Im am doing a reasearch project on early 20th century taxidermy. Anyone know of any helpful books or other resources? Thanks for the help
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Methodology, Famous Taxidermists, Exhibition Techniques, Commercialization vs. Museological Taxidermy, Journals, Popular Publications, ? And is this for High School, College, or further education.
i am reasearching the evolution of taxidermy from the early twentieth century until today. The changing methods and perception of taxidermy. It is for high school.
Or you can type in your email address and I'll send you a message.
First, learn how to spell Research. It took me a long time to realize how important English and Writing is in the grand scope of things. Also, please don't use what I am about to convey for your research paper, as it is not your real work - unless you actually read all the citations mentioned.
The state of Taxidermy as it was beginning the 20th century was not nearly what it was but 25 year later. Essentially it had actually not progressed much from the very early texts written primarily in French and German. For example:
(Turgot, E. T.). 1758. Memoire Instructif sur la Maniere de Ressembler, de Preparer, de Conserver, et d'Envoyer les Diverses Curiosites d'Histoire Naturelle; Avis pour le Transport par Mer, des Arbes, des Plantes Vivaces, des Semences, & de Diverses autres Curiosites d'Histoire. J. M. Bruyset, Paris et Lyon. xvi + 236 pp. + 25 plates
Naumann, J. Fr. 1848. Taxidermie oder die Lehre Teir aller Klassen am Einfachsten und Zweckmassigsten fur Naturaliensammlungen Auszustopfen und Aufzubewahren, Praktisch Bearbeitet. Reprint of second edition. C. A. Schwetshke und Sohn, Halle, Germany. 218 pp. + 6 plates. [original I believe 1815]
English texts were almost non-existent before the year 1800, even though Charles Wilson Peale had created a very good museum on the second floor in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. See:
Richardson, Edgar P., Brooke Hindle, and L. B. Miller. 1983. Charles Willson Peale and His World. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York. 272 pp.
Sellers, Charles Coleman. 1980. Mr. Peale's Museum. Charles Willson Peale and the First Popular Museum of Natural Science and Art. A Barra Foundation Book, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York. xvi + 370 pp.
The first good publication on taxidermy in English wasn't until Sarah Lee Bowditch and her husband translated the text written by Dufresne who worked for the famous Zoologist, Cuvier, in Paris. The first edition being:
(Sarah Wallis Bowditch Lee, Mrs. Robert Lee) 1820. Taxidermy: or, The Art of Collecting, Preparing, and Mounting Objects of Natural History, for the use of Museums and Travellers.
First edition. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London. 168 pp. + 5 Plates.
Essentially Taxidermy around the word never really improved over the techniques described in this book until the 1880's or so, shortly after Darwin had awoken the world in Science and there was a renewed growth in Museums. There was a flurry of publications in most countries of Europe and especially the United States. Henry Ward of Rochester New York had begun a Museum business in the very late 1960's or so, primarily dealing with minerals, but after trips to Europe and seeing the Taxidermy business started by the Verreaux Brothers in Paris, he was able to talk a good french taxidermist to come work for him in Rochester. That person, plus a handful of very interested and talented Americans, began a nucleus of taxidermy thought that formed the first official group of practitioners, the Society of American Taxidermists. See
Mary Ann Andrei, 2004. Breathing new life into Stuffed Animals, The Society of American Taxidermists 1880-1885. Collections 1(2): 149-195.
The art form of taxidermy, by 1890 had improved vastly beyond the early methods of European Taxidermists and there were a large number of texts detailing the improvements made. The best, and most complete being:
Hornaday, William T. 1891. Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting. A Complete Handbook for the Amateur Taxidermist, Collector, Osteologist, Museum?builder, Sportsman, and Traveller. With Chapters on Collecting and Preserving Insects by William J. Holland. First edition. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. xix + 362 pp. + 24 plates.
Davie, Oliver. 1894. Methods in the Art of Taxidermy. Subscription edition. Published by author, Columbus, Ohio. xiv + 150 pp. + vii + xiii + 89 plates.
You should be able to locate both of these texts in a local library. Hornaday was a graduate from the Henry Ward Business and went on to become the first competent taxidermist at the Smithsonian Institution and later started both the Zoo at the Smithsonian, and the Bronx Zoo in New York.
Now, the stage set, your precise topic as outlined was what advances occurred in the 20th century occurred in Taxidermy to now.
Around 1900, another young former employee of Wards began expanding on ways to improve taxidermy beyond what was currently being envisioned. His name was Carl Akeley. While Taxidermy was touted as being a complete new art form back in the 1880's by Hornaday and others, Akeley took it to a new level. He publicized the technique of sculpting a complete manikin, then copying it by a mold, and building a hollow manikin from the mold. He has been considered the father of Modern Taxidermy and has had many books written about him by his two wife's, and later by a number of authors - for example:
Akeley, Carl E. 1923. In Brightest Africa. Memorial edition. Garden City Publishing Company, Garden City, New York. xii + 267 pp. + 7 Plates.
Akeley, Delia J. 1928. "J. T., Jr." The Biography of an African Monkey. The MacMillan Company, New York. 252 pp.
Akeley, Delia J. 1930. Jungle Portraits. The MacMillan Company, New York. x + 251 pp. + 17 plates.
Akeley, Mary L. Job. 1929. Carl Akeley's Africa. The Account of the Akeley?Eastman?Pomeroy African Hall Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History. Dodd, Mead & Company, New York. xix + 321 pp. + 70 plates.
Akeley, Mary L. Job. 1946. The Wilderness Lives Again. Carl Akeley and the Great Adventure. Dodd, Mead & Company, New York. xvi + 411 pp. + 21 plates.
Bodry?Sanders, Penelope. 1991. Carl Akeley. Africa's Collector, Africa's Savior. Paragon House, New York. xxii + 289 pp.
Many of these books will describe the methods employed by Akeley, and his importance to the Modern taxidermy as practiced even today. Akeley did share his methods at a couple professional Museum Meeting, the most famous lecture when he worked at the Field Museum in Chicago. He even taught some other taxidermists his methods - the most famous being James Lippit Clark who worked at the time for the American Museum of Natural History in New York: See:
Clark, James L. 1929. Trails of the Hunted. Chatto & Windus, 97 & 99 St. Martin's Lane, London. xiii + 269 pp.
Clark, James L. 1932. Trails of the Hunted. Reprinted 1928 edition. Blue Ribbon Books, Inc., New York, New York. ix + 310 pp.
Clark, James L. 1966. Good Hunting. Fifty Years of Collecting and Preparing Habitat Groups for the American Museum. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma. xii + 242 pp.
By 1925, the methods popularized by Akeley became accepted by professional taxidermists in Museums throughout the world even though Akeley or Clark never published their methods. The best description of taxidermy as employed at the end of the era was one published by Rowley, a taxidermist who also worked at the AMNH as well as Los Angeles and San Francisco's California Academy Museum. Compare the methods in this publication to Hornaday or Davie listed above.
Rowley, John. 1925. Taxidermy and Museum Exhibition. D. Appleton and Company, New York. xvi + 331 pp. + 30 plates
From this publication in 1925, in my opinion, taxidermy did not progress one bit until the late 1960's and early 1970's. The usual mode of improving methods in science or taxidermy is to either have professional meetings, like the Society of American Taxidermists in the 1880's, or to have many new publications come out. Shortly after Rowley's publication, the depression hit followed by WWII, and the hard 1950's, and it wasn't until the period mentioned above that publications began showing up in numbers. Serial publications, i.e. periodicals or magazines as the layman might know them were actually the primary source of education of the masses. There had been some beginning periodicals in taxidermy that lasted a long time:
Modern Taxidermist
Editor C. Dale, Greenfield Center, NY 1935-March 1937
Editor: Joseph Bruchac starting Volume 4(19) May 1937 to end 1986.
Publisher: Modern Taxidermist, Box 171, Greenfield Center, NY 12833
Publication Dates/Frequency: January 1935 through 1986. Last issue no. 246, 41 volumes
Taxidermist News
Publisher: M. J. Hofman Co., Gates Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Publication Dates/Frequency: Yearly/Irregular, 15 issues total: No.1 (1938), 2 (1939), 3 (1940), 4 (1941), 5 (1942), 6 (1943), 7 (1944), 8 (1945), 9 (1946) 10 (1947), 11 (1948) 12 (1950), 13 (1951) 14 (1952), 15 (1953)
But by the late 1960's to 70's the intelligence level of commercial taxidermists, as well as probably the country as a whole, improved. In that period of only a handful of years many new publications came out, many in competition with each other to get the most modern efficient methods, and on top of that, by the 1970's the National Taxidermists Association and at least 20 states had their own associations. Joe Kish, in his Taxidermy Review Competitions re-introduced the idea of having conventions with awards given for blue ribbon pieces, even including monetary awards. The idea was not his, as it occurred in the 1800's, but to my knowledge he was the first to realize the potential for the competition process which continues to today.
To give you an idea of the serial publications in the US initiated in the 60's, here is a fairly broad list:
American Taxidermist Magazine
Editor: Anna Shopher, Volume 1(1) Jun/Jul 1966 to ca. 1968 when based in Arkansas
Publisher Donald Shopher, Brookland, Arkansas
Editor: Tim M. Kelly ca. 1968 to 28(1) and 29(4) to end 33(4).
Publisher: R. M. Kelly, P.O. Box 549, Bernalillo, NM 87004
Editor and Publisher for 8 Issues: H. Paulson Volume 28(2) through 29(3).
Publication Dates/Frequency: 1966 to Oct/Nov 2000 / 6 times per year
Wide World of Taxidermy
Editor: Bob Davis
Publisher: Volume 1(1) - 4(4), Russ Morrison, North Fort Myers, FL
Beginning Volume 4(5) Beverly Davis, California
Publication Dates/Frequency: July/August issue 1972 to May/Jun 1977. Purchased and continued as Taxidermy Review, beginning with issue 5(3).
National Taxidermy Art (which later becomes) Touchstones Taxidermy Art
Editor: Sam and Laura Touchstone
Publisher: Touchstones Taxidermy and Supply Co, Bossier City, Louisiana
Publication Dates/Frequency: Unknown start and end dates - 1976-?
Taxidermy Review
Editor: Joseph M. Kish and P. Reshetniak initially then just Joe Kish.
Publisher: 5(3) - 12(2) Taxidermy Review, 747 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO
Publisher: 12(3) to end, Taxidermy Review, Sheridan, WY
Publication Dates/Frequency: Continues Wide World of Taxidermy, Dec 1976 5(3)- 7(2), 7(4) through 11(6) published 6 times a year, the quarterly from 12(1) -last issue 13(3), Winter 1985
Taxidermy Today
Editor/Publisher John Rinehart, Janesville Wisconsin until 3(3).
Editor and Publisher from Spring 1981 3(2) on: Terry Ehrlich, 119 Gadsen Street, Chester, SC 29706
Publication Dates/Frequency: Winter 1978? Through 1979 6 times a year, quarterly in 1980 through Volume 18 (1) then 6 issues a year to current 2005 and continues.
Breakthrough, the magazine devoted to the serious wildlife artist
Publisher and Editor: Bob Williamson 1983- March 1989, issues 1-20,
Loganville and Monroe, Georgia
Publisher and Editor: Larry Blomquist, Issues 21 to present
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The latter two magazines have essentially re-defined what a taxidermist is. They have bound taxidermists around the world into an essentially unified voice to improve taxidermy at every level. Breakthrough is considered by many to be the pinnacle magazine in taxidermy. The original founder of the magazine also started WASCO, a taxidermy supply company which hosts this site where you posted the inquiry.
James, I'm sure that is more info than you actually wanted to know. Visit the library and look for any of the references mentioned above, search the internet for various sites that talk about Taxidermy - for example Gary Peggs' site in Australia at http://www.southpacifictaxidermy.com/html/taxidermy.htm click to the bottom and you will get a good history of the art. Kenny Everett at Two Hoot Taxidermy also has a great history section - though it deals primarily with England at http://www.twohootstaxidermy.co.uk/ , or visit a local taxidermist and get his impressions -especially an old one like George Roof.
Good luck on your paper.
The Taxidermologist