Burroughs, John, 1837-1921

John F. Reiger explores the relationships that led to Theodore Roosevelt’s championing the conservation of natural resources as president. Reiger focuses most of his attention on Roosevelt’s friendship with George Bird Grinnell with whom he would found the hunting and conservation group, the Boone and Crockett Club. Reiger also notes the influence of John F. Lacey, Frank M. Chapman, and others, and he describes how Roosevelt in turn would prove to be an inspiration to future leaders in the environmental movement. Reiger examines Roosevelt’s role in preserving Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon, and he asserts that there is no contradiction in Roosevelt espousing both utilitarian and aesthetic conservation.

Two photographs of Roosevelt in Yellowstone National Park in 1903 appear in the essay.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Congressional Charter for the then Roosevelt Memorial Association established in May 1920 that lists the original incorporators and includes some of the key provisions guiding the organization. These include stipulations that the association will be governed by a board of trustees; that its income will go only to further its educational goals; and that it will work to establish memorials to Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. and Oyster Bay, New York. 

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2000

Creator(s)

Theodore Roosevelt Association

The front cover of this issue features a closeup photograph of the nature writer John Burroughs while the back cover highlights a drawing of Theodore Roosevelt’s home, Sagamore Hill, made by Tuck Harvey, an architect and volunteer at Sagamore Hill.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1993-1994

Creator(s)

Theodore Roosevelt Association; Harvey, Tuck

This edition of “News and Notes” covers a variety of topics such as the conferral of the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize and the results of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) Public Speaking Contests. The section also notes the seventy-fifth anniversary of the death of Theodore Roosevelt and the birth of the TRA, and it highlights the naming of a new commanding officer for the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. Updates on Pine Knot, the TRA Journal indexing, and the need for volunteers at both Sagamore Hill and the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace are noted. An obituary for Grace Green Roosevelt McMillian also appears in the section.

Photographs in “News and Notes” include one of some of the leadership of the TRA at Pine Knot; the winner of the TRA Public Speaking Contest for New York City; and one of John Burroughs and Theodore Roosevelt in Yellowstone National Park (incorrectly identified as Yosemite). A listing of the members of the executive committee of the TRA also appears in the section.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1993-1994

The combined “Books” and “Book Notes” sections contain four lengthy reviews, a brief review essay, and a notice about five works related to the life of Theodore Roosevelt. It also includes a short excerpt from Roosevelt’s writings on conservation and a report by Wallace Finley Dailey on the status of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University. Christopher Volpe praises Edward Renehan’s biography of John Burroughs and highlights Burroughs’s friendships with Roosevelt and the poet Walt Whitman. Volpe notes that Burroughs was a very popular figure as a nature writer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but that he fell into obscurity after his death in 1921.

John A. Gable admires the cartoons and commentary found in J. David Valaik’s Theodore Roosevelt, An American Hero in Caricature which reproduces forty-seven caricatures of Roosevelt found in the pages of Puck magazine. Gable also favors Caleb Carr’s historical novel, The Alienist, which revolves around Roosevelt’s tenure as Police Commissioner of New York City. Gable, deeply skeptical of fictional portrayals of Roosevelt, finds Carr’s treatment “entirely accurate,” and he notes how other characters that people the novel have roots in real persons.

James G. Lewis reviews Char Miller’s Gifford Pinchot: The Evolution of an American Conservationist and notes that the work challenges the established view of the relationship between Pinchot and John Muir. Lewis says that Miller is “writing revisionist environmental history” by providing a nuanced portrait of Pinchot. Some of the selections as well as some of the commentary found in Mario R. Di Nunzio’s Theodore Roosevelt: An American Mind are questioned by the anonymous reviewer.

Wallace Finley Dailey, Curator of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University, provides a detailed update on manuscript and book additions to the collection; the use of the collection holdings by numerous authors; and the adoption of new computer based cataloging technology. Dailey also discusses fundraising efforts, exhibitions using the collection materials, and donations from members of the Roosevelt family. Photographs of Burroughs, Pinchot, Carr, and Valiak appear in the sections along with a view of the Theodore Roosevelt Gallery at Harvard.

Christopher Volpe examines John Burroughs’s Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt, the naturalist’s account of his time spent with President Theodore Roosevelt at Yellowstone National Park in the spring of 1903. Volpe asserts that Burroughs and his work have fallen into obscurity, and he believes that the book, in its two essays, provides insights into Roosevelt’s love of nature and his powers of observation. The book also touches on presidential travel, the state of Yellowstone, and controversies about hunting.

A photograph of Roosevelt and Burroughs in Yellowstone National Park (incorrectly identified as Yosemite) appears in the article as does a listing of the members of the executive committee of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1993

Two books undergo scrutiny in this edition of the “Book Reviews” section while ten others are mentioned in a “Book Notes” subsection that lists recently released or reissued titles. Elizabeth E. Roosevelt reviews Richard H. Collin’s Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean and gives a brief overview of each of the work’s four sections, praising the book for its portraits of key players involved in the various diplomatic tussles of the Roosevelt administration in the Caribbean basin. The review is followed by seven excerpts from Collin’s book, ranging from a single sentence to short paragraphs. Donald F. Kirkpatrick reviews Ralph H. Lutts’s The Nature Fakers which chronicles Theodore Roosevelt’s fight with William J. Long and other nature writers who attributed human traits to animals.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1991

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Elizabeth E.; Collin, Richard H.; Kirkpatrick, Donald F.; Unknown

John A. Gable reviews Looking for North: The Harriman Expedition to Alaska, 1899 by William H. Goetzmann and Kay Sloan. Gable focuses on the cast of famous figures, like John Muir and Edward S. Curtis, many of them friends of Theodore Roosevelt, who joined Edward Harriman’s scientific expedition.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1983

Creator(s)

Gable, John A.

Five book reviews on six different books comprise this edition of the “Book Notes” column. In his review, Richard H. Collins focuses on Kathleen Dalton’s contribution to Robert J. Brugger’s Our Selves/Our Past, Psychological Approaches to American History. Dalton embraces a psychohistory approach to understanding Theodore Roosevelt, emphasizing his commitment to overcoming his childhood asthma and living the strenuous life. Collins argues that this approach is misguided and ignores Roosevelt’s class and his formidable intellect. Patrick C. Gable commends John Morton Blum for his appraisal of Roosevelt in The Progressive Presidents, but he faults him for blaming Roosevelt for the misdeeds and excesses of his Democratic successors.

Peter R. Fischer finds Charles C. Goetsch’s Essays on Simeon E. Baldwin “a worthwhile collection,” but he thinks the confrontation between Roosevelt and Baldwin over a federal labor law may not merit the importance that Goetsch assigns it. Elizabeth E. Roosevelt praises Mary Helen Dohan’s Mr. Roosevelt’s Steamboat for its depictions of life along the Mississippi River and for not overlooking the contributions of Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt to her husband’s success. Dennis Wood reviews Paul Schullery’s The Grand Canyon and Old Yellowstone Days. Theodore Roosevelt has an essay in each of these collections of writings about iconic American landscapes.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1982

In this chapter excerpt from his book John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement, Stephen Fox examines efforts to expand Yosemite National Park, the battle between preservationists and conservationists over the use of forests, and provides portraits of John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, John Burroughs, and Theodore Roosevelt. He looks at the work undertaken by the conservation movement to preserve Niagara Falls, the redwood forests of California, and Mount Desert Island in Maine. Fox concludes the chapter with a look at the battle over the city of San Francisco’s desire to build a dam at the southern end of Hetch Hetchy valley in Yosemite National Park. In addition to looking at the life and work of Muir, the chapter provides information on many lesser known figures in the turn of the twentieth-century conservation movement.

A listing of the officers and the members of the executive, finance, and Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace committees of the Theodore Roosevelt Association is found on the second page of the excerpt.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1981

In “The Sighting at Pine Knot, Virginia,” Alton A. Lindsay explores the question of whether Theodore Roosevelt was the last person to report a credible sighting of the extinct passenger pigeon near his presidential retreat, Pine Knot in Virginia, in 1907. Lindsay provides a history of Pine Knot and also looks at the making of Roosevelt as a naturalist going back to his childhood.  He notes some of the defining experiences in Roosevelt’s life that made him a naturalist and conservationist, such as his time in the Dakota Badlands. Like other scholars he pushes back against the idea that Roosevelt was merely a man of action and asserts that he “was a man of intellect.”

He details Roosevelt’s sighting of a small flock of passenger pigeons in May 1907, and argues that Roosevelt’s history and experience as a naturalist and ornithologist lend credibility to his claims to have seen the birds. 

A photograph of President Roosevelt and another showing the Pine Knot cabin from the side and rear accompany the article.

President Roosevelt heard about Ernest Thompson Seton’s summer camp from John Burroughs and finds it “an admirable movement.” He will read The Birch Bark Roll immediately.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-09-04

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

John Lewis Childs sends President Roosevelt details regarding various species of birds and their behaviors. Childs admits he was wrong, and the president right, about the nesting habits of the Long-eared vs. Short-eared owl. Childs describes a trip wherein he showed John Burroughs the nesting sites of a Brown Thrasher, and a Spotted Sandpiper, both incubating eggs. Childs compliments Roosevelt on the accuracy of his observations and description of a flock of passenger pigeons at Pine Knot, especially considering how busy he must be. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-20

Creator(s)

Childs, John Lewis, 1856-1921

Orlando Rouland sends copies of sketches and a portrait he painted of John Burroughs to President Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-02-24

Creator(s)

Rouland, Orlando, 1871-1945

Two sequences of John Burroughs, naturalist, eminent author, and hunting companion of Theodore Roosevelt. A close-up of Burroughs talking and a long shot of him sitting in a chair reading a book; immediate background is filled with trees and vegetation, location unknown. The final sequence is of a bird moving around on a window ledge.

Collection

Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound

Creation Date

1910

Creator(s)

Unknown

John Burroughs will also be accompanying President Roosevelt on the trip.

Collection

State Historical Society of North Dakota

Creation Date

1903-03-26

Creator(s)

Loeb, William, 1866-1937

Theodore Roosevelt and John Burroughs are pictured at a campsite in Yellowstone National Park.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site

Creation Date

1903

Creator(s)

Parke

Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft stand in the center of a gathering of Roosevelt’s “officers.” Most are dressed as colonial army officers, with Charles J. Bonaparte dressed as Napoleon and John Burroughs as a frontiersman. All but Roosevelt are crying. Caption: Repetition, one year hence, of a famous scene in Fraunce’s Tavern.

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1908-02-26

Theodore Roosevelt appears as “Mikado Roosevelt” with a large cast of characters standing behind him: “Pish Tush Root,” “Landis,” “Pooh Bah Taft,” “Burroughs,” “Heney,” “Cortelyou,” “Steffens,” “La Follette,” “Folk,” “Garfield,” “Riis,” “Loeb,” and “Koko Bonaparte,” who is holding a large sword labeled “Department of Justice.” John D. Rockefeller labeled “Flim-Flam Business,” and Edward Henry Harriman labeled “Flim Flam Finance,” are kneeling on the stage awaiting execution. Caption: “My object all sublime / I shall achieve in time — / To let the punishment fit the crime — / The punishment fit the crime. — / And make each prisoner pent / Unwillingly represent / A source of infinite merriment, / Of infinite merriment.”

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1908-01-08

Homer Davenport has heard of President Roosevelt’s interest in stocking Yellowstone National Park with game birds. Davenport has a collection of pheasants at his farm and would like to discuss stocking the park with Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-06-12

Creator(s)

Presidential Office Staff