Scope and Content Note
The papers of William Temple Hornaday (1854-1937) span the years 1866-1975, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period between 1906 and 1936. The collection consists of correspondence, diaries, journals, production material for articles and books, notebooks, financial papers, clippings, scrapbooks, memorabilia, and other papers reflecting Hornaday's career, particularly as director of New York Zoological Park (1896-1926). The papers are organized into ten series: Family Papers; General Correspondence; Speech, Article, and Book File; Camp Fire Club of America File; Miscellany; Addition I; Addition II; Addition III; Addition IV; and Oversize
Hornaday's various activities as taxidermist, collector, zoological park director, and wildlife conservationist are well documented; there are also deeds and property contracts for his ventures in real estate in Buffalo, New York. Reflecting Hornaday's family life is correspondence with his wife, Josephine Chamberlain Hornaday, and daughter, Helen Ross Hornaday Fielding, as well as exchanges of letters with other relatives in the Family Papers series and in the correspondence of Addition I.
William T. Hornaday became the first director of the New York Zoological Park in 1896 and remained in that position until his retirement in 1926. The need for wildfire conservation measures became his paramount interest during this period, and the correspondence in the collection contains references to his activities and campaigns in this endeavor. Correspondents include Edith Helen Franz, Madison Grant, Jack Miner, the New York Zoological Society, Henry Fairfield Osborn, John M. Phillips, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.
Other prominent correspondents include Carl Ethan Akeley, Roy Chapman Andrews, Newton Diehl Baker, Daniel Carter Beard, William Beebe, Charles E. Bessey, Frank Buck, John Burroughs, Andrew Carnegie, Elliot Coues, Raymond Lee Ditmars, Theodore Dreiser, G. Brown Goode, Zane Grey, Carl Hagenbeck, W. J. Holland, Charles Evans Hughes, Martin Johnson, S. P. Langley, C. Hart Merriam, Maxwell E. Perkins, Gifford Pinchot, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt, Ernest Thompson Seton, George Shiras, John Wanamaker, and Henry A. Ward.
As president of the American Bison Society, Hornaday worked to prevent the extinction of the bison. He also supported such legislation as the New York (State) Bayne Act of 1911 and tariff measures to prohibit wanton wildlife destruction and helped raise money to establish the Permanent Wild Life Protection Fund. Material pertaining to these activities is in the collection. For thirty years, Hornaday maintained an interest in the Camp Fire Club of America and its camping and hunting programs. He wrote the music and words for a camp-fire song and saved many mementoes of the club's activities.
During World War I, Hornaday promoted preparedness and became a trustee of the American Defense Society. Under its aegis, he published pamphlets and a book, Awake! America (New York, Moffat, Yard and Co., 1918), materials for which are in the collection along with scrapbooks relating to other aspects of World War I, particularly the French war debt.
Topics among the voluminous writings in the collection include conservation, exploration, natural history, taxidermy, travel, and zoology. In addition to production materials for published works, there are several unpublished manuscripts, one of them about Hornaday's South American expedition for Henry A. Ward's Canoe and Rifle on the Orinoco as well as a number of chapters omitted from Thirty Year War for Wild Life and additions continuing the account to 1936. There are also manuscripts and typescripts of Hornaday's writing under the pseudonyms “Just in Playfair” and “Dudley York,” his plays and poetry, and patriotic contributions from World War I.
Addition II consists of a typescript of Hornaday's unpublished autobiography, “Eighty Fascinating Years”; a doctoral dissertation on his early life; and a children's book about Hornaday by John Ripley Forbes.
Addition III consists of material relating to Hornaday's interest in taxidermy and wildlife conservation and career at the United States National Museum in Washington, D.C., and New York Zoological Park. Scrapbooks include clippings from published sources, handwritten notations, and inserts such as correspondence and pamphlets. Also included is Hornaday's buffalo hunting journal from 1886; a sketch pad containing drawings related to the buffalo hunt; and a diary kept by Hornaday about acquiring land for the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., followed by his field notes and initial surveys of the unmapped site of the New York Zoological Park.
Addition IV includes Hornaday's handwritten diary from 1889 with entries on the founding of the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., as well as entries about meetings with S. P. Langley and the National Zoological Park Commission and surveying land in the Rock Creek area. This diary complements the diary and scrapbooks in Addition III about the National Zoological Park. Also included are correspondence from Howard Eaton of Eatons' Ranch, Wolf, Wyoming, to Hornaday and printed matter about Eatons' Ranch.