O Caçador Ambientalista: Theodore Roosevelt e os Acervos Museológicos de História Natural nos Estados Unidos

O Caçador Ambientalista: Theodore Roosevelt e os Acervos Museológicos de História Natural nos Estados Unidos

Educate Kermit Roosevelt Through Sport Hunting and Train Him for Government Missions. Roosevelt Scientific Mission to English Equatorial Africa in 1909

The practice of sport hunting in colonized areas presents a set of knowledge and techniques indispensable to self-control and the domination of territories elsewhere by colonial empires, by their leaders and, more generally, by the political elites of the Northern states. During his scientific mission to English Equatorial Africa in 1909, Theodore Roosevelt responded to a double commission from the Smithsonian Institute and the American Museum in Washington. In this African mission, he brought and trained his youngest son Kermit, aged 20, in an initiatory journey. This article proposes to study this ritual of passage and the practice of sport hunting in the English colonial space as a revelation of the socio-racial hierarchies at work in the territories dominated by the English Empire.

William Crawford Gorgas and the Panama Canal

This chapter relates how yellow fever continued to cause casualties during the US occupation after the Spanish-American War ended and how Major William Crawford Gorgas created a successful strategy to eliminate the disease from Cuba by attacking mosquito breeding sites. It goes on to tell the story of the plan to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, proposed earlier that century, with the Panama Railroad transporting military goods and soldiers, plus those seeking gold in California. A canal was proposed, but the first, French effort to build it cost hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of workers’ lives lost before capitulating to yellow fever in 1889. Subsequent US construction, begun in 1904, was soon threatened by disease. When Colonel Gorgas brought his yellow fever control plan to Panama he faced criticism from his superiors but gained the support of President Theodore Roosevelt. The chapter relates how his plan, though seemingly improbable, worked, defeating yellow fever, saving countless lives, and allowing the completion of the canal.

Annotating Colonialism

This exhibition review essay compares three recent interventions into historic cultural representations at the American Museum of Natural History: the Digital Totem that was placed in the Northwest Coast Hall in 2016 to partially modernize its content, the 2018 reconsideration of the Old New York Diorama, which attempts to correct its stereotypical representations of Native North American peoples, and the 2019 exhibition Addressing the Statue providing context for the Theodore Roosevelt statue. Paying attention to visual and textual strategies, I characterize these three interventions as temporary annotations to what have been remarkably static, long-term cultural representations. I argue that, through these annotations, the museum acknowledges the misrepresentations but does not resolve them. The case studies show varying degrees of critical historical reflection expressing the complexities of negotiating different approaches and agendas to engaging with the museum’s past. I also comment on the pervasiveness of a digital aesthetics in all three projects, even though only the Digital Totem was produced as a digital, interactive intervention into the museum space. The invocation of a digital design vocabulary enhances the impression of annotation.

The 1909–1912 Intervention in Nicaragua

This chapter contains the second case study of US regime change in the Western Hemisphere—the intervention in Nicaragua from 1909 to 1912 under US president William Howard Taft. The chapter explores the decision-making process within the Taft administration vis-à-vis Nicaragua and compares it to US-Nicaragua relations under Taft’s presidential predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt. Tracing emotional frustration in the Taft administration, the chapter shows how Taft extended US expectations toward Nicaragua, how his perceptions of Nicaraguan obstruction were more negative than Roosevelt’s, and how negative affect dominated his government’s decision-making. Emotional frustration outlived the presidency of Nicaraguan president José Zelaya, prompting Taft to target his successor, José Madriz, and a following insurrection led by Luis Mena. The chapter ends with a critical review of five alternative explanations for the Taft government’s intervention in Nicaragua.