Always found it to be such an intellectually welcoming community here, a place where scholarship anp an friendship ce together in such a remarkable way. Im very, very grateful to all of my friends here, the members of this exceedingly smart staff and this year to my fellow fellows who are also exceedingly smart. [laughter] gregory nobles and then there is mass audubon. I got to western western, i got the opportunity to go to the mass operative audubon, and i was struck by the energy and commitment of the people who are working with were working for mass audubon. I got a sense and a taste of their very wise it and effective advocacy, and not just for birds but also for the environment and also really for all of us. And also, their stewardship of the land, some 60 natural sites in massachusetts, 58 for me, but i am going. Honored to be here, happy to be here, happy to talk about my man audubon. When i think about john james audubon, when i write about him, i see him as a man of so many identities, a man who plays so many roles. I look at him as an artist of course, and that is how most people see him. My guess is that most of you have an audubon print or maybe the real thing in your house. And he is best known for his great work, the birds of america, and here are some of my aaf colleagues, one of the pages from that. , someives you some idea idea of the physical scale of this great work. Each volume was 30 and 40 inches in dimensions, and it weighed 40 or 50 pounds. You needed two stout arms to lifted from the ground audubon said. But the picture doesnt show is a great cost of this great work both at the time and now, when audubon first produced it. It went for 1000 with the full set, a lot of money in those days. It goes for 8 million at auction lately, which is still a lot of money in these days. But in addition to looking at audubon as an artist, i look at him and another of other roles, as an explorer, as an entrepreneur, mythmaker, storyteller, show man, ladies man, and slaveholder. I will discuss all of those in the book, and i will hold discussions with the audience participation time this evening. The one role and want to focus on this evening is the one i think audubon himself may have valued most. That is as a gentleman of science, member of the Scientific Community. He is a man i called americas first celebrity scientist. I am interested in how he presented himself but also the way he worked, the world of science, Natural History. This brings me to the idea of Citizen Science, going back to the first half of the 19th century. I am somebody who started his career as a social historian many years ago, studying Early American Society and politics, looking at the struggles leading up to the american revolution, doing what was called history from the bottom up. That is, focusing on the world of ordinary people in making history and making historical change, and i still cant help myself as a historian. I still cant help doing that. I am taking a similar approach to american ornithology, doing Natural History from the bottom up. So when i speak of Natural History from the bottom up, i am not talking of the very eminent gentlemen of science of that era. A man who gained historical note, like mark hasty in the early part of the 18th century, or john bartram and William Bartram in a lot of that intury, or Alexander Wilson the early part of the 19th century or even audubon himself. If you think about those prominent figures, but i also think about the hundreds, the thousands of ordinary americans. Americans,euro native americans, african americans. I want to suggest to a degree some connection between those two, how the study of society and the study of nature reflect and reinforce each other. They celebrate the republican origins. Is especiallyn emblematic of that connection. More on that in a bit. Let me begin with audubon, and as one must, with a bird. But in this case, a bird and a book, and this is audubons massive five volume, 3000paged opus ornithological biography. It was written to be an accompaniment to the birds of america. He gives it tremendous discretion of the birds of america. It is a book ornithologist could use and probably still use now, very useful. But in addition to the discussions of birds, he gives us descriptions of people, the american people, as well. He does it in a remarkable and revealing way, much more than ornithology. Here is an example. If audubon had been asked to name the most valuable bird, the mvb of the american people, he probably would have made an easy en. Ice, the purple martie he wrote the notes of the martens song are the first heard in the morning and welcome to the sense of everybody. People welcome this bird not just for its song, because it is a very useless useful bird. Theyfeed on insects, and keep farm field free of other flying pests, bothersome flying pests, crows and so forth. And this skybased Housekeeping Service to be quite welcome in an agrarian society, where people kept their living on the land, and audubon understood them. He writes first about the industrious armor who rises from his farmer as he rises from his bed when he hears the martens song. Ew it wasnt kn just the industrious farmer who saw the purple marten as a friend. It was also the American Indian that was fond of the marte ns company. So is the humble slave of the seven states. This painting of the marten shows a hollowed out calabash or gourd, and what audubon does is draw attention to the common native american and africanamerican practice of making houses for martens out of the available resources to them. Audubon goes one further step in his description of the humble slaves, writing that the martens song brings the elated heart to the farmer. He said, im your momentum a mere momento for the day of voluntary labor. He bids will farewell to the marten and cant help thinking how happy he should be worthy permitted to gambol with as much freedom as that bird. There you have it, and one passage about the purple marten, audubon does a lot more than describe the bird. He also describes human beings, offering the reader, us, examples of the range of practical and aesthetic and symbolic values birds can embody. They embody the lives of ordinary american people. By putting people into the picture here, writing them into the picture, even doing it over simplified it over sentimental izes of the indiand or the slave, he makes an important if not inadvertent point. People Pay Attention to birds, and that tension manifests itself in a tension manifests itself in attention and imagination. But they also watched birds closely and carefully enough to recognize their song and their habits and their usefulness. They had to. They had to in a world in which most people put their livings from the land. The observation of birds, no less than the observation of other mammals or the plants or the weather, the very necessary awareness of the natural world. And it made good sense. Take noteood sense to of creatures that visited human habitations and marked the changes in the seasons. That is true today too even today, as no biologists ethnobiologists write about how it can contribute to scientific investigation. Even after most forms of science have moved into Academic Research labs and universities and other institutions, even after the distance between the professional side and the amateur observer grew greater over the years, science is not completely out of the reach of ordinary people. And People Engagement with science is certainly the case with ornithology, where the spirit of avian observation is still very much with us. Think about this. There was a government study done in the year 2000 about recreation habits and so forth. It pointed out some 67 million americans report to being in one degree or another birdwatchers. When i talk about audubons academic roots, i will quite often ask, anyone here a birder . I will get four or five or six hands in the air. That is fine, ok. This may be a silly question in this crowd, but how many birders do we have here tonight . Ok, pretty good, pretty good. Some of you might have taken part in the annual Backyard Bird count, and if you have done so, or if you do so sometime in the future, you can take pride in being a grassroots number of a larger scientific enterprise, and that is Citizen Science. Citizen science. You can do it. We can all do it. It is ornithology by ordinary people. I think Citizen Science is a wonderful term. It is a way of enjoying a pastime, or maybe an allconsuming concession obsession, looking at scientific inquiry, even civic responsibility. There was no Audubon Society in audubons era of course. Audubon died in 1851. Mass audubon didnt come in existence until 1896. The national Audubon Society not until 1905. Audubon himself had no personal connection to the Audubon Society, but we can talk about that in the question and answer part. Still, this notion of part popular anticipation on the part of science is important. , the first half of the 19th century, at a time when a mattress north american naturalists were trying to define history, even nature it self, they were trying to distinguish and distance American Science from european science. To do so, they needed to engage and in a sense claim ordinary people is very critical allies, people who could enhance the standing of Natural History and in the process maybe enhance the standing of natural historians themselves. This is an American Culture that celebrates the image of the common man is a political and cultural icon. I think the ways in which audubon and other members of the Scientific Committee engaged and engaged the common man and common women frankly is important. Now i have to pause and say a word, maybe even offer a scholarly disclaimer about audubon as an icon on his own. There he is again. I have been living with audubon in my head for a long time. And i have to admit i have occasionally mixed someone perplexed feelings about him. As i was getting to the end of writing the book, i told audubon, it is time we start seeing other people. [laughter] gregory nobles and yet the birder in me, the autistic artistic work but also his fieldwork, he was very, very good at what he did. He did it with no binoculars, no field guide, no iphone apps, and who fear the proof here is in the painting. This is a watercolor he did before the book. 1808, 23 years old at the time. This is one of his early efforts. It is just one of my favorite audubon paintings. This is the finished product. This is the kingfisher. When i look at audubons work, when i look at what he did as an artist and as a naturalist, i am struck. I am impressed by his work. But then there is a historian in me that sometimes has to take a somewhat more skeptical stance when i read some of his work about people and about one person in particular which is himself. Every portrait of audubon shows him in backwoods garb. He is never portrayed in a painters smock, with a paint brush or pallet, but always with a gun. This is a painting by the british artist john stein done in 1826 when audubon wasnt edinburgh of all places was in edinburgh of all places. Here he is being painted with his long hair, his fur collar, and his gun. The gun is always with him. This is audubon in 1837. This is 1843, still got it. And is his most critical scientific instrument. It is the tool uses to collect his specimens. It is also a symbol of his identity as a man of the american environments, his selfstyled identity of the american woodsman, is what he calls himself. Audubon is a master of he is somebody who always sought and certainly savored celebrity, someone who crafted an image of himself as a man of science but as a man of the people too. Sometimes in pursuit of or perhaps in support of that image, audubon could be more than a little bit loose with the truth. He could spin stories that have little or no connection to reality, outright fiction. He had his own version of alternative truth. [laughter] but sometimes within those stories, within those fictions, their late a larger reality and i think maybe a larger truth. There lay a larger reality and i think maybe a larger truth. I can still take him seriously. I want to do that this evening. I want to take audubon seriously as a man of science because he took himself seriously in that regard. He always concluded on his finished pieces the initials fr s, fls. He was very very proud of the memberships. He was delighted in a spiteful sort of way when he finally gained membership on this side to the American Philosophical Society in 18 31. The aps and kicked them out for various reasons. I will discuss later. Fromked this recognition the Scientific Community, and he could stand with the other most prominent men of his day in the world of science. But he could also take his place and make his place among ordinary people. He could bring them into his research. I want to be clear, he was not the only person to do that. I think of a british naturalist and audubons friend or sometimes friend, who put the matter simply. He said this. Basically, the good thing about Natural History is anybody can do it. It is as much within the reach of the cottager as the professor. There were not many professors at the time. You can see a similar sentiment from Alexander Wilson, who was audubons ornithological rival. His american ornithology was the first account to document all the birds in this new nation, and it was a true achievement for its time. It was only surpassed by audubons work. And then american ornithology, wilson noted he had been honored with communications of facts that would assist him in his work. He saw these communications as absolutely necessary to the naturalist task. No naturalist could see it all, especially to such an extended region of research as the united states. With such a vast amount of unexplored space and unknown new species. Wilson knew Natural History needed all the eyes and ears it could muster. The challenge was to enroll all of those eyes and ears and still make the resource acceptable to the existing standards of science. , it was audubon who did it most directly and certainly most selfconsciously. It was audubon who brought the ordinary observer more clearly into the picture and make the most of what common folks would tell him about birds. He really celebrated this reciprocal relationship between himself, the artist, a man of science, selfstyled american was meant, and the ordinary american of the woodsman, and the ordinary american of the new nation. He addresses the reader as a fellow naturalist. I am persuaded to love nature and admire and study her. And we always cast a glance at the lovely forms without imposing questions, respecting them. Studying nature and proposing about what one sees, that is the basic foundation of scientific inquiry. Audubon very generously suggested that any observing individual to be as much a student of Natural History as he was himself, almost, sort of, up to a point. Knew that healways would need help in finding more birds. One example, in 1833, he went up to labrador, and he said, i conceive i shall meet numberless indians who will afford me much information and assist me in procuring objects of the search. That made perfect sense. If you are going to a new place to look for birds, you have never been there, you ask locals the questions. What do you call it what does it do . For audubon, there were not numberless indians in labrador at the time. The native population had been extremely reduced along labrador coast, and audubon could only limit, alas, i scarcely met with a thin legal a single native indian and was assured there were none in the interior. Here he is invoking the standard image of the vanishing indian, but he still acknowledges that these indians might have played a very Important Role in his collecting information. It was collecting that was so critical to the work of Natural History. The next year in 1834, audubon did get some assistance indirectly. His friend on the left and townsend on the right had gone to the Columbia River region in the Pacific Northwest and reported their own exploration, and they said there was a wide variety of birds. They communicated that backed audubon with very valuable bird specimens he was able to use in doing the birds of america. One of those was the warbler that the chinook indians called a different name. It is pretty good. I looked for the translation, cannot find it, but neither did townsend. They dismissed it. They simply renamed this bird. They took possession of it with standard linnean binomials and called it the audubon warbler. It is the western form of the yellow romped warbler. For the ornithologists in the crowd, the birds used to be separate, separate species. The audubons in the west, the yellow rump in the east, then they were identified as one in the 1930s, then declared separate again. You can talk to the American Ornithological Union about that. In audubons era, this was the way they exchanged information, from native to naturalist, from west to east, with name changes along the way for the sake of scientific appropriation. Look a little closer to home, audubon frequently wrote about people with various puzzles he had about different aspects of bird hit here behavior. He said he had spent, as he put it, much time ascertaining how the bird here moves her young. The bird does not make a nest in a tree, it scratches out of debt leaves on the ground, and it moves its eggs or checks if anybody should threaten them. Audubon had never seen this behavior himself, but other people had. , thers told him the bird bird carries her offspring under her wing, and audubon said they had apparently all of this information without troubling themselves much about the matter, so he gave their opinion little credence. He paid more attention to their field hands, the negroes, he said, some of whom pay a good attention to the habits of bird, assured me these birds pushed the eggs or young along with their bills along the ground. So given the two sources, white farmers who offer their opinions without troubling themselves much as audubon said or black slaves who paid a good deal of attention to birds, audubon decided that the account of the negroes appeared to be more likely to be true than that of the farmers. But then he adds, i made up my mind to do an investigation of the matter. And in this passage, audubon revealed something about the importance of Scientific Authority but also racial authority in this situation. Even though he gave the slaves a measure of respect for their habits of observation, even though he acknowledged that their account seemed more likely than that of the white farmers, he could not or would not accept their matter without testing it himself. So he gives the observations of ordinary people a place on the but, place on the record, he does not fully accord them the authority of his own acceptance. He is not yet not without experimentation. Believe me, there are lots of outlandish stories about birds that circulated among ordinary people and needed a lot of testing. Audubon had to set aside his own skepticism long enough to put some of these popular suppositions to the basic test of scientific experiment. I have to say some of these tests of that bird lore now seems pretty fanciful, even farcical. I will give you three examples. For decades, stories on both sides of the atlantic that farm birds could live for time in mud or underwater, and some species simply could not be drowned. Swallows got most of the attention. Sora rails also. This was the case of an experiment carried out by ottomans friend john bachman audubons friend john bachman. He was really one of his best friends, best birding buddies, and bachman took the question about soras to attest. He writes that naturalists from philadelphia sake two soras in water to see how long they could live. This is how he describes it. The birds were placed in a covered basket which was sunk in the river. One remained 15, the other eight minutes underwater, and on being taken out, they were both found dead. [laughter] gregory nobles bachman goes on to tell audubon, we place them in the sun the wheel for several days, but they did not revive. One need hardly say. But audubon did Say Something about it, they took the experiment seriously. Throughout audubons writings, we find similar writings to determine the veracity of common beliefs about birds. Here is another one. There are stories that if you fed the brains and intestines of a parakeet to a dog or cat, the animal would die. Audubon is going on a flat boat down the Mississippi River and thinks he will try this experiment. He shoots some airline of parakeets and feeds their innards to his dog dash and her newborn pups. And the next morning, the dogs are fine. Those of you who want to try this on your own pets, you cant , because these birds are extinct. One last one. This is one of my favorites. Note that you can doubt out the eyes of a culture e out the eyes of a fulcher, then rub it vulture, then rub it had under its wing, and they are restored. Audubon never tried this experiment. Either should you because it does not work, does not work. But he did not immediately dismiss it either. He wrote a book about what he called medical gentleman have put this to a test. He takes it seriously enough to include it in his writing. All of these experiments, stupid and brutal than some of them seem now, they still formed part of the work, the serious work of natural historians in the early part of the 19th century. They might be willing to consider ornithological reports of almost anyone, but they accepted them with skepticism and then subjected them to their own scientific experiments. Scientific proof such as it was remained to be determined. And the process of establishing Scientific Authority relied on democratic gestures, and audubon was the master of democratic gestures, of reaching out to the american people. And no matter where the stories came from, a farmer, a slave, and indian, the bird lore that lurked in the corners of Popular Culture had just enough traction to gain the naturalists attention. And somewhere in this fathomless mass of ornithological folklore, there also could lie a considerable body of observation and useful information. Audubon knew better than to dismiss it completely out of hand. To do this would have left audubon separated from the very people whose respect and support he needed in order to maintain and it has his own place in american society. Let me offer one important illustration of that. Audubon quite often directly asked his readers for help. He is trying to get answers about various patterns of bird migration for instance, and he invites the reader to take part in the investigation. Why do some birds migrate here, why do some there, why do they go to the same places . Reader, can you assist me . That last question takes many forms in audubons writings. Can you, reader thomas all question reader, salt question solve question . Especially as he confronts his life. To feelis beginning himself in the winter of his own life, and he he would have to pass the ontological torch ornithological torch to a new generation of naturalists, and he is reminding them of the work he has done but saying there is room to discover. Reader, i have strongly advised you to make up your mind, shoulder your gun, muster all your spirits, and start in search of the interesting unknown. In the end, audubon says, if you produce a book as good as mine, i will buy it. [laughter] gregory nobles but as always, it brings me back to the question, can we buy audubon . I go back to my occasional skepticism about his method and motive. In passages like this when he is reaching out to the reader, how do we read him, how do we hear him to hear him seriously . And i note, i admit the occasional submission of ornithological ignorance, strategic reading reaching out maybe an active literary article. Maybe it provides for audubon to assert his own authority by reason questions he knows most readers cant answer. Or by the same token, imagining of companionship in the wild, calling the reader to make up their mind, shoulder their gun, go to the interesting unknown. That might have been a way of celebrating his own manly the congressmans by posing manly accomplishments by posing a challenge most readers would not take. So one must take a look at the selfconscious construction of his role as a nationalist, naturalist, the american woodsman. When talking to the reader, it might most often be talking about himself. But in a rare departure from my common approach of historical skepticism, i am going to be kind and even credulous for the next few minutes, because in audubons own time, when many questions to Natural History still remains unanswered, when many parts of the continent still remained unexamined by make sense, it may to take him seriously to read him more or less literally. Several readers did write him back as if to complete this reciprocal relationship between the writer and the reader. And one of those responsys particulardeserves note, a good closing for tonights talk. In june 1840, audubon gets a letter from a teenage boy who describes himself as not a boy and very inexperienced. But he said, after taking much hesitation, i am taking the liberty of writing to you. So the boy includes in his letter the discretion of a flycatcher he had seen in the unfinished work, and he was right. Audubon had not seen it before. Impressed by his work, audubon writes them back with enthusiastic encouragement. He said, although you speak of yourself as being a youth, the discussion proved that an old head may from time to time may be found on old shoulders young shoulders. This begins the exchange of letters and bird specimens and personal visits between the aging audubon and the Young Spencer fullerton bear. This is the final decades of audubons life from 1840 to the time he died in 1851. In fact i have to say, this relationship between there and audubon comes so late in the 1840s when he is in decline, and you want to see what 20 years of being the american woodsman will do to you, here you are. 1846 to 1847 on the right. And this story about the aging audubon and Spencer Fullerton baird does not make it into many biographies written by audubon, about audubon. Or authors will get a short thing to get the book done. Believe me, i know that. I know the feeling. But when i start thinking and writing about audubons connection to Spencer Fullerton baird, i got hooked, and i did not want to stop. It takes a big chunk of chapter nine, because the fascinating relationship that points to an important part of audubons legacy. Bairdame one of became one of his best disciples. He wrote he had to doubt the ornithological biography would spread the lead love of Natural History. I read birds and episodes with the same pleasure i would to read a favorite novel. This is great stuff. Baird, but he can be a kind of funny seeming guy. He was so enthralled with audubon that two years before he got married, he said to his fiancee sent his fiancee a picture of audubon. Any girls dream gift. [laughter] and when baird and his fiancee got married, he gave her lessons in taxidermy eerie believe me, nothing says newlywed bliss like taxidermy for two. [laughter] gregory nobles but i think Spencer Baird is a very important person too. He is a young man who very selfconsciously follows audubons footsteps for a career. He had received his 1840,raduate degree in that was the year he began his correspondence with audubon. In 1845, baird becomes presser professor of Natural History at dickinson, and he complained endlessly about the job. He said i have nothing to do. There is no pay whatsoever. He said carlisle, pennsylvania is death itself. But he found a way out. He found a way out. Toncer baird was invited apply for curatorship at the brandnew smithsonian in washington, and he asked audubon to make a flaming recommendation for him. He does flame out a good recommendation. Thered gets the job baird gets the job, he spent 20 years at the smithsonian and did important work in the classification of american birds. And Spencer Baird made the Smithsonian Center for American Science, and he invites ordinary people to make their own contributions to Natural History. Now i dont what to turn this talk into some couric story about the passing of the torch of audubon the older ornithologist to Spencer Baird the young protege, but i do have to note this young man was so inspired by audubon and his work, did emerge as one of the most significant scientists in the second half of the 19th century. He has continued audubons habit of reaching out to people, especially younger people, to encourage careers in science. Spencer fullerton baird is a rare bird in that sense, he is quite extra ordinary. Still, if audubon or if i ever needed any notion about the possibility that could come from inviting the reader into the work of Natural History, Spencer Baird provides proof of what that reciprocal relationship could sometimes produce. With audubons early tutelage, with audubons early guidance, with audubon giving him credibility to this 17yearold boy, Spencer Baird eventually becomes the best expression of Citizen Science in his era, an ordinary person who is rare but by no poking no means unique. Baird encourages a connection between the ordinary observer and the ornithologist and the exchange of scientific information. Longat regard, he takes a a place in the long trajectory that connect the observers of birds in early america to the passionate birder of today, including the Backyard Bird count of the modern Audubon Society. For that, Spencer Baird and thank audubon. For that, we can thank audubon, and with that, i will thank you. [applause] gregory nobles i think there is time for questions. Or comments. Yes. You have to ask her to go to the microphone. Just following up on your comment that audubon died, and it was several years before the mass Audubon Society was formed. What was that process . How did it happen . Gregory nobles i said there was not a direct connection but indirect. George byrd for dell, one of the founders of the national Audubon Society, editor of field and theam, had studied in audubon household after audubon died. He studied with audubons son, and he knew the audubons and picked up the audubon spirit. He becomes one of the promoters of the Audubon Society. Really, it is in northampton at the college, francis miriam, a number of young women realize the wearing of big, plumed hats. Organizes miriam people to get the plumes taken out of the hats, and they organize the Audubon Society. They call it in honor of audubon. He seems a natural choice. So audubon had no notion of course this society would come into note into existence. He did not start it. He did not ask his son or wife to start it. But people began to realize he was this american treasure, and what better way to memorialize him then to put his name on an organization that was committed to the preservation of bird habitats . Yes. Good evening. Thank you for your presentation. I have one question which may be more detail with questions. Do you think theodore roosevelt, who was a birder and collected a lot, was audubons influence on him . Gregory nobles direct influence . Yes. Gregory nobles after looking back at his readings and study, i am sure that roosevelt had ,eard of audubon and read him but i cant tell you if there is a direct kind of academic connection between the two, but i think the spirit of audubon and especially the manliness that audubon adopted for himself , you know audubon was very vertical of the closet naturalist. That is, people who stay inside and learn ornithology and Natural History. He said, you have got to go out to the field. Embrace nature and suffer. Called suffering for science, and it is about how audubon does it, and how everybody else on to do it too. Is probably why he aged like he did. Gregory nobles i didnt say it was a good idea. But he might have had more fun. In this notion of manliness, the strenuous life, that is very much in audubons theme. Longer question. Now is undernt siege like it has never been, and we have the wildlife society, we have the Audubon Society, we have so many groups what is the clarion call now for environmentalists . Gregory nobles what is the clarion call for environmentalists. Gregory nobles there are a lot of clarion calls. All of this is climate change. I think that is going to affect habitat, and habitat effects all other species. I found out from a friend this year that a nest of chickadees every spring, a nest requires 4000 to 5000 caterpillars, and those have to feed upon the trees, and they have to feed upon the trees right for their environment, so when we look at birds, you are not to seeing birds. You have to start thinking back to the way the whole ecosystem fits together so you need caterpillars, caterpillars need leaves and trees need a good environment. So if i could snap my fingers and make a change, it would be to reverse climate change, but i cannot do that. So i write books instead. Nobles. You, professor gregory nobles thank you, professor phyllis. [laughter] talk, and another fascinating project. I have one question about audubon and one about your project. The question about audubon, calling on the previous question , audubon lives at the time when distinction seemed like it could be donning on people what is his awareness or belief in extinction, and how does he see population thinning or habitat change . Gregory nobles audubon has a wonderful but i think also depressing habit of seeing catastrophic things on the horizon and saying, it doesnt matter. I will give you examples. There used to be these huge, massive flights of Passenger Pigeons. But he tried to calculate how many are there. So Alexander Wilson, did his calculation, it out of did his because he wanted to beat wilson, and he believed he had it down to 1. 7 billion 380 again, he had an exact number. He also wondered how long could this keep going on . Because people shot the birds, people were changing habitats, and he raises the question, what will happen to the Passenger Pigeon population . He said it is ok because they reproduce four times faster than they are getting killed off. He did not live until 1914 to see the last Passenger Pigeon died in a cincinnati zoo. That youa long passage as a literary scholar would like. It is about 263 words and eight semi colons. It is one sentence that goes on forever, the kind you would apers. On your students p but is a big description. We have people cutting down trees, animals leaving and so forth. He has a long description about what has happened in the course of his time of being in america only 20 years. Then he says, whether it is good or bad, i cant tell. He walks away from it. He has a habit of doing that on every controversial issue he encounters from nature frankly to slavery him of that is a whole other question. Just how to write about someone like this, a larger personality or even multiple personalities as he moved from persona to persona. How did you go about choosing when to just get into the persona and really study that and celebrate that showmanship for instance, and when did you have to be skeptical or push back on when he was . Gregory nobles in a lot of ways i was always skeptical. I will make a distinction. Audubon when he is writing about birds, writing about the scientific descriptions and the , veryation, he is very good. If you read ornithological biographies, sometimes they go on and on for pages about avian behaviors, but then he will slip in stuff about himself, materials about people, and when audubon writes about himself and american people, that is when the yellow light goes on for me. I think he is beginning i say at one point, he does not live his life, he performs it, and that is a performative aspect of audubon. He creates an identity for himself and locate himself as this frenchspeaking baby born in central maine, comes to america becomes the american woodsman. It is the identity of his life. He does that, that is when i, i like the guy. I really do, but not sure i would want to have lunch with him. I would never get a word in edgewise. Think his self fashioning, his creation is what is worrisome about him but fun about him. Yes, 10. Ted. Thanks, greg. It was a great talk. View withw do you Citizen Science since the time of audubon . We see nowadays and in recent history, there is quite a lot of conflict between what you might call Citizen Science in some ways, observation by ordinary science citizens, and what formal science says. Climate science is a clear example of that and also issues regarding vaccines and other there is a whole litany of issues where science has gone up ,gainst popular perception various kinds of popular perception. What do you think of Citizen Science now . Gregory nobles i like certain aspects of it. We dont do Citizen Science. Liking physics or particle physics. It seems like the vaccine people, the Citizen Science part of that, is driven more by, i dont know, fear, suspicion. It is not driven by in most cases research. There is a break between a lot of people who are antivaccine and the immunology community. Likehis is why i ornithology. Anybody can do it. All you do is go outside and get binoculars, look around the. Eeder, see what is there and i do think there are members of the Scientific Community who are more likely to engage ordinary people, citizens in a more positive way because they do need our help. I look at the cornell word count and the way that bird count and the way that they are asking people to submit their findings when they go out into the field, so that can all be compiled. That becomes part of a larger scientific record. The field of science is so large. It is so broad that there are areas where ordinary people can become engaged and make a contribution and others frankly where it is much more difficult to do. The Scientific Committee is not really reaching out to them in that regard. Community is not really reaching out to them in that regard. Yes. Ic. Have to go to the m referred to his. Laborating about his own life i wondered if you could give us an example of what you are talking about in that reference, whether it was just things about himself that he told stories about, or did he, in terms of his research and the actual birds of working on you are referring to that as well . Gregory nobles i think the biggest story audubon tells certainly about himself is his origins. Audubon was born in what is now haiti. In 1785. He says that his father was a french sea captain and plantation owner which is true. He says his mother was spanish, which is not true. He was born in new orleans, which is not true. He never pushed the issue. He was born in saintdomingue. In the first half of the 19th century, if you are born in haiti, there is a suspicion that you are not completely white because of the racial mixing in that island colony. When audubon first came to america in 1803, his father sends him over with a fake passport because he is trying to get away from napoleons army, and that follows another story. His passport says he is from louisiana. He is an illegal immigrant frankly, and that story stays with him throughout his life. Newspaper articles write about audubon up until the day beyond the day he died and say he is from france. He is from louisiana. He is from pennsylvania, but never ever saintdomingue, and audubon does not reach out to correct them. There is an attempt to sanitize his origins, to make himself safe from any association with having been from haiti. I do point out one of the great ironies in his life is here is a man who is so meticulous in his information and depiction of birds and so devious in his description of himself. How one put that into personality type, i dont know. That is not my job. Ok. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] announcer 1 you are watching American History tv, 48 hours of history on every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. Night on the communicators, we recently attended the state of the net conference in washington dc and spoke with ical board member george, and georgia tech policy professor milton about issues with internet use today. I am concerned when they try to monitor the internet in a major way. That is not my concept of internet freedom. There is a lot of pressure on the intermediaries, facebook, suppress theer, to communication of these people oneare proisis, so that is of the fine lines you have to draw. Announcer 1 watch the communicators monday night on cspan 2. On lectures and history, Gettysburg College professor a class ono teaches abraham lincoln, his views on slavery, and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. He describes lincolns upgrading upbringing and career path that led him to debates with Stephen Douglas during the 1858 u. S. Senate race where main of one of the main topics was slavery. Professor guelzo talks about how the dred scott case served to polarize political views on whether new state admitted to the union would allow slavery. His class is about 50 minutes. Allen guelzo welcome once again to civil war era studies 205, production to the American Civil War era. We are now in our third week in this course, and my wet ground we have covered thus far. We have more to cover because we are coming up to the 1850s now. We are talking about the crises of the 1850s that really begin with the compromise of 1850 that moved into the kansasnebraska act of 1854, and we are going to