In his Forward to Ernest Thompson Seton, Founder of the Woodcraft Movement 1860-1946
(London: The Edwin Mellon Press, 2007), Seton biographer Brian Morris took on
the puzzling issue of why Seton has been largely left out of 20th
century history.
“Perhaps Seton, by
the very diversity of his interests, attempted too much. Perhaps in attempting,
in one lifetime, to be a wildlife artist, naturalist, a youth leader and a
writer (not to mention his other, less public activities) Seton overstretched
himself and failed, in the end, to attain full stature in these respective
fields…Seton’s influence was personal and persuasive…in the lives and work of
other people…This means that his influence has been diffuse and pervasive
rather than concrete, latent rather than explicit. Seton, perhaps more than any
of his contemporaries attempted to affect a union between the arts and the
sciences, between poetry and fact.”
The thrust of Seton’s
lifework was ecological in the sense of being inherently integrative – all
aspects of art and nature related to and reflective of one another. To a
linear-minded society, this approach was clearly not the guaranteed path to
lasting recognition. Still, there is an undercurrent of support. Visitors to
the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe and the Philmont Museum and
Seton Memorial Library at Cimarron, sometimes come by to talk about how Seton
affected their lives or the lives of older family members, or we hear about how
the reading of Lobo story or another of Seton’s stories is still remembered
with fondness.
I am in occasional
contact with scholars who include Seton in their studies, but I have also
wondered about his past appearance in professional journals. Recently a few of
few of these have come to my attention. Thanks to Academy for the Love of
Learning archives intern Bill Ferguson for helping to find some of them. Citations
for several scholarly articles follow in a chronological listing.
Cornell, George L.
(Michigan State University) “The Influence of Native Americans on Modern
Conservationists.” Environmental Review,
Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer 1985. “That George Bird Grinnell and Ernest Thompson
Seton made enormous contributions to the ‘new’ environmental awareness is
unquestionable. What must be added is that these contributions were, to some
extent, an outgrowth of American Indian philosophy, which both men studied and
understood.”
Block, Nelson R. (Publisher
and Editor) “Ernest Thompson Seton and the Founding of the Order of the Arrow.”
The Journal of Scouting History, No.
1, February 1990. E. Urner Goodman, a Scout executive, founded the Scout
honorary organization, the Order of the Arrow, in 1915. “As the Order
celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, it is important for us to
search for the origins of that sprit and the search must begin with Ernest Thompson
Seton.” The Indian lore part of Woodcraft influenced the Order of the Arrow but
no records have been found connecting Seton to that organization.
Helstern, Linda Lizut
(Southern Illinois University) “Indians, Woodcraft, and the Construction of White
Masculinity: The Boyhood of Nick Adams.” The
Hemingway Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, Fall 2000. “Altogether, Hemingway owned
six individual titles by Ernest Thompson Seton, published between 1909 and
1921, and a set of collected works published in 1927 as The Library of Pioneering and Woodcraft. The total ranks Seton
among Hemingway’s favorite writers.” Woodcraft philosophy, particularly
sections on Indians and rugged outdoor life, plus the novel Rolf in the Woods, influenced
Hemmingway’s Nick Adams stories.
McCallum, Mary Jane
(University of Manitoba) “’The Fundamental Things’: Camp Fire Girls and
authenticity, 1910-20.” The Canadian
Journal of History, April 2005, republished at http://thefreelibrary.com. This article was the winner of the
Graduate Essay Prize for 2004. “In 1910 Luther Halsey Gullick, a medical
doctor, educator, and nature enthusiast, founded an extraordinary youth
movement called Camp Fire Girls.” The author acknowledges Seton’s “endorsement”
of this organization (now called Camp Fire USA). She lists its many Woodcraft
attributes, but seems unaware of these having come in large measure from Seton.
Nor does she acknowledge Grace Seton’s involvement with the organization.
Chalmers, F. Graeme
and Andrea A. Dancer (The University of British Columbia) “Crafts, Boys, Ernest
Thompson Seton, and the Woodcraft Movement.” Studies in Art Education, A Journal of Issues and Research, 2008,
49(3). Notes on Seton biography and Woodcraft subjects. “Seton’s Woodcraft Indian
legacy has revealed much about socially constructed masculinity as well as the
notion of art versus craft.”
Horn, Gavin Van
(Center for Humans and Nature) “Fire on the Mountain: Ecology Gets its
Narrative Totem.” Equinoxonline,
2011. “Aldo Leopold’s essay ‘Thinking Like a Mountain’ was more than a parable
about a redemptive personal moment; it was the fruition of a larger effort on
Leopold’s part to effectively communicate the fundamentals of a ‘land ethic’.”
Leopold, as a boy, read Seton’s work and may have been directly influenced by
“Lobo, King Currumpaw.”
Gavin Van Horn writes
this regarding Seton’s consciousness raising regarding our perception of
wildlife: “His influence on public sympathy toward wild animals at the turn of
the twentieth century cannot be overestimated as several scholars have
argued.” He cites two books (which will
become part of the Seton library). Thomas Dunlap: Saving America’s Wildlife: Ecology and the American Mind, 1850-1990
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). Ralph H. Lutts, (ed.): The Nature Fakers: Wildlife, Science and
Sentiment (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1998).
Gronauer, Jeffrey A. (Camp
Fire Club of America, B&C Regular Member) “The Camp Fire Club of America.” FairChase, Fall 2011. The Camp Fire
Club was created by biologist William Hornaday. After incorporation in 1904,
“its stated purpose was to ‘combine into a parent and allied clubs, sportsmen of
America that, through effective organization, proper support may be given to
game protection and forest preservation measures both state and national.’”
Hornaday was joined by Seton, Dan Beard and other notables in supporting a
variety of early 20th century conservation efforts. (Seton later
served as president of the organization.)
We are continuing to work on organizing the
papers of Ernest Thompson Seton and related material. These are available for
study by researchers and can be accessed at the Academy for the Love of
Learning by appointment. Additional sources are listed in Ernest Thompson Seton, The Life and Legacy of an Artist and
Conservationist (Witt 2010). Please send your recommendations on
Seton-related articles that we should include in our library.
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