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President Roosevelt tells J. H. Patterson that he will likely be able to make the hunting trip in Africa. He describes the guns he hopes to bring, outlines his tentative travel plans, and discusses the game he would like to shoot. He asks Patterson to advise him “in rough fashion” about his plan.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-05-11
President Roosevelt discusses the potential timing of his trip to Africa, the game he would like to shoot, and the guns he plans to bring.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-05-11
President Roosevelt encloses photographs and a letter from Julius Fleischmann relating to an incident of a crocodile attacking a rhinoceros. Roosevelt has read that a cheetah can “distance” a horse with ease. Roosevelt asks Federick Courteney Selous when he thinks he will publish his book.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-09-27
Edmund Heller greatly appreciated Theodore Roosevelt’s kind wishes for his latest safari in Africa, but Heller is sure that his experience will not be as good as the time he spent with Roosevelt during Roosevelt’s safari. Heller provides some thorough remarks about the physiological differences he has found between the giant eland and the common eland, as well as white rhinoceroses and black rhinoceroses.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-02-27
Edmund Heller thanks Theodore Roosevelt for his reply. He regrets the oversight that delayed the rhinoceros horns’ shipment to James L. Clark. Heller discusses his current study of the specimens in the African collection, specifically the antelopes.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-01-17
Edmund Heller received a copy of African Game Trails and appreciates Philip R. Goodwin’s illustrations. The entire African collection is at the National Museum of Natural History. Heller discusses his work on the rhinoceroses based on the skulls.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1910-09-22
Charlotte Bushnell writes a poem about the best way to catch a rhinoceros.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-07-04
Harry Johnston thanks President Roosevelt for facilitating a warm reception when he visited the Panama Canal construction site, where he met president-elect William H. Taft. Johnston then wrote a letter to Taft on his return to Colòn about the city’s appalling hotel and infrastructure. He now worries that this was inappropriate. If Taft is angry, he asks Roosevelt to “placate his wrath.” Johnston also wonders why Roosevelt is going hunting in Africa instead of somewhere in South America, Central America, or the Antilles. He shares his address in England, and hopes that United States Minister to Haiti H. W. Furniss will retain his position in the new administration.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-03
W. S. Rainsford will leave his guns in Africa for President Roosevelt to use. Rainsford offers recommendations on what kinds of guns and ammunition to use on Roosevelt’s upcoming trip to Africa, cautions Roosevelt on the use and care of telescopes for the rifles, and provides advice on hunting and travel around Africa.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-01-27
Frederick Courtney Selous discusses concerns about President Roosevelt’s upcoming trip to Africa. Selous gives his opinions on the provisions, safari guides, equipment porters, and the hunting of big game animals. Selous includes a postscript informing Roosevelt that everything has been shipped and should arrive in Nairobi by early March.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-01-25
Having recently visited East Africa, Anglo-Irish writer Moreton Frewen shares insights with President Roosevelt, including locations where big game gathers, the presence of insects, and people to contact.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-08-17
Frederick Courteney Selous provides President Roosevelt with information that will give insight into the cost and planning of his hunting trip to Africa. He advises on the time of year to travel, the route he should take, the supplies he should need and outfitter he should use, as well as the costs of hunting licenses, supplies, and travel.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-03
Gregory A. Wynn charts the history of three rhinoceros inkwells connected to Theodore Roosevelt. One belonged to Roosevelt and has a prominent place on his desk at Sagamore Hill and two others were gifts from Roosevelt to John Callan O’Laughlin and Lawrence F. Abbott, both of whom accompanied Roosevelt on parts of his African safari and European trip in 1909-1910. Wynn notes the manufacturers of the inkwells, their provenance, and he situates them in the context of Roosevelt’s love of big game hunting.
A photograph of Wynn and three photographs of the inkwells supplement the text.
Tweed Roosevelt explores Theodore Roosevelt’s scant record of fishing and why he preferred hunting. Roosevelt details Theodore Roosevelt’s modest record as a fisherman, and he explains how hunting, with its twin attractions of difficulty and danger, appealed to Theodore Roosevelt’s zeal for the strenuous life while the largely sedentary and placid sport of fishing did not. Roosevelt looks at Theodore Roosevelt’s 1917 trip to Florida to harpoon manta rays which was more akin to hunting than fishing, and he highlights some of Roosevelt’s more dangerous hunts like those he undertook during his African safari.
Five photographs and four illustrations accompany the essay.
Photograph showing Theodore Roosevelt watching a man measure a rhinoceros’s horn.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1919
Photograph showing Theodore Roosevelt standing behind the carcass of a rhinoceros.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-05-14
Photograph showing Theodore Roosevelt with a dead rhinoceros and a bustard shot from the rhinoceros.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-05-14
The “official public notary” raises his right hand and tells President Roosevelt, who also has his hand raised, “Understand. Anything you say now may be used against you later on.” The “official weigher” and “official measurer” get information about a dead rhinoceros while the “official stenographer” takes notes. There are a gun and a book of “official sworn statements” on the ground.
To twentieth-century eyes, the idea behind Luther Daniels Bradley’s cartoon in his series forecasting events in Theodore Roosevelt’s upcoming African safari, would be the necessity to be environmentally sensitive and punctilious in his pursuit of animal specimens.
President Roosevelt has his big stick at his feet and holds out his hands toward a snake, a lion, a tiger, a giraffe, a rhino, and a monkey. The “G.O.P.” elephant says, “He hypnotized me.”
The Washington Herald’s Joseph Harry Cunningham paid subtle compliments to President Roosevelt in this cartoon that was published precisely a week before the Republican National Convention would convene in Chicago. Presidents did not attend their parties’ conventions in those times, nor did candidates unless they were nominated in last-minute stampedes or compromises.
Photograph of three men standing near a slain rhinoceros, enclosed in a letter from Paul Morton to President Roosevelt. On verso, James Bryant Lindley has written, “‘The call of the blood.’ I still hope to see you.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907