Frederic S. Webster

Frederic S. Webster, illustration from Popular Science Monthly , 1901.

Kermode bear prepared by Webster (around 1905)

Frederic S. Webster was an American taxidermist .

Webster always tried to depict the prepared animals in the most lifelike environment and housing possible. In the 1860s, he photographed his stuffed birds in front of painted backdrops and sold the pictures as teaching materials in schools. He would later also become one of the first museum taxidermists who arranged the animals in diorama-like groups.

Webster worked for a time as an employee of the Ward's Natural Science Establishment like William Temple Hornaday later and was one of the founders of the Society of American Taxidermists . In 1886 he emerged as a fierce critic of the new bird protection laws and determined that an enemy rather than a friendship was being created between ornithologists and taxidermists, because the strict requirements seemed to him to be detrimental to the business of the freelance taxidermists.

From 1897 he worked for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History . In 1899 he restored a group here that Jules Verreaux had created in 1867: the attack by two lions on an Arab camel rider. Around 1900 he prepared a bearskin there that had been sold as polar bearskin to an employee of Arnold, Constable & Co. In 1905 it turned out that Webster's work was probably the first stuffed Ursus americanus kermodei .

Another well-known animal he groomed was Old or Little Sorrel , a morgan horse that had fought throughout the American Civil War and died in 1886 at the age of 36. Webster had previously stuffed Rienzi , General Philip Sheridan's horse that is now in the Smithsonian in Washington. Old Sorrel had belonged to General Stonewall Jackson and had worn him in the battle in which he was killed. Old Sorrel was prepared using a novel method and first exhibited in Webster's workshop on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The horse's skeleton was given to the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1903 , but this was a thorn in the side of many southerners . In 1949 the skeleton was transferred to the Virginia Military Institute , where the stuffed horse was now also located. In 1997 the skeleton was buried. The prepared animal, whose hair was considered a lucky charm, was gradually plucked by the visitors, today hardly consists of original parts, but is still on display.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Elizabeth Hanson, Animal Attraction. Nature on Display in American Zoos . Princeton University Press 2002, ISBN 0-691-05992-6 , p. 133.
2. ^ Mark V. Barrow: A Passion for Birds. Princeton University Press 2000, ISBN 0-691-04954-8 , p. 121.
3. ↑ Christine H. O'Toole: As Real As It Gets. ( Memento of the original from February 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Carnegie Online, 2006. Retrieved November 19, 2012.  
4. ^ The Return of the Arab Courier. carnegiemnh.org, archived from the original on January 4, 2009 ; Retrieved October 7, 2012 . 
5. ↑ Page: Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu / 485
6. ↑ roadsideamerica.com: Stuffed Civil War Hero Horse, Washington, DC , accessed October 30, 2011
7. ↑ Stonewall Jackson's Horse . In: The Washington Post . March 5, 1887.
8. ↑ Martha Boltz: Bones of Warhorse will be interred near Jackson. Washington Times, July 19, 1997, archived from the original on December 2, 2008 ; Retrieved October 7, 2012 . 
9. ^ RoadsideAmerica.com: Stonewall Jackson's Stuffed Horse.