professional and middle classes took up the chase. No longer viewed as the exclusive province of the wealthy or well-placed, in which only some scores
of well-heeled gentlemen hunters savored the chase, now the avid pursuit of the West's big game attracted many hundreds-including a handful of
adventurous women-from various levels of American society.
Although admittedly few, female hunters were not unknown even in the antebellum West. Theodore Potter, who in 1852 went overland from Michigan to
California, joined a party at Saint Joseph, Missouri, that included four unmarried young women from Memphis and New Orleans, who "...were members
of southern hunting clubs and were taking the land route...for the purpose of hunting large game such as buffalo, elk and antelope." These ardent
Dianas wore red bloomer suits, rode astride on well-trained horses, and proved to be practiced shots. Their distinctive dress evidently provided a
natural lure to antelope, and they kept the party in fresh meat whenever the usually elusive animals came available. At the eastern base of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, the young ladies participated in a grizzly bear drive-along with the daughter of the local guide. They killed one and mortally
wounded another of the five bruins brought to bag. As Potter recalled in his autobiography, "The skins of the five bears were given to the ladies,
making a splendid addition to the collection of trophies which they had secured on the trip."
Through the democratizing and emancipating influences prevalent in America following the Civil War, the pursuit of western big game increasingly
became the aim of women. In 1872, for example, the Denver Daily Tribune advised its readers, "Last evening the night train on the Kansas Pacific
brought out a party of seventeen ladies and gentlemen, who stopped off at Wallace [Kansas] for a buffalo hunt....They left England only a short time
since for the sole purpose of enjoying a hunt after the American Bison." In albeit comparatively limited numbers, women of varying social station were
taking to the field. These frontier huntresses brought a variety of motivations to the chase-many hunted purely for sport, some for subsistence, a few
for their livelihood, at least one out of scientific interest. Whatever their reasons in adopting the chase, all shared with their male counterparts
that stimulating sense of adventure and accomplishment so intimately associated with big-game hunting in the still-unsettled West.
Among the most intriguing and dedicated distaff hunters during the golden age was Mrs. Martha Maxwell of Colorado. As a skilled markswoman,
practiced huntress, self-taught naturalist, and talented taxidermist, she in many ways epitomized the best qualities and accomplishments of the era's
most esteemed hunter-naturalists. Martha took an early and active interest in the out-of-doors and animal life, roaming the woods as a child in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and learning to shoot both shotgun and rifle with remarkable precision. After her graduation from Lawrence College, she
married in 1860 and followed her husband to the remote frontier of the Colorado Territory, where the abundant wildlife rekindled her interest in
natural studies and inspired her to take up taxidermy as a hobby. She harvested many of her specimens herself, including big-game animals like deer and
antelope, and proved very adept at mounting them in lifelike postures.
To obtain her many specimens, Mrs. Maxwell made frequent collecting excursions into the Middle Park
region of Colorado, and even ventured as far north as the Black Hills of Wyoming. There she harvested
an antelope by adopting the time-honored flagging stratagem. Her specimens received meticulous
reconstruction in Martha's taxidermy studio, which one observer described as being filled with,
"Wire, hemp, cotton, and hay; clay, salt, plaster, and alum; mosses, grasses, and branches of trees;
bars of iron and blocks of wood; palette, brushes, putty, and paints;...glass eyes, and tools; heads and
horns of buffalo, antelope, and mountain sheep;...guns and ammunition..." By the early 1870s, her
reputation for lifelike renderings brought her the additional business of many area sport hunters.
Made an offer she couldn't refuse, Martha Maxwell sold her first natural history collection to
Shaw's Botanical Gardens of Saint Louis in 1870. She immediately started another assemblage, and in
1873 opened the Rocky Mountain Museum in her hometown of Boulder, of which a visitor observed:
The distinctive feature of the museum...is a dramatic group of animals placed at the further end of the room. Here are arranged mounds of earth,
rocks, and pine trees, in a by no means bad imitation of a wild, rocky landscape. And among these rocks and trees are grouped the stuffed animals...and
every one in a most lifelike and significant attitude. A doe is licking two exquisite little fawns, while the stag looks on with a proud expression. A
bear is crawling out of the mouth of a cave. A fox is slyly prowling along, ready to spring on a rabbit.
Two years later the museum moved to Denver and, not long thereafter, the territorial legislature requested that Mrs. Maxwell display her collection
on behalf of Colorado at the United States Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Her impressive wildlife exhibit, which commanded a corner of the
Kansas-Colorado Building next to a sign that read "Woman's Work," proved to be one of the most popular at the 1876 celebration.
The Philadelphia installation included Rocky Mountain and Great Plains environments, and was inhabited by bighorn sheep, grizzly and black bears,
cougars, elk, deer, antelope, buffalo, and many lesser game, "each in an attitude of lifelike action." By placing her animals in rustic settings and
mounting them to reflect realistic behaviors, Martha Maxwell certainly contributed to the refinement (if not the origination) of the natural habitat
diorama-an exhibit technique still widely employed in natural science museums around the world. Her enduring legacy also included the discovery of the
Rocky Mountain screech owl, which was named Scops Maxwellae in her honor. When challenged once about shooting so many animals, the "Colorado
Huntress" replied: "There isn't a day you don't tacitly consent to have some creature killed that you may eat it. I never take life for such
carnivorous purposes! All must die some time...and I leave it to you, which is the more cruel? To kill to eat or to kill to immortalize?"
Handsome, heavy, colorful-Hunting the American West has a look and feel that reflects its larger-than-life subject. Available now from Boone and
Crockett Club and from book retailers nationwide, Hunting the American West is a hardcover book, 12 x 8.75 inches with 416 pages and 425 color and
B&W photos and illustrations. If ordered directly from Boone and Crockett Club, the price is $49.95. Boone and Crockett Club Associates receive a
$10 discount on the book.
To place an advance order for the book visit the Club's web store or call toll-free 888-840-4868. If you are interested in a Deluxe Limited Edition,
please call the Club's headquarters at 406-542-1888 today. Limited editions retail for $350 and will be available in November.
of well-heeled gentlemen hunters savored the chase, now the avid pursuit of the West's big game attracted many hundreds-including a handful of
adventurous women-from various levels of American society.
Although admittedly few, female hunters were not unknown even in the antebellum West. Theodore Potter, who in 1852 went overland from Michigan to
California, joined a party at Saint Joseph, Missouri, that included four unmarried young women from Memphis and New Orleans, who "...were members
of southern hunting clubs and were taking the land route...for the purpose of hunting large game such as buffalo, elk and antelope." These ardent
Dianas wore red bloomer suits, rode astride on well-trained horses, and proved to be practiced shots. Their distinctive dress evidently provided a
natural lure to antelope, and they kept the party in fresh meat whenever the usually elusive animals came available. At the eastern base of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, the young ladies participated in a grizzly bear drive-along with the daughter of the local guide. They killed one and mortally
wounded another of the five bruins brought to bag. As Potter recalled in his autobiography, "The skins of the five bears were given to the ladies,
making a splendid addition to the collection of trophies which they had secured on the trip."
Through the democratizing and emancipating influences prevalent in America following the Civil War, the pursuit of western big game increasingly
became the aim of women. In 1872, for example, the Denver Daily Tribune advised its readers, "Last evening the night train on the Kansas Pacific
brought out a party of seventeen ladies and gentlemen, who stopped off at Wallace [Kansas] for a buffalo hunt....They left England only a short time
since for the sole purpose of enjoying a hunt after the American Bison." In albeit comparatively limited numbers, women of varying social station were
taking to the field. These frontier huntresses brought a variety of motivations to the chase-many hunted purely for sport, some for subsistence, a few
for their livelihood, at least one out of scientific interest. Whatever their reasons in adopting the chase, all shared with their male counterparts
that stimulating sense of adventure and accomplishment so intimately associated with big-game hunting in the still-unsettled West.
Among the most intriguing and dedicated distaff hunters during the golden age was Mrs. Martha Maxwell of Colorado. As a skilled markswoman,
practiced huntress, self-taught naturalist, and talented taxidermist, she in many ways epitomized the best qualities and accomplishments of the era's
most esteemed hunter-naturalists. Martha took an early and active interest in the out-of-doors and animal life, roaming the woods as a child in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and learning to shoot both shotgun and rifle with remarkable precision. After her graduation from Lawrence College, she
married in 1860 and followed her husband to the remote frontier of the Colorado Territory, where the abundant wildlife rekindled her interest in
natural studies and inspired her to take up taxidermy as a hobby. She harvested many of her specimens herself, including big-game animals like deer and
antelope, and proved very adept at mounting them in lifelike postures.
To obtain her many specimens, Mrs. Maxwell made frequent collecting excursions into the Middle Park
region of Colorado, and even ventured as far north as the Black Hills of Wyoming. There she harvested
an antelope by adopting the time-honored flagging stratagem. Her specimens received meticulous
reconstruction in Martha's taxidermy studio, which one observer described as being filled with,
"Wire, hemp, cotton, and hay; clay, salt, plaster, and alum; mosses, grasses, and branches of trees;
bars of iron and blocks of wood; palette, brushes, putty, and paints;...glass eyes, and tools; heads and
horns of buffalo, antelope, and mountain sheep;...guns and ammunition..." By the early 1870s, her
reputation for lifelike renderings brought her the additional business of many area sport hunters.
Made an offer she couldn't refuse, Martha Maxwell sold her first natural history collection to
Shaw's Botanical Gardens of Saint Louis in 1870. She immediately started another assemblage, and in
1873 opened the Rocky Mountain Museum in her hometown of Boulder, of which a visitor observed:
The distinctive feature of the museum...is a dramatic group of animals placed at the further end of the room. Here are arranged mounds of earth,
rocks, and pine trees, in a by no means bad imitation of a wild, rocky landscape. And among these rocks and trees are grouped the stuffed animals...and
every one in a most lifelike and significant attitude. A doe is licking two exquisite little fawns, while the stag looks on with a proud expression. A
bear is crawling out of the mouth of a cave. A fox is slyly prowling along, ready to spring on a rabbit.
Two years later the museum moved to Denver and, not long thereafter, the territorial legislature requested that Mrs. Maxwell display her collection
on behalf of Colorado at the United States Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Her impressive wildlife exhibit, which commanded a corner of the
Kansas-Colorado Building next to a sign that read "Woman's Work," proved to be one of the most popular at the 1876 celebration.
The Philadelphia installation included Rocky Mountain and Great Plains environments, and was inhabited by bighorn sheep, grizzly and black bears,
cougars, elk, deer, antelope, buffalo, and many lesser game, "each in an attitude of lifelike action." By placing her animals in rustic settings and
mounting them to reflect realistic behaviors, Martha Maxwell certainly contributed to the refinement (if not the origination) of the natural habitat
diorama-an exhibit technique still widely employed in natural science museums around the world. Her enduring legacy also included the discovery of the
Rocky Mountain screech owl, which was named Scops Maxwellae in her honor. When challenged once about shooting so many animals, the "Colorado
Huntress" replied: "There isn't a day you don't tacitly consent to have some creature killed that you may eat it. I never take life for such
carnivorous purposes! All must die some time...and I leave it to you, which is the more cruel? To kill to eat or to kill to immortalize?"
Handsome, heavy, colorful-Hunting the American West has a look and feel that reflects its larger-than-life subject. Available now from Boone and
Crockett Club and from book retailers nationwide, Hunting the American West is a hardcover book, 12 x 8.75 inches with 416 pages and 425 color and
B&W photos and illustrations. If ordered directly from Boone and Crockett Club, the price is $49.95. Boone and Crockett Club Associates receive a
$10 discount on the book.
To place an advance order for the book visit the Club's web store or call toll-free 888-840-4868. If you are interested in a Deluxe Limited Edition,
please call the Club's headquarters at 406-542-1888 today. Limited editions retail for $350 and will be available in November.
 |
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An excerpt from Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit, and
Sport 1800-1900, by Richard C. Rattenbury. Published by the Boone and Crockett Club.
Reprinted with permission.
The "golden age" of sport hunting in the American West attracted many devotees of the chase
beyond the military officers, aristocrats, and foreign gentlemen-sportsmen discussed earlier.
The same factors that drew the "top-shelfers" to the hunt-the still-abundant game, convenient
rail transportation, and improved firearms-also stimulated a growing tide of upper- and
middle-class Americans to go west in search of adventure and trophy. Perhaps the most
important inducement for these elements of American society lay in the tremendous expansion of
the domestic economy during the last third of the nineteenth century. The increase of disposable
income allowed many to adopt big-game hunting as a favored element in their recreational
repertoire. Now businessmen, lawyers, politicians, doctors, and many others from the
Sport 1800-1900, by Richard C. Rattenbury. Published by the Boone and Crockett Club.
Reprinted with permission.
The "golden age" of sport hunting in the American West attracted many devotees of the chase
beyond the military officers, aristocrats, and foreign gentlemen-sportsmen discussed earlier.
The same factors that drew the "top-shelfers" to the hunt-the still-abundant game, convenient
rail transportation, and improved firearms-also stimulated a growing tide of upper- and
middle-class Americans to go west in search of adventure and trophy. Perhaps the most
important inducement for these elements of American society lay in the tremendous expansion of
the domestic economy during the last third of the nineteenth century. The increase of disposable
income allowed many to adopt big-game hunting as a favored element in their recreational
repertoire. Now businessmen, lawyers, politicians, doctors, and many others from the
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