From 7th Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York (1901). Illustration by Oliver Kemp.
The year 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the legislation that founded the National Trail System, a web of trails that provides us with access to some of America’s most beautiful natural scenery and important historic monuments. Passed in 1968, the National Trail Systems Act was one outgrowth of a long, often complicated movement in American history to preserve a priceless heritage. For our newest special collections spotlight, we pluck from Mann’s vault a publication, the Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York, that plays an interesting role in this history.
Now known as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Forest, Fish and Game Commission was established in 1895 with the charge of overseeing use of the New York Forest Preserve, which was itself established by the State Legislature ten years earlier to encompass and keep "forever wild" large tracts in the Adirondack and Catskill regions of New York State. The Commission’s work not only protected natural resources of the Preserve but served the role of fostering public appreciation for the value of wilderness and green spaces.
From Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York (1901). Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes.
With an eye to its latter aim, the Forest, Fish and Game Commission began publishing an illustrated report series. Each volume reported on the main areas of management concern for the Commission (forest production, game, and fire protection), but also included essays or instructive feature articles by early figures in America’s fledgling conservation movement. Notable contributors included Bernhard Eduard Fernow, who, as a Polish immigrant to the U.S., was the first dean of the short-lived New York State College of Forestry at Cornell University and is considered a founding father of scientific forestry in the United States; and George B. Grinnell, an American anthropologist and naturalist widely celebrated for his key role in saving the American bison from extinction. Of much more clouded reputation was another featured writer, New York City lawyer, Madison Grant, who advocated eloquently for the conservation of New York wildlife in the Report series, yet in other publications infamously argued on behalf of an openly racist line of eugenics—making him no hero for the environmentalist cause as it evolved in the 20th century.
From the Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the state of New York (1895). Illustration by Sherman Foote Denton.
While the writings found in the Commission’s Report series thus reveal some of the checkered back story to the American conservationist movement, its lush illustrations were arguably its most consistently effective asset in winning hearts and minds for the cause of wilderness preservation. For the series, the New York State government recruited some of the most popular American nature and landscape artists of the day. Among them were famed ornithological illustrator and Cornell graduate, Louis Agassiz Fuertes (considered the most prolific ornithological illustrator after James Audubon), the artist Sherman Foote Denton, whose chromolithographs of North American fish continue to be prized works on the antiquarian print market, and artist and amateur explorer Oliver Kemp, of Saturday Evening Post cover art fame. The work by these luminaries in the Report series offer some of the loveliest environmental artistry of the early 20th century, rendered in high quality chromolithography.
From Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York (1901). Illustration by Oliver Kemp. (Note: At the time Kemp created this illustration, the American Moose (Alces americanus), New York’s largest mammal, had not been sighted in the state for close to forty years. Careful reintroduction, protection and habitat conservation efforts since the early 20th century have succeeded in bringing a growing number of moose back into the Adirondack mountains and Taconic Highlands along the Vermont and Massachusetts border.)
The Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York ended its run after fifteen years of sometimes intermittent publication. It’s easy to imagine that the cost of producing such an expansively illustrated series simply to report state forestry news and views ultimately made it an easy item to strike from the New York State budget. But by the time of its last publication in 1910, developments such as the founding of a National Park System (1916) and passage of the New York State Reforestation Act (1929) were just around the corner—making it easy to also think that the Commission's Report series did manage an important goal: Helping to shape public opinion in the right direction for resource conservation in New York and beyond.
So, as you dig into your summer activities this season, keep the 50th anniversary of our National Trails System in mind, and consider joining the celebration. Find out how at https://www.trails50.org/ And however you’re enjoying the great outdoors this summer, don’t forget the efforts of organizations like the NYS Forest, Fish and Game Commission, who worked to make these beautiful wild lands available to us today, and for generations to come.
From Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York (1901). Illustration by Oliver Kemp.
