Audubon’s Burden

Materiality and Transmission in The Birds of America

Jennifer L. Roberts, Harvard University

Fred Tomaselli, Land’s End, 1997

Fred Tomaselli, Old World Warblers, 2000, and detail.

John James Audubon, Carolina Parrot, 1825; Fred Tomaselli, Greater Pewee, 2004

John Cary, A New Map of Part of the United States of North America…, 1805.

Two pages from Zadok Cramer’s Navigator, 1811 edition. (Library of Congress/American Memory)

Left: Swallow-Tailed Hawk, print,1829. Right: page from The Navigator, 1811.

Anna’s Hummingbird, drawing, 1838

Jules Savigny, Ibises, from Description de l’Égypte, published 1817. Alexander Wilson, Tyrant Flycatcher, etc., from American Ornithology, published 1810.

Birds of America volumes, Field Museum Library, Chicago

Anna’s Hummingbird; Great Egret (drawings)

Wild Turkey (print)

Shipping box for Audubon’s prints, open and closed. American Museum of Natural History.

Custom ottoman made for Mrs. Euphemia Gifford, Derby

Left: Euphemia Gifford’s ottoman. Right: Tambour desk fitted with lens and mirror for viewing vues d’optique, Salem, Mass, ca. 1793-1811. Winterthur Museum.

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“Merely to say, that each object of my Illustrations is of the size of nature, were too vague – for to many it might only convey the idea that they are so, more or less, according as the eye of the delineator may have been more or less correct in measurement simply obtained through that medium; and of avoiding error in this respect I am particularly desirous. Not only is every object as a whole, of the natural size, but also every portion of each object. The compass aided me in its delineation, regulated and corrected each part…. The bill, the feet, the legs, the claws, the very feathers as they project one beyond another, have been accurately measured.”

Wild Turkey, 1826

Left: Louisiana Tanager, Scarlet Tanager, print in bound volume, 1837. Right: Snowy Owl, print in bound volume, ca. 1831-33. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

American Flamingo, print, 1838; Great Blue Heron, print, 1834; Whooping Crane, drawing, 1821-1834.

American Flamingo, print, 1838; Great Blue Heron, print, 1834; Whooping Crane, drawing, 1821-1834.

Alexander Wilson, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker, Red-Headed Woodpecker, from American Ornithology, vol. 4

Roseate Spoonbill, print, 1836. Library of Congress.

Goshawk and Stanley Hawk. Left: drawing with lower two birds collaged, 1809-1830; Right: print, 1832.

Common Tern, drawing, 1834. Jasper Johns, Device, 1962.

Common Tern, drawing, 1834. Jasper Johns, Diver, 1963.

“All the animals which have been transported from Europe to America, as the horse, the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hog, the dog, &c. have become smaller; and those which were not transported, but went thither spontaneously, those, in a word, which are common to both Continents, as the wolf, the fox, the stag, the roebuck, the elk, &c are also considerably less than those of Europe.”

Images from Crockett’s Almanac: A Narrow Escape from a Snake, 1838; A Tongariferous Fight with an Alligator, 1837

Banknotes from Kentucky in the years surrounding the Panic of 1819. The note at lower right is from Henderson, where Audubon was living in 1819. Library of Congress/American Memory.

1818 note from the Bank of Henderson, soon after it was incorporated and soon before it failed.