ABOUT THE PRINT

Daniel Beard was an American illustrator, author, and youth leader. He was born into a family of artists and as a child explored the woods and made many sketches of nature. In his teens he attended art school in New York City where he illustrated a number of books for Mark Twain and other authors such as Ernest Crosby. This piece is a tear sheet from Harper’s Weekly depicting five animals that were over-hunted in the Adirondacks around the mid-nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, including a moose, elk, wolverine, beaver, panther, and wolf. Each panel is numbered from one to five. Several of these animals appear to be in distress.

In Panel One, we see a moose running over a log with perhaps a sad or lost look in his eye. This print was created around the time that moose were being extirpated from the Adirondacks, which may explain the moose’s expression. In Panel Two, we see two eastern elk gazing out over the land they once inhabited, but the subspecies were declared completely extinct in 1880 by the U.S Fish and Wildlife service due to overhunting. Panel Three depicts a beaver caught in a trap crying out while being attacked by a wolverine. Beavers were almost driven to extinction in the nineteenth century due to the fur trade on the East Coast. In Panel Four we see a panther in an attack or defensive position crawling down a tree. Panthers were extirpated in the nineteenth century due to deforestation, habitat loss, and overhunting. In the final panel, a wolf with its paw in a trap is shown in a defensive pose, growling and drooling from the mouth with its tails between the legs. This shows how humans have invaded and destroyed its land. The print warns of regional extinction, implying that if nothing changes all animals will soon be gone. This image was created at the time the Adirondack Forest Preserve was being created, the first environmental conservation movement throughout the Adirondacks. -Rhodes Moffett ’28

Daniel Beard
“Evicted Tenants” of the Adirondacks, from Harper’s Weekly, vol. 29, no. 1471, 1885
Hand-colored wood engraving
SLU 99.7
Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
St. Lawrence University
Canton, NY