Hunting The American West: The Pursuit Of Big Game For Life, Profit, And Sport, 1800-1900 by Richard C. Rattenbury
daverichey January 4th, 2009
TITLE: Hunting The American West: The Pursuit Of Big Game For Life, Profit, And Sport, 1800-1900
AUTHOR: by Richard C. Rattenbury
PUBLISHER: Boone & Crocket Club
DISTRIBUTOR: Boone & Crocket Club
CONTACT:
Boone & Crocket Club
250 Station Drive
Missoula, MT 59801
ISBN 978-0-940864-60-3
PHONE (406) 542-1888
WEBSITE Boone & Crocket Club
COST $49.95 plus shipping
Books published by the Boone & Crockett Club are highly sought after, collectible, usually appreciate in value, and are lavish productions. This book is no different: it is big, and was printed in an oblong format with decorated endpapers and brown paper covered boards with dark brown titles and an attractive dust jacket.
The book spans all forms of hunting in the United States and its mainland territories during the 19th century from 1800 to 1900. This was the heyday of western big-game hunting, and it featured some tragic wildlife slaughters but it also spawned conservationists like President Teddy Roosevelt, who founded the famed Boone & Crockett Club.
This is something much more than a large picture book. It is a handsome piece of work that chronicles the beginnings of the conservation movement. It also was a period of western expansion, an era of exploration and the opening up of the western states and territories to hunting, much of which occurred in areas where no one other than a Native American may have once trod to hunt for meat to feed his family.
This book, with its superb narrative, tells us that most of the hunting was for the more abundant of game species: antelope, bears, bison, deer, elk and sheep. Wonderful historic illustrations fill the book with old color paintings and photographs, and black-and-white drawings and photos.
In 396 pages, there are nine chapters: The Object Of The Chase; The Subsistence Hunters; The Sport Hunters (1800-1865); The Arms Of The Chase; The Market Hunters; The Sport Hunters; The Image Of The Chase; The Sport Hunters (from 1865-1900); and The Hunter-Naturalists. A lengthy bibliography comes at the end of the book, and offers readers the opportunity to learn more about hunting books published during that era.
This is a book to get lost in, to take a long look at where hunting has come from and we have good ideas of where it will be going in the future with other conservationists and sportsmen leading the way.
Many of the color illustrations were once used as wildlife art on the covers of catalogs produced by firearm manufacturers. These illustrations stir the soul of present-day hunters, just as they did for our fore-fathers.
This book covers a time of big-game abundance in most western areas, and chronicles the gradual decline of wild bison and other game. Once sportsmen saw game numbers sliding downward, many lobbied for more and greater protection against market hunting. It set the stage for hunting seasons and a limit to what a hunter could kill.
Make no mistake about it: this is a big book. Richly illustrated, and filled with documentation of the work of some of the artists and photographers who roamed the west recording in drawings and photos, the passing of one era of plenty to another that marked the beginning of conservation clubs and a greater sense of protection for our natural resources.
The Boone & Crockett Club, founded by Teddy Roosevelt and friends, marked the real beginning of the major upswing of a national conscience about our wildlife resources and how our big-game was hunted. This is a wonderful historical look, through words and images, at what hunting was during the 19th century in the west.
It is a book that tells a great story, and it’s one that all sportsmen should read.
