Will Ryan

Gray's Sporting Journal's Noble Birds and Wily Trout

Creating America's Hunting and Fishing Traditions

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

A history of hunting and fishing through excerpted documents and as "narrated" by Gray's Sporting Journal columnist Will Ryan, the first book of its kind.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Globe Pequot Press
• Seitenzahl: 336
• Erscheinungstermin: 17. Dezember 2013
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 231mm x 157mm x 36mm
• Gewicht: 748g
• ISBN-13: 9780762782888
• ISBN-10: 0762782889
• Artikelnr.: 37742643

Autorenporträt

Will Ryan has taught expository writing at Hampshire College since 1980. He holds a BA and MEd from the University of Vermont, and an MA in American history from the University of Massachusetts. His articles appear regularly in Field & Stream, American Angler, and other publications. He is a contributing editor at Gray's Sporting Journal, where he edits and writes a column on the history of hunting and fishing. He has written two previous books on the outdoors.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction. Inside the Outdoors begins with an anecdote that sets the
stage for a sketch of the "heart" of the book - that hunters and anglers
ultimately bind the society they seek to escape. Chapter 1: Explorers,
Naturalists and Early Sport Hunters "Ibis-shooting in Louisiana" by
Anonymous, 1853. A look at recreational hunting and fishing circa 1850,
this chapter will include a look at tall tales (Davy Crockett) and the
naturalists (Bartram, Wilson, Audubon) and how this material suddenly held
a commercial interest. Chapter 2: British Influence "Squaring the Keeper"
by Francis Francis, 1880. This chapter will profile British hunting and
fishing at mid-19th century, and show how early American outdoor writers
drew from that experience and its literature. Francis's tale portrays the
angler as a rascal worried about his reputation - to this day, an enduring
persona for anglers the world over. Chapter 3: Outdoors as Escape. "Point
Judith" by Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, 1865. Theodore Roosevelt's uncle
marched to his own drummer, writing colorful hunting and fishing books
while the Civil War raged. His were the first sporting books published in
America, and they were bibles in their day, heavily influenced by British
writers, but in the end more rollicking, scandalous (American) version of
the outdoor life. Chapter 4:. The Business of Fun. "A Fight With A Trout"
by Charles Dudley Warner, 1878. Coming of age during the Gilded Age, the
American sporting experience emerged with a distinctly commercial
dimension, beginning with sporting goods retailers who just happened to end
up writers, too (Thaddeus Norris, John Krider, and others). Promotional
magazine articles extolling the virtues of certain devices or locations
were present nearly from the beginning. Regardless of century, Americans
have always been able to smell the money. Part II Chapter 5: Conservation,
Scarcity and the Sporting Ethic. "Climbing for White Goats" by George Bird
Grinnell, 1894. Market hunting, increased participation in sport hunting
and fishing, and environmental destruction all had a devastating impact on
native stocks of fish and game. How to increase the numbers of sportsmen
and the fish and game populations became a real problem, and Grinnell's
story shows how sportsmen reframed scarcity as "elusive," "challenging,"
and therefore... "sporting." Chapter 6: Wing-shooting Gentlemen. "A Match
at Chickens" by Edwyn Sandys, 1905. If the 19th century belonged to the
big-game hunter, with tales of daring and brawn, the 20th heralded the
wing-shooter, whose dexterity and quick-thinking seemed well matched to the
new century. Grouse and duck hunters, following suit, increasingly waited
for their quarry to take flight rather than ground swatting them or raking
them on the water. Sport, put simply, became definable by the method used.
Chapter 7: Fly fishing. "Plain Fishing" by Frank Stockton, 1888. This
chapter continues the story of how fishing and hunting methods took on a
social meaning, amidst growing tension between city sports and country
folks. This tale involves a city fisherman who uses flies, and his country
host who is the bait-fishing father of two comely daughters. After a
weekend of country living, including a sermon of sorts on the pretension of
fly fishing, the visitor comes to appreciate the beauty of "plain fishing."
Chapter 8: A Travelin' Man. "Fishing for Black Bass on the Maumee Rapids"
by J.E. Gunkel, 1896. Increasingly, midwestern bass fishing became a form
of boosterism. In towns on the eastern Great Lakes, in fact, black bass
became the face of the local economy, as in "Cape Vincent: Home of the
Gamey Black Bass." This chapter will look at the rise of tourism, and also
how this development related to the previous chapter's look at growing
tensions between city sports and their small-town hosts, and to the
regional elevation of certain species. Chapter 9: Guides. "After Grouse
with Hiram" by Max Foster, 1906. One of the great ironies of the
sportsman's search for manliness and virtue was that he often engaged a
guide to aid in his quest, even as he (the sport) decided what the
experience meant and what he needed to do method-wise to make it mean that.
After all, the guys who lived in the country (i.e., the guides) knew where
the grouse were. Almost invariably guides were treated as partners,
nostalgia was used as salve for any tensions that might show, and money
never changed hands. Chapter 10: Danger! "An Escape from Niagara Falls" by
Orrin E. Dunlap, 1901. Hunting and fishing needed some element of actual
danger in order to rise above simple child's play and confer manly virtues
on the participants. The challenge became, at least in the minds of many,
how to make sure the nation's men wouldn't get soft with all the
sentimentality and citifying, and with no war to toughen them up. Chapter
11: Can I Go? "A Fatal Success" by Henry Van Dyke, 1913 What to do with the
loved ones while you're busy fighting bears? Turn of the century stories
typically featured women who outfished, outshot their male-companions
(usually husbands, but often would-be husbands, in which case the heroine
would typically swear off the rod or gun, having secured the catch she was
after.) In "A Fatal Success" the woman not only boats the fish, she shows
no sign of ever again staying home. Part III Chapter 12: Huntin' Camp.
"That Ten-Point Buck" by Leonard DeWitt Sherman, 1912. Big-game hunters saw
themselves following in path of Boone and Crockett, right down to building
a cabin in the woods. As this chapter shows, deer camp became a two-week
tradition associated with the white-tail deer, which in time would become
the most prized game animal on the continent. Chapter 13: Front Page News.
"A Lion Drive," by John T. McCutcheon, 1910. When former president Theodore
Roosevelt celebrated his "retirement" with a well-publicized safari, The
Chicago Tribune announced a safari of its own, one that would appear in
serial form. Hunting and fishing was considered news of the highest order -
particularly when they involved celebrity globetrotting. Chapter 14:
Pushing Boundaries. "Great Sport: A Fishing Story," by Aimee Morrison,
1919. Hunting and fishing also became a way for Americans to do things "out
there" they wouldn't do "in here." Increasingly, in the early 1920s,
articles appeared by women on their own in the outdoors. This piece is a
classic example of that change. Of particular interest is the idea that Ms.
Morrison is a self-taught fly fisher, unescorted, in a sporting camp with
boys who do their best to keep her out of the tree house. But she has more
than enough pluck to make the club. Chapter 15: Life As We Know It. "Jean
Pierre and the Mayflies" by Romilly Fedden, 1919. Outdoors as healing has
been one of the great promises of the outdoor life since Boone kicked it
with the Indians back in the 1700s, and came back whole. The aftermath of
WWI gave us perhaps the greatest fishing story ever told, "Big Two Hearted
River," Hemingway's haunting story of post traumatic stress, or
"shell-shock," as it was known. The story profiled in this chapter was
written by an Englishman in the trenches of World War I and is in the Nick
Adams tradition of exploring how hunting and fishing had become a way to
get a fellow's bearings. This chapter will show how, for an activity that
began on the margins of society, fishing and hunting had now become a way
to reconnect. Chapter 16: Modern Love. "Geese" by Rex Beach, 1921. The new
outdoor story starts with a touch of fame (Max Foster and Grantland Rice
are the hunting buddies in this piece), the desire for game, the fantasy of
the perfect duck blind or boat or convenience, the tug of home - and the
self-irony to understand how the entire experience was at once socially
created and naturally human. Beach's story gives us that and, in many ways,
offers a look at what the outdoor experience will become in the decades
ahead.