A copy of Izaak Walton’s “The Compleat Angler” is part of a new exhibition at UW’s American Heritage Center. (AHC Photo)
“‘Armed in the Wilderness’: An Exhibit About Outdoor Recreation, Conservation, and the Women and Men Who Built the Literary Genre” is a new exhibition at the American Heritage Center (AHC) of the University of Wyoming.
It highlights the UW Toppan Rare Books Library’s vast collection of outdoor recreation books and is on display through February at the Toppan Rare Books Library room in the AHC’s exhibit hall.
Books on outdoor recreation -- whether it be fishing, hunting or wildlife viewing -- make up a large part of Toppan’s collecting area. This is not surprising, as the library’s founding donors, Fred and Clara Toppan, spent a lot of their time outdoors. And when they were stuck indoors, they enjoyed reading about the outdoors.
The majority of their book collection consists of books about hunting and fishing, both fiction and nonfiction. To honor their interests and their book collection, the exhibition was designed to focus on fishing, hunting and guns, but also shows the depth of the genre.
Theodore Roosevelt’s “African Game Trails” is another book displayed in “‘Armed in the Wilderness’: An Exhibit About Outdoor Recreation, Conservation, and the Women and Men Who Built the Literary Genre.” (AHC Photo)
Visitors can see books dating back to 1704, including early copies of Izaak Walton’s “The Compleat Angler,” and the earliest English translation of Dame Juliana Berner’s “A Treatise on Fishing with a Hook.” Other parts of the exhibition illustrate key events in the outdoor sporting industry, including the conservation efforts of the Boone and Crockett Club in the late 19th century and Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ pioneering work to safeguard the Everglades in the early 20th century.
There also are works featuring the African hunting expeditions of Americans including Osa and Martin Johnson as well as works on the art of fly tying, as demonstrated by The Orvis Company and Gary LaFontaine. In all these subjects, the exhibition interweaves the roles played by men and women in popularizing the sports of fishing, hunting and shooting.
“The breadth of writers and subjects regarding outdoor recreation is fascinating,” Toppan Librarian Mary Beth Brown says. “Every time we came across a new author who wrote about the art of fishing or a book about safaris in Africa, it was like another window on the subject opened, and we had so many more books to look at and subjects to research. In particular, I was excited about how women started to design their own clothing or adapt their husbands’ so that they could be comfortably and properly attired during their outdoor adventures.”
The exhibition runs through Feb. 24. The AHC’s exhibit hall is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
