Pvtakv (The Ac Rpet Under the Law) Sarah Deer Mitchell Hamline School of Law, [email protected]
    Mitchell Hamline School of Law Mitchell Hamline Open Access Faculty Scholarship 2013 Muscogee Constitutional Jurisprudence: Vhakv Em Pvtakv (The aC rpet Under The Law) Sarah Deer Mitchell Hamline School of Law, [email protected] Cecilia Knapp [email protected] Publication Information 49 Tulsa Law Review 123 (2013) Repository Citation Deer, Sarah and Knapp, Cecilia, "Muscogee Constitutional Jurisprudence: Vhakv Em Pvtakv (The aC rpet Under The Law)" (2013). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 257. http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/facsch/257 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Mitchell Hamline Open Access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Mitchell Hamline Open Access. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Muscogee Constitutional Jurisprudence: Vhakv Em Pvtakv (The aC rpet Under The Law) Abstract In 1974, a group of Mvskoke citizens from Oklahoma sued the federal government in federal court. Hanging in the balance was the future of Mvskoke self-determination. The lp aintiffs insisted that their 1867 Constitution remained in full effect, and that they still governed themselves pursuant to it. The nitU ed States argued that the constitution had been nullified by federal law passed in the early 1900s. To find in favor of the plaintiffs, the court would have to rule that the United States had been ignoring the most basic civil rights of Mvskoke citizens and flouting the law for over seventy years. It would also have to find that a tribal government had been operating legitimately in the shadows—that the Mvskoke people had continued to operate under their constitution for most of the twentieth century despite official federal antagonism.
    [Show full text]
  • A Sociological Study of the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi. Charles Madden Tolbert Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1958 A Sociological Study of the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi. Charles Madden Tolbert Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Tolbert, Charles Madden, "A Sociological Study of the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi." (1958). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 475. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/475 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE CHOCTAW INDIANS IN MZSSISSIFPI A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In The Department of Sociology by Charles Madden Tolbert B. A., Mississippi College, I9U6 M. A*, University of North Carolina, 1954 June, 1958 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The vriter is indebted to many for assistance and encouragement, not only in connection with this study, but throughout his graduate training. The vriter is particularly grateful to his adviser, Professor Vernon J. Parenton, whose counsel and constructive criticism have been most beneficial. The writer is also deeply appreciative of the guid­ ance and intellectual stimulation he received from his other teachers in the Sociology Department: Professors Alvln L. Bertrand, Rudolf Heberle, Homer L. Hitt, Roland 3. Pellegrin, and Paul H.
    [Show full text]
  • 2006 Georgia History Festival Featured Historical Figure Teacher Guide William Bartram (1739-1823)
    2006 Georgia History Festival Featured Historical Figure Teacher Guide William Bartram (1739-1823) William Bartram c. 1808 by Charles Wilson Peale Used by permission of Independence National Historical Park Explanation: The William Bartram teacher guide includes all the text from the online resources with bolded vocabulary terms and their definitions (page 1-19). The packet also includes a list of GPS standards aligned to the resources (20-21). Brief Biography Son of John Bartram, America’s first professional botanist, William Bartram (1739-1823) was born on April 9, 1739, in Kingsessing near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From a young age, William developed a keen interest in botany and drawing. Though he tried on more than one occasion to enter the professional world in both business offices and printing shops, Bartram always longed for the outdoors. It is no surprise, therefore, that we find a 26-year-old William accompanying his father on the elder Bartram’s great botanical expedition to the newly acquired Florida territory in 1765. Commissioned “the King’s Botanist,” John Bartram was to explore the new southern territory acquired from Spain in 1763. During the expedition, William Bartram fell in love with Florida, even attempting a short-lived venture into indigo farming along the St. John’s River. Though this experiment ultimately failed, he remained in Florida for a time, taking a position as a draftsman on an expedition to map the coastline. Eventually he was forced to return to his father’s home in Pennsylvania, but his love for the South did not dissipate with time and distance.
    [Show full text]
  • Presenting William Bartram” an Audio Program from This Goodly Land: Alabama’S Literary Landscape
    Transcript for “Presenting William Bartram” An Audio Program from This Goodly Land: Alabama’s Literary Landscape Dr. John C. Hall speaks about naturalist, artist, and author William Bartram. This presentation was made on March 27, 2008, as part of the Draughon Seminars in State and Local History, a series of lectures funded by the Kelly W. Mosley Endowment and presented by the Auburn University Libraries and by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University. The audio has been separated into three parts for the convenience of the listener. This transcript has been edited for readability. Part I Dr. Dwayne Cox: Good afternoon and welcome to the library. I’m Dwayne Cox, head of Special Collections & Archives, and I thank you all for being here. Our speaker this afternoon is Dr. John Hall. John has a long resume here, and I won’t read it all, but John is a naturalist, he’s a museum professional, he’s currently the curator of the Museum of the Black Belt at the University of West Alabama, which is located in Livingston, and he’s here today, as you know, to discuss William Bartram. But his trip and his appearance is funded by the W. Kelly Mosley Foundation which was created in honor of Ralph Brown Draughon, Sr., and the Kelly Mosley Foundation Funds are administered by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities, known sometimes as Pebble Hill, and they’re one of the co-sponsors today along with the University Libraries.
    [Show full text]
  • Historic Bartram's Garden
    HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY JOHN BARTRAM HOUSE AND GARDEN (Bartram’s Garden) HALS No. PA−1 Location: 54th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard, Philadelphia, Independent City, Pennsylvania. Present Owner: City of Philadelphia. Present Occupant: The John Bartram Association. Present Use: Historic botanic garden, public park, and offices of the John Bartram Association. Significance: Bartram’s Garden is the oldest surviving botanic garden in the United States. John Bartram (1699−1777), the well-known early American botanist, explorer, and plant collector founded the garden in September 1728 when he purchased a 102-acre farm in Kingsessing Township, Philadelphia County. John Bartram’s garden began as a personal landscape, but with a lifelong devotion to plants grew to become a systematic collection as he devoted more time to exploration and the discovery of new North American species and examples. Its evolution over time both reflected and fostered Bartram’s vital scientific achievements and important intellectual exchange. Although not the first botanic collection in North America, by the middle of the eighteenth century Bartram’s Garden contained the most varied collection of North American plants in the world, and placed John Bartram at the center of a lucrative business centered on the transatlantic transfer of plants. Following the American Revolution, Bartram’s sons John Bartram, Jr. (1743–1812) and William Bartram (1739–1823), continued the international trade in plants and expanded the family’s botanic garden and nursery business. Following his father’s lead, William became an important naturalist, artist, and author in his own right, and under his influence the garden became an educational center that aided in training a new generation of natural scientists and explorers.
    [Show full text]