Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit, and Sport, 1800-1900 [Hardcover]

Richard C. Rattenbury (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

"A must read for anyone interested in the history of hunting, firearms, and the West. In his well-written, balanced narrative, based on the words of the hunters themselves, Richard Rattenbury transports us back into the nineteenth century, and a vanished American West."—John F. Reiger, Professor of History, Ohio University, Chillicothe; and author of The Passing of the Great West: Selected Papers of George Bird Grinnell and American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation

Hunting the American West is a thoroughly illustrated, narrative history of big-game hunting in the nineteenth-century American West. The engaging narrative draws extensively on the writings of original participants and observers of the subject and — along with an abundance of pictorial material — affords unusual insight into the diverse methods and motives for hunting big game in the Old West. No other work on the subject conveys the feeling and character of the hunt in its various eras and styles, or its profound consequences, as convincingly.

This book covers the principal big-game species; subsistence, commerce, and sport hunting; the variety of methods used over time and among different peoples in the harvest; the evolving weaponry involved; the artistic expression engendered by the western chase; and the rise of the hunter-conservation movement, which led to the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club.

While it presumes solid scholarship, Hunting the American West is intended for a broad popular audience, including those interested in hunting, western history, firearms, sporting art, and conservation.

Winner — 2009 Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Non-Fiction Historical Book
Winner — 2009 Independent Book Publishers Association Ippy Gold Award for Best Regional (Western) Non-Fiction
Winner — 2009 ForeWord Magazine Silver Award for History Book of the Year
Finalist — 2009 Oklahoma Book Awards for Non-Fiction
Finalist — 2009 Independent Book Publishers Association BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AWARD for Large Format Cover Design 220 full-color and 215 black-and-white photographs

Editorial Reviews

Review

A must read for anyone interested in the history of hunting, firearms, and the West. In his well-written, balanced narrative, based on the words of the hunters themselves, Richard Rattenbury transports us back into the nineteenth century, and a vanished American West.

            John F. Reiger — Professor of History, Ohio University, Chillicothe; and author of The Passing of the Great West: Selected Papers of George Bird Grinnell and American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation.

 

Winner -- 2009 Western Writers of America SPUR AWARD for Best Non-Fiction Historical Book

Winner -- 2009 Independent Book Publishers Association IPPY GOLD AWARD for Best Regional (Western) Non-Fiction

Winner -- 2009 ForeWord Magazine SILVER AWARD for History Book of the Year

Finalist -- 2009 Oklahoma Book Awards for Non-Fiction

Finalist -- 2009 Independent Book Publishers Association BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AWARD for Large Format Cover Design 

 

About the Author

Richard C. Rattenbury earned a B.A. degree in history from Texas Christian University and an M.A. in museum studies from Texas Tech University. He has served as curator of history at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum since 1987.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Boone and Crockett; 1st edition (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940864606
• ISBN-13: 978-0940864603
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 12.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard C. Rattenbury earned a B.A. degree in history at Texas Christian University and an M.A in museum studies at Texas Tech University. He has served as curator of history with the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, since 1987, and formerly served in curatorial roles at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, and the Winchester Arms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming. Over a thirty-five-year career, he has researched and installed five major permanent exhibit galleries, as well as some twenty temporary exhibitions treating historic firearms and various facets of western history and material culture.

Rattenbury is the author of The Browning Connection: Patent Prototypes in the Winchester Museum; From Wisconsin to the Sea: The Civil War Letters of Sergeant John V. Richards, Thirty-first Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865 (ed.); Packing Iron: Gunleather of the Frontier West; The Art of American Arms Makers: Marketing Guns, Ammunition and Western Adventure During the Golden Age of Illustration; Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit and Sport, 1800-1900; and Arena Legacy: The Heritage of American Rodeo. He also has contributed to trade titles including Sights West: Selections from the Winchester Museum Collection; Encyclopedia of the American West; Visions of the West: Art and Artifacts from the Private Collections of J.P. Bryan, Torch Energy Advisors and Others; and A Western Legacy: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. In addition, he has authored some fifty articles treating firearms history and technology and the history and material culture of the American West in popular and special-interest periodicals such as American Rifleman, American West, The Carriage Journal, History News, The Ketchpen, Man at Arms, Military Images, Outdoor Oklahoma and Persimmon Hill.

Rattenbury resides with his wife in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provides a comprehensive historical overview drawn from the personal accounts and journal entries, November 8, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit, and Sport, 1800-1900 (Hardcover)

During the 1800s, the American West was a magnet for men who hunted for survival, pleasure, and profit. Beautifully illustrated with period black-and-white images and full color artwork and photography, "Hunting The American West" by Richard C. Rattenbury (Curator of History, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum) is an impressive work of meticulous scholarship that provides a comprehensive historical overview drawn from the personal accounts and journal entries of participants and observers ranging from aboriginal hunters and 'Mountain Men', to European adventurers and big game market hunters. "Hunting The American West" addresses such issues as big-game species, subsistence hunting, commercial hunting, and sport hunting; the variety of methods used from 1800 to 1900; the evolution of weaponry used in hunting; language associated with hunting in the American West; and the rise of the hunter-conservation movement -- which lead directly to the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club. Informed and informative, "Hunting The American West" is a unique and valued contribution to the growing library of historical literature with respect to frontier experiences of the west and a core addition to personal, academic, and community library collections.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hunting The American West -- The Pursuit Of Big Game For Life, Profit, And Sport, 1800-1900, August 3, 2010

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Reid M. Wilson "scifi memories" (Seminole, Florida) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit, and Sport, 1800-1900 (Hardcover)

Hunting The American West -- The Pursuit Of Big Game For Life, Profit, And Sport, 1800-1900 is an impressive hunting history book filled with many art images and photographs of wild animals, western big-game hunters, and the many various weapons used. Richard C. Rattenbury is an elegant and fluid writer who meaningfully conveys the changing western landscape throughout the 19th century and describes the different types of hunters as well as numerous people who were actively involved in the hunting experience; quotes from the hunters themselves dramatically recreate the vigorous experiences they lived through.

On pages 26-27, Captain Randolph B. Marcy, hunting on the Great Plains in 1849, found that in making a fawn call for an antelope that a mountain lion was bounding at full speed towards him; Marcy then shifted his rifle focus to the fast-approaching big cat, which was shot dead ten yards from him. I believe the wolf and the jaguar should have been included in the highlighted animals, because they were also hunted for various reasons at that time in history. On page 45, George Drouillard is described as the leading hunter of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, combining with other hunters in supplying 131 elk and 20 deer to Fort Clatsop on the Pacific Coast from December 1, 1805 to March 20, 1806. On page 87, young British soldier-adventurer George Frederick Ruxton awoke on a snowy night in Colorado in 1846-1847 to see a wolf in a sleeping state near his large fire, and realizing the animal only wanted warmth, Ruxton went back to sleep. On page 133, the full-page color photograph shows two Kentucky-pattern pistols with half-octagon barrels and well-lined handles, and at about .50 caliber, they appear more powerful than all the handguns of modern history. Pages 241 and 245 describe experienced hunter Frederick Courteney Selous' difficulty in finding animals in Wyoming in the fall of 1897 because of the hunting of the past decades. I liked Charles M. Russell's "predicament" painting showing a rifle-holding hunter standing on a rocky mountainside near his fallen bighorn ram when surprised by a standing grizzly bear on the slope on page 266 and Frank Jay Haynes' photograph of two bull elk sitting in the snow in Hayden Valley in Yellowstone National Park in 1894 on page 279. The last chapter highlights the thinking of George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) and the political actions of Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) and John F. Lacey in successfully protecting wild animals and the lands on which they lived.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hunting the American West, April 8, 2009

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J. Harvey - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit, and Sport, 1800-1900 (Hardcover)

Great historical account of the title subject. The pictures are worth the cost even if you don't read the narrative.