Armchair Birding: Under a Wild Sky, by William Souder
~ Anne Kilgannon
When I first read that Seattle Audubon was in process of questioning its name, that its namesake was a slaveholder and a desecrator of Native American graves, I was taken aback by this new information. I was somewhat familiar with Audubon’s art and knew some of the history of how the early organization had its beginning, but realized I knew very little about him as a person. It felt timely to dig deeper into the story and share some of my findings with my Black Hills community.
Two places to begin a discussion: How did the bird protection movement come to be named for Audubon? And what do we know about John James Audubon, the man and artist? There are several biographies that can help us with our examination. I was able to find a non-adulatory biography of John James, Under a Wild Sky, by William Souder, published in 2004. Other worthy suggestions are John James Audubon: The Making of an American, by Richard Rhodes, also published in 2004, and a more recent study, John James Audubon: The Nature of the American Woodsman, published 2017 by Gregory Nobles. You can get a quick sense of Nobles’ analysis by reading his article recently published in Audubon magazine.
He addresses the concerns of today and puts his finger right on the thorniest issues associated with having Audubon on the masthead of our national and local societies. We will all have to examine this association and how it impacts our mission to be welcoming and supportive to all who are drawn to birds and who wish to join in the work for their protection.
Born in 1795, Audubon’s origins are somewhat shrouded. As it happens, Audubon seems to have been a fabulist from his early days, beginning with the story of his birth in the place now called Haiti; it seems, short of exhumation and a DNA test, not possible to be certain if he is of “mixed race” parentage or not. He does seem to have muddied the picture on this point but the obfuscation could have been as much an issue of probable out-of-wedlock birth, class, and other issues shameful as he experienced them. The unresolved issue does complicate his story but I, for one, am not sure what to make of it. He did seem to shrug off any concerns about slavery and readily employed slaves whenever it suited him; Souder did not divulge whether he personally owned slaves. I need to keep reading on this point. He was certainly indifferent to their plight and unreflective about a society heavily based on that institution. Souder doesn’t include any stories about Audubon participating in the trade of Native skulls or other degrading practices, but that leaves that issue also unresolved here. Audubon evidently did hold anti-Semitic views, common but still regrettable. How much he was “a man of his times” and how much we should hold that in context is a discussion urgently needed in our own times.
What does seem clear is Audubon’s curious and contradictory mix of an ebullient, even exuberant joie de vivre nature, punctuated with dark passages of forlorn and abject crashes of mood. He was deeply insecure and yet audacious, notably self-absorbed and emotionally needy. At one point, Souder loses patience with his notoriously self-promoting subject and remarks, “Despite having lived an adventurous life, Audubon apparently decided the simple truth was not exciting enough, and woven into his episodes are exaggerations and invented exploits…Audubon had taken liberty with the truth about himself whenever it suited his purpose…” Even more problematic were his tall tales about the habits and behaviors of birds and other creatures that mislead his readers and added drama for the sake of drama to bolster his own sense of importance.
Audubon was a deeply troubled individual and certainly an unreliable narrator. But, undeniably, what he was most of all and obsessively, was bird-crazy. Even before he conceived of his monumental project of creating Birds of America, Audubon was determined to know the birds of his adopted land. And that meant shooting as many of them as possible. The maxim of a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush—especially if stretched to twenty, fifty, one hundred—was one he assiduously followed. We have to recall that Audubon was conducting his field studies before the invention of cameras and binoculars, let alone iPhones. Ornithologists, then and for many years, followed the same practices: kill as many samples of each bird—male, female, juvenile, seasonal plumages, etc.—for museum and personal collections so that every variation could be studied and catalogued. Still, it’s painful reading for today’s birders.
Audubon’s artistic vision was based, in part, on these specimens he culled so joyfully. It was then possible to study feather patterns, body structures and other details, and, crucially, he was able to rig up action scenes for his compositions by inserting wires throughout the bodies and so position the birds in look-alive poses very new to bird studies. Another innovation was his addition of bits of foliage and other visual nods to each bird’s home environment. But he electrified his viewers with additions of action scenes of birds battling enemies such as fanged snakes and other, predatory, birds. Audubon’s view of “nature” was flush with the adage “red in tooth and claw.” He constructed these scenes against a background of gridded canvas so he could create life-size portraits with mathematical certainty, also a never-before adopted technique or ambition. His art was truly revolutionary. Whatever we think of him as a human being— “flawed ” only begins to describe Audubon, the man—he was a kind of genius in his chosen field and widely recognized as such. Whether that is “enough,” whether genius can cover cruelty and overwhelm other issues of character is a question.
It should be noted, however, that Audubon was not the first in the field documenting American bird life: Alexander Wilson, notably, pioneered with his drawings and research notes. But Audubon out-dazzled Wilson’s early work and captured the international market. It was Audubon’s art that put American birds on the world map and made his name synonymous with our native fauna. But now that name is also freighted with evidence of slave-holding, and dehumanizing treatment of Native peoples’ remains. Should our birding societies continue to saddle themselves with a name associated with such taint?
Let’s go back to the histories to see how the early conservation society came to be known as Audubon. We discover an instance of “what a small world it was” in a story as related by John Taliaferro in his authoritative biography Grinnell: America’s Environmental Pioneer and his Restless Drive to Save the West. The boy who would grow up to become one of the earliest and most effective voices in America for conservation, the aptly named George Bird Grinnell, spent his formative years and received some of his most enduring lessons in nature lore from his near neighbor Lucy Bakewell Audubon, the widow of John James. As well as teaching young George the mysteries of arithmetic, Lucy encouraged his curiosity about birds and wildlife in general. When in her home, “his eyes were filled with the specimens and accoutrements once belonging to the naturalist: deer and elk antlers, rifles, shotguns, powder horns, and ball pouches.” There were other romantic trophies from regions cloaked in western legends that fed the boy’s imagination. “Of the Audubon paintings that hung on the walls, one was “The Eagle and the Lamb,” a breathtaking oil from 1828 depicting a golden eagle, its talons extended, wings rampant, poised on a mountain precipice as it delivers the coup de mort to its defenseless prey.” Before her death, Lucy bequeathed that painting to George, in recognition of his burgeoning fascination with the world and vision of Audubon.
Grinnell went on to do many things but he never lost his connection to birds and wild places. As founder and chief editor of Forest and Stream magazine, he had a readymade platform for promoting conservation values as well as a network of influential friends and colleagues also involved in the early protective movement for birds. Once abundant, birds were being decimated by market hunters and loss of habitat as cities and farms transformed once forested and marshy lands for use by an exploding population, but most devastating were the plume hunters. Fashion demanded hats be-feathered in elaborate and extravagant styles. Grinnell and others pushed back on these trends, founding reserves, hiring guards to warn off the murderous hunters, and working to pass laws to regulate the taking of birds. Grinnell sought to address the source: fashion-loving women: “The reform in America, as elsewhere, must be inaugurated by women, and if the subject is properly brought to their notice, their tender hearts will be quick to respond.” He then announced the formation of a new society, using his magazine to promote “an association for the protection of birds and their eggs.” When thinking of what to call the new group, Grinnell wrote, “In the first half of the century there lived a man who did more to teach Americans about birds of their land than any other who ever lived. His beautiful and spirited paintings and his charming and tender accounts of the habits of his favorites have made him immortal, and have inspired his countrymen with an ardent love for the birds.”
The society Grinnell named for Audubon has its own complicated history, but it retained the name in all its organizational iterations. Now, today, we must reckon with that name and ask what it signifies for this era. As historians, we are trained to not judge the past by the present, but we are also drilled to look for the untold stories, the voices silenced or left out of the story, to hunt for all the pieces of the puzzle. As conservationists, we are keen to invite everyone to be involved in the work of saving the life of the land. History and tradition, accomplishments and accolades for work done are foundational, but not necessarily prescriptive. There are still possibilities and new paths to forge as we face new challenges. What we call ourselves matters. What a rich conversation is before us!