Stuffed Glory

Eighty-two years later, PresidentTeddy Roosevelt was racing through a similar setting, a forest in Mississippi, on his own hunting trip. Led by his assistant, he made it to a small clearing where his companions had tied a black bear cub to a willow tree for him. All he had to do was point and shoot, but there was no

                         BANG!

                only

The rustle of careful steps.

as the big game hunter turned around to leave, refusing to partake in such an unsportsmanlike deed.

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Finally, John found his knife hanging from a nearby tree trunk, and not wasting any time, he took it to the laid-out body, making a clean incision on the equator of the stomach and skinning the corpse with just a few waves. He then cautiously transferred the fragile skin with all the plumage intact to a hanger, where three more sheets of feathers were already tanning. Without any hesitation, he took up his rifle and set off again to find his next target flying about or perching on a high branch.

While Teddy was on his hunting excursion in the woods of Mississippi, the Michtoms were busy making a living in Brooklyn as Russian Jewish immigrants. Having closed their modest candy store for the day, Rose opened up her sewing kit to start her other work whileMorris was busy calculating their sales and supplies. Carefully cutting up apiece of fabric with her scissors, Rose stuffed it with wood wool and meticulously sewed up the edges with her crooked needle and trusty thread.Shaping the stuffing as she went, she gave form to the plush toy, until finally she closed up the last gap between the two flaps of cloth and trimmed off the excess edges. The result: one more toy to sell tomorrow at the store and a few dollars closer to managing without debt.

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Satisfied with the number of skinshe had amassed, John started taking them down from the hanger, one by one, and stuffed them with various materials. He used wire to position them into stances that could be found in nature, using images from his photographic memory as a reference. After capturing his figurines in still action, John took out his pencil and paper and started sketching their silhouettes. He applied layers of watercolor on top for details, using various colors to add texture to the feathers and shadows to portray depth and motion in their twisting bodies. And with the perfection of the eye, the work was complete; the bird was resurrected onto the paper.

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Returning to the White House with no kill record, Teddy closed his eyes for a moment before he resumed his duties as President of the United States of America. Back in his Dakota days, he had tracked and hunted buffalo, bighorn sheep, even a 1,200-pound grizzly—how was it that he returned empty handed this time? He had no time to dwell on the embarrassing five-day bear hunt however, as a dense list of tasks awaited him.What he did not know was that Clifford Berryman, the most popular political cartoonist of the times, was already at work depicting the bear cub incident after hearing from the Washington Post journalist who accompanied the hunting party. Employing his typical style, Clifford took his black ink pen to sketch out a macho Teddy Roosevelt with hand raised and gun lowered, rejecting the confused hunter holding a frightened bear cub on a leash. Soon, the story would sweep across the nation, telling the tale of a heroic and compassionate leader.

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By now, John had quite an impressive collection of watercolor paintings, all life-size depictions. After multiple failed businesses and bankruptcies, he determined his calling and joy in life was the hobby of nature drawing he had fostered since childhood. Thus, he left everything behind to focus solely on this project he named The Birds of America. Six years later, after miles of expeditions and years of searching for a publisher, one of the greatest picture books of all time would be printed under his name in Europe, with 435 aquatints of his paintings—each copy worth $2 million in today’s value.Among the species depicted were 23 new species of birds and 12 subspecies, and his immense volume of behavioral observations would be passed on later in the scientific community. His name would be engraved into American history as one of the most famous ornithologists and artists to have ever lived, and a crucial wildlife conservationist group would be named after him, the National Audubon Society. All this, the product of thousands of sacrificed bodies.

Spreading as speedily as the word of the times allowed, Teddy’s story made it to the ears of Morris Michtom who was inspired to formulate a way to honor the story’s protagonist.He relayed his idea to Rose who in agreement manifested the idea into reality in the form of a stuffed bear toy. Soon, Teddy would receive a letter asking for permission to use his name for the first toy of its kind, a plush bear cub, which he granted without thinking much of it. What he did not foresee was the exponential growth in demand for “Teddy’s Bear.” Soon, the Michtom couple would sell their candy shop to start the Ideal Toy Company, which was worth $71 million when it joined the New York Stock Exchange in 1971. The President’s name would be popularized internationally as the Teddy Bear made its way into homes around the world, and the Republican Party would make the bear its symbol for Teddy’s 1904 reelection campaign. In the spirit of this American ethic, President Teddy would establish150 national forests and fifty-one federal bird reserves during his term, and today, millions of children across the globe lie in bed cuddling a stuffed bear in their arms to sleep. This is the toy made in honor of the President who singlehandedly contributed 296 out of some 11,000 kills from a yearlong hunting expedition in Africa after his presidency.

The 2,500-mile African safariRoosevelt embarked on with his adult son was commissioned by the SmithsonianInstitution for their Natural History Museum collection. Roosevelt did not disappoint as he delivered nine lions, eight elephants, thirteen rhinos, three pythons, and many more to the advancement of natural science, as well as a wealth of observational knowledge recorded in his book African Game Trails:An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist. But how did Roosevelt develop the title “hunter-naturalist,” this dichotomy of identities he saw as complementary but Mark Twain viewed as hypocritical?Perhaps it was his early readings of John James Audubon’s works, who similarly believed in the value of wildlife sacrifice for the sake of science and conservation. Encouraged by his father, a founder of the American Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt pursued his interest as an amateur naturalist and ornithologist by seeking out tutoring from one of Audubon’s taxidermy students at age twelve.

Fifty-three years later, his cousin would establish the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center in his memory, the first National Audubon Society songbird sanctuary in the nation and home to Roosevelt’s gravesite. He is memorialized in other ways too, such as his 1885 photograph in

             a buckskin costume and

             rifle in hand

that became a symbol for the American conservation movement. In it, Roosevelt bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1826 John Syme portrait of Audubon in

                                                                                                                      a wolfskin coat and

                                                                                                                      rifle in hand

that joined the White House art collection in 1962.

Two individuals whose seven-year separation in history was bridged by a shared, intertwined passion for taking and preserving life.

Author Bio: Jaehun is a chemistry student who likes to write about science, history, and personal experiences and reflections. His unique talent is being able to identify most North American birds, but don't test him on that.