It once numbered in the billions in North America, but the Passenger Pigeon became extinct in 1914 due to habitat destruction and mass killings. The Snowy Egret almost suffered the same fate because its feathers were so popular for women’s hats.
“Drawn from Nature: Art, Science, and the Invention of the Bird Field Guide” at the Linda Hall Library, explores these and other aspects of Americans’ relationship with birds as well as the important role played by 19th- and early 20th-century ornithologists in identifying and cataloging different species.
Curated by Eric Ward, the exhibit is a treasury of brilliant color illustrations from more than two dozen ornithological books and historical journals in the library’s collection. They include John James Audubon’s well-known The Birds of America and the first edition of Roger Tory Peterson’s landmark field guide.
“The exhibit is part a history of American ornithology and part a history of bird watching and the development of the bird field guide, which wasn’t available until the 1930s,” Ward said in a recent interview. “Birdwatching as a hobby gained popularity in the late 19th and early 20th century in response to urbanization and industrialization, when people were looking to get back to nature.”
Ward, the library’s vice president for public programs, has been an avid birdwatcher since childhood. At an early age he became aware of Robert Ridgway (1850-1929), an ornithology giant who grew up an hour away from Ward’s Central Illinois hometown of Newton.
Ward is now writing his Ph.D. dissertation on Ridgway, who was curator of birds at the Smithsonian Institution from 1880 to 1929 and is the author of books such as A Manual of North American Birds, which appears in the exhibition. “His books are filled with descriptions of anatomy and color,” Ward said.
Ridgway entered the picture several decades later than Audubon (1785-1851), who was renowned for both the animation of his images and his portrayal of birds in their customary habitats.
In the show’s opening case, Ward has grouped an Audubon image of passenger pigeons with works by two ornithology pioneers who inspired him: Mark Catesby (1682-1749), one of the first to publish a book of North American birds, and Alexander Wilson (1766-1813).
“All three represent an early attempt to describe North American birds in an era when scientists and artists were still discovering new species as the country expanded west,” Ward said. “They were the ones who went out for the first time and shot them and painted them.”
Ornithology was not such a happy science for the birds, given the practice of killing them for study purposes. And then there was the popularity of egg collections, created, Ward said, by “raiding the nests of different species.”
The exhibit tracks a change in attitudes at the turn of the century. The Lacey Act, which prevented the shooting of songbirds, passed in 1900. Around the same time, Ward said, “Nature writers tried to convince people to look at birds.” The National Audubon Society, established in 1905, stressed bird protection and argued against the destructive trade in bird feathers for women’s hats.
The shift from shooting birds to watching them was aided by developments in technology. “Binoculars became better and photography became available to the general public,” Ward said. Field guides, notably Roger Tory Peterson’s pocket-sized illustrated guide identifying key features of different birds, also encouraged close looking.
All images courtesy of Linda Hall Library
“Drawn from Nature: Art, Science, and the Invention of the Bird Field Guide” continues at the Linda Hall Library, 5109 Cherry Street, through Sept. 10. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free. For more information, www.lindahall.org or 816.363.4600.
