Citizen Bird

Elizabeth Cherry is a professor of sociology at Manhattanville College, where she teaches courses on human-animal studies, environmental sociology, culture, and social movements. Her primary areas of research include birding, environmental activism, the animal rights movement, veganism, and animals in art. Her most recent book, For the Birds: Protecting Wildlife through the Naturalist Gaze was published by Rutgers University Press in 2019.   Meghan Freeman is the Fellowship and Internship Librarian at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Her primary area of research is nineteenth-century British and American literature and culture, with specializations in women’s writing, children’s literature, and material culture. Among other topics, she has written on museum-going and tourism in Victorian literature, on environmentalism and utopian thinking in the Arts and Crafts movement, and on women’s arts education in the nineteenth century.   Mabel Osgood Wright (1859-1934) founded the Connecticut Audubon Society and the Birdcraft Museum and Sanctuary in Connecticut, published several books on birds and birding, and helped revive and reestablish the National Audubon Society through her work as editor and writer for Bird-Lore, the precursor to Audubon Magazine. Her book Birdcraft: A Field Book of Two Hundred Song, Game, and Water Birds (1895) is widely regarded as the first true field guide for birds, and her book Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners (1897) is cited by the Library of Congress as a milestone in the conservation movement.    Elliott Coues (1842-1899) was one of the founders, and later the president, of the American Ornithologists’ Union (now the American Ornithological Society), published numerous books and scientific papers on ornithological topics, and edited the AOU’s publication The Auk. His Key to North American Birds (1872), a highly regarded scientific bird identification manual, was revised and reprinted in six editions. One of the American Ornithological Society’s most prestigious annual awards is named after Elliott Coues.   Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874-1927) was a highly sought-after American bird illustrator, second in prominence today only to John James Audubon. He produced thousands of illustrations for many important works, including Merriam Bailey’s Handbook of Birds of the Western United States (1902), Keyser’s Birds of the Rockies (1902), Coues’s Key to North American Birds (1903), Eaton’s Birds of New York (1910-1914), and Forbush’s Birds of Massachusetts (1925-1929). The Wilson Ornithological Society has named its most prestigious award after Louis Agassiz Fuertes.

Introduction
Citizen Bird I. Overture by the Birds
II. The Doctor's Wonder Room 
III. A Sparrow Settles the Question
IV. The Building of a Bird
V. Citizen Bird
VI. The Bird as a Traveller
VII. The Bird's Nest
VIII. Beginning of the Bird Stories
IX. A Silver-Tongued Family
X. Peepers and Creepers
XI. Mockers and Scolders
XII. Woodland Warblers
XIII. Around the Old Barn
XIV. The Swallows
XV. A Brilliant Pair
XVI. A Tribe of Weed Warriors
XVII. A Midsummer Excursion
XVIII. Crows and their Cousins
XIX. A Feathered Fisherman
XX. Some Sky Sweepers
XXI. Hummers and Chimney Sweeps
XXII. Two Winged Mysteries
XXIII. A Laughing Family
XXIV. Two Odd Fellows
XXV. Cannibals in Court
XXVI. A Cooing Pair
XXVII. Three Famous Game Birds
XXVIII. On The Shore
XXIX. Up The River
XXX. Ducks and Drakes
XXI. Gulls and Terns at Home
XXXII. Chorus by the Birds
XXXIII. Procession of Bird Families Appendix 1: Supplementary Material on Citizen Bird
Appendix 2: Historical Materials on Nineteenth-Century Birding and Audubon
Appendix 3: Other Works of 19th Century Children's Literature
Appendix 4: Images
Acknowledgements