| FT-265053-19 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | Kristoffer Whitney | A History of Bird-Banding and Wildlife Conservation in 20th-century North America | 6/1/2019 - 7/31/2019 | $6,000.00 | Kristoffer | | Whitney | | | | RIT | Rochester | NY | 14623-5698 | USA | 2019 | History of Science | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 6000 | 0 | 6000 | 0 | Research and writing articles for academic and general audiences on the history of bird-banding and its relationship to environmental science.
I propose to use the NEH Summer Stipend to complete an academic article on the environmental and cultural history of bird-banding and its relationship to 20th-century conservation, as well write a shorter piece on the same subjects targeted toward a broader, popular audience online. The art and science of affixing coded markers to migratory birds (and other animals), banding was at the heart of twentieth-century wildlife management, ecology, ethology, and what could anachronistically be called environmentalism. My primary exemplar will be the biography and work of Margaret Morse Nice. Examining this history sheds light on an understudied part of American scientific, political, and cultural heritage: times in our collective past (stretching into the present) when citizens of all stripes—across divides of gender, class, and education—were an integral part of understanding and protecting nonhuman nature. |