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John
James Audubon was an ornithologist, painter,
and naturalist. He was born in 1785 as an illegitimate
child. He was raised in France by his stepmother.
In 1803, Audubon's father arranged for him to
travel to the United States to avoid being drafted
in the Napoleonic Wars. He learned English in
a Quaker boarding home and married his neighbor
Lucy Bakewell in 1808. Audubon tended to a family
farm near Philadelphia where he became the first
person in North America to band birds. He learned
that birds return to the same nesting place
each year by tying yarn to the legs of an Eastern
Phoebe. He also began to paint birds.
After
business ventures failed, Audubon decided to
pursue his love of painting birds. He traveled
down the Mississippi River, and shot birds so
he could paint them. He used wires to prop them
in natural positions to make the paintings as
realistic as possible. Audubon apparently shot
prodigious numbers of birds and angered contemporaries
such as Alexander Wilson. Audubon had no success
selling pictures in America, but became an instant
success in London, where the English saw him
as the "American Woodsman". Audubon
raised enough money to publish his now legendary
Birds of America in 1827. Audubon soon published
more books and returned to America, where he
bought an estate on the Hudson River. In 1842,
Birds of America was published in the United
States. He also had a home in Key West, Florida.
The Audubon Society was dedicated and named
in his honor in 1896. |
