revolutionary dog truce

british library flickr

Germantown, Pennsylvania, October 1777:  American and British troops face each other across the battlefield. They've been doing this since the 4th of October under the commands of Sir William Howe (British) and George Washington (American).  Washington's plan was to surround and entrap the British from all four sides.  Because the American forces weren't as experienced as their opponents, this didn't quite work, and resulted in a defeat for the American forces.
The Battle of Germantown may have been an overall loss, but there was one small win for the Colonies on October 6: a short cease fire was called so the Americans could return a small dog to his owner...his British owner, Sir William Howe.  A terrier with Howe's name on his collar had been found unharmed but grubby on the battlefield.  Washington had the little guy cleaned and fed, then escorted back to Howe under a flag of truce with a note:

General Washington's compliments to General Howe - He does himself the pleasure to return him a dog, which by its collar appears to belong to him accidentally fell into his hands, and by the inscription on the collar appears to belong to his Excellency Sir William General Howe.  

Strikeouts are as in original note (and the habit of addressing nobility obviously dies hard, it seems). Want to see it?  I found it here. 

PS: Your friendly Curator has been in the middle of a major move for a while now and that's not going to settle down quite yet.  Stay tuned, and I'll post as I can. 

string!

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, www.nga.gov (PD)

This delicate portrait by Joseph Goodhue Chandler (American, 1813-84) dates from c. 1836-38.  He had only just embarked on his painting career, and most of his early work is of family members.  Perhaps this brown-eyed "Girl With a Kitten" is one of these relations.  It's interesting to me how well modeled her face is compared to the flattened treatment of her dress and her pose; I also note the fine spray of greenery outside the window, which to me reflects all the tender growing this young lady has ahead.  As sweet as she looks, she's got a fierce companion:

Would you look at that face?  What a mighty hunter.  

the book collector and his feline friends

Dewitt Miller (American, 1857-1911) was wholly a man of letters.  An educator, speaker, and minister, he is perhaps best known as a book collector.  Like many (most?) of us book enthusiasts, he had a soft spot for cats.  Here's what his friend Leon Vincent recalls:

Other animals besides those of the human  race were the objects of Miller's benevolence. He delighted in parrots, squirrels, cats, and dogs, and had a profound respect for a horse. I well remember his satisfaction when the high-bred Angora cat that dwelt at the Glen jumped on his knee for the first time of its own accord; he had not looked for so great an honor. His face beamed as he stroked the little creature's head with his ample hand. They made a comical pair of comrades, Miller being so very large and the cat so exceedingly small.
Two or three of his cat-friends always received at Christmas time postal money-orders (made out in the name of their respective masters), to the end that they might properly celebrate the day with extra portions of cream or chunks of liver. On the occasion of his last visit to Boston he insisted on leaving fifty cents to buy holiday meats for the cat that guards the Old South book-shop.
What a charming way to be remembered.

- from Vincent, Leon H. 1859-1941. Dewitt Miller. Cambridge: Printed at the Riverside press, 1912. pp. 134-5.

teddy roosevelt wrangles the pets

Theodore Roosevelt's letters to his children are a pleasure to read (except for descriptions of big-game hunting, at which you chalk it up to the times, wince, and move on).  They are affectionate, funny, thoughtful, and wide-ranging; there is a passage on Dickens as a writer vs. Dickens as a man which is not at all complimentary toward the latter.  The letters are also full of animal news, as the Roosevelt family was fond of pets.  Here's a couple of passages from January 1908 about two of the White House zoo, including a kitchen cat that invited itself to an official reception.
***
White House, Jan. 2, 1908.
. . . Mother continues much attached to Scamp, who is certainly a cunning little dog. He is very affectionate, but so exceedingly busy when we are out on the grounds, that we only catch glimpses of him zigzagging at full speed from one end of the place to the other. The kitchen cat and he have strained relations but have not yet come to open hostility. 

White House, Jan. 27, 1908.
DEAR ARCHIE:
Scamp is really a cunning little dog, but he takes such an extremely keen interest in hunting, and is so active, that when he is out on the grounds with us we merely catch glimpses of him as he flashes by. The other night after the Judicial Reception when we went up-stairs to supper the kitchen cat suddenly appeared parading down the hall with great friendliness, and was forthwith exiled to her proper home again.

-- from Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919. Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children. New York: C. Scribner's sons, 1919. pp. 217-8.

vintage wednesday

image courtesy of LOC, assumed PD
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.38874

"Stray dog seated at a desk in the congressional office of Representative Charles Wilson."

mrs custer and the dogs

Elizabeth Custer (1842-1933), the wife of George Armstrong Custer, had been raised in comfort and privilege as a judge's daughter.  Even so, she readily followed her husband wherever he went on his military career despite the discomforts of travel.  After Custer's death, "Libbie" Custer devoted her energies to his image, publishing popular books on his life and the adventures she had shared with him. From her first, Boots and Saddles (1885), here's a passage about camping on the plains and how the family dogs found the comfiest digs:

While we were all getting accustomed to the new climate, it was of no use to try to keep the dogs out of my tent. They stood around, and eyed me with such reproachful looks if I attempted to tie up the entrance to the tent and leave them out. If it were very cold when I returned from the dining-tent, I found dogs under and on the camp-bed, and so thickly scattered over the floor that I had to step carefully over them to avoid hurting feet or tails. If I secured a place in the bed I was fortunate. Sometimes, when it had rained, and all of them were wet, I rebelled. The steam from their shaggy coats was stifling; but the general begged so hard for them that I taught myself to endure the air at last. I never questioned the right of the half-grown puppies to everything. Our struggles to raise them, and to avoid the distemper which goes so much harder with blooded than with cur dogs, endeared them to us. When I let the little ones in, it was really comical to hear my husband’s arguments and cunningly-devised reasons why the older dogs should follow. A plea was put up for “the hound that had fits;” there was always another that “had been hurt in hunting;” and so on until the tent would hold no more. Fortunately, in pleasant weather, I was let off with only the ill or injured ones for perpetual companions. We were so surrounded with dogs when they were resting after the march, and they slept so soundly from fatigue, that it was difficult to walk about without stepping on them.

-- Custer, Elizabeth Bacon, 1842-1933. "Boots And Saddles": Or, Life In Dakota With General Custer. New York: Harper & brothers, 1885. p. 57.

brass

www.philamuseum.org 1957-95-1
Gift of Walter M. Jeffords, 1957

"Thomas, Phipps; Philadelphia 1786." says the engraving on this brass dog collar. It's thin metal, and I assume (and hope) it was able to flex open just enough for Thomas Phipps to pop his dog's neck within its confines.

a dog watches

Gift of Arnold Whitcomb Morse in memory of his parents Guilford Alden and Isabel Barton Morse
collections.artsmia.org (PD)

A little boy, wearing the dress-like children's clothing of the time (c. 1835), listens to a ticking watch.  The family dog watches over him with an alert expression, or at least that's what I think he was meant to do; in a larger view you can see that he actually seems to be behind the boy, and so he's actually looking offstage.  It's all part of the charm of this simply fashioned oil portrait by Samuel Miller of Boston, about whom there's not much available.  In its flatness, the portrait also takes on a certain timelessness, which becomes more poignant when we learn that the act of listening to the watch likely indicates this as a posthumous portrait (see the painting's page at the Minneapolis Institute of Art).  The same bright yellow picks out the watch, its chain, and the dog's collar.  Did Miller mean us to contrast how quickly time flies with the patient devotion of the dog? 

happy 4th of july!

May all in your family, human, finned, feathered, furred, celebrate happily and safely!  

And while you're hanging out for the holiday, I'd like to point you toward the story of two unusual Presidential pets: Mr. Protection and Mr. Reciprocity, opossum chums of President Benjamin Harrison.  The Presidential Pet Museum has a photo of Harrison with one of them. Look.

modern fable: the hound and the bulldog

From a book of wacky fables, published in Kansas in 1900:

-- McNeal, T. A. 1853-1942. Tom McNeal's Fables. Topeka, Kan.: Crane & company, 1900. p. 139.

a faithful parrot

The American symbolist painter Elihu Vedder (1836-1923) spent part of his childhood in Cuba.  After a while his parents thought the climate too hot for his health, and he was sent back to the care of his grandparents in New York.  As he writes in his memoir The Digressions of V., he left one particular friend behind him:

...I began to look sallow, and was packed off North. But I left one broken heart behind me, that of poor Cottorita, my parrot. She had been given me very young, and loved as only a parrot or dog can love. I have always been sorry that I did not take the dear thing with me, for she went about for three days after my departure, calling, " Nino Elijio! Nino Elijio! " and then flew away and was never seen again. When I went to the Spanish school she would station herself at the house-door and wait patiently until I came back, and then, climbing up, never quitted my shoulder. When I remember that a parrot can live a hundred years, there is no reason why she should not be rubbing a dear old head against my cheek at this present moment. Grandpa's old parrot, who had passed his youth among sailors and who used to ask, "What o'clock?" and when told the time, would reply, "You be damned!" amused me, but never consoled me for the loss of poor Cottorita.

-- Vedder, Elihu, 1836-1923. The Digressions of V.. London: Constable , 19111910.p. 76.

a lonely hippo

Bayard Taylor (American, 1825-58) was a diplomat, traveler, and poet.  His adventures included backpacking through Europe for two years, writing a song for Jenny Lind, tracking part of the Nile, sailing along on Perry's voyage to Japan, and being appointed to the U.S. diplomatic service in Russia. Tired yet?  He did far more.  You can read about it here.
One small little adventuresome act is my post for today.  On a visit to Barnum's Museum, Taylor spotted a lonely-looking hippo.  Being a man of great sympathy with animals, he decided to reach out:

"In the first place, animals have much more capacity to understand human speech than is generally supposed. Some years ago, seeing the hippopotamus in Barnum's Museum looking very stolid and dejected, I spoke to him in English, but he did not even move his eyes. Then I went to the opposite corner of the cage and said in Arabic: 'I know you; come here to me.' He instantly turned his head toward me. I repeated the words, and thereupon he came to the corner where I was standing, pressed his huge, ungainly head against the bars of the cage, and looked in my face with a touching delight while I stroked his muzzle. I have two or three times found a lion who recognised the same language, and the expression of his eyes for an instant seemed positively human."

Note: Don't stroke a hippo's muzzle. I'm glad it worked out in this case, but normally that's a really good way to get your arm ripped off.  Just FYI.

- From Sanborn, Kate, 1839-1917. My Literary Zoo. New York: D. Appleton and company, 1896. pp. 10-1.

feed the kitty

https:\\collections.artsmia.org Gift of Katherine Kierland Herberger

Though this springing kitty bank is fun to look at and probably more so to use, I sighed with disappointment when I noticed the Asian figure on the end.  This toy bank was made circa 1882 by Charles A. Bailey of Connecticut, and I know it reflects common images of the time - but the bank would have been far more beautiful without it.  So why did I post it?  Because a curator can't avoid the past, but she can offer it as an example of how much better to do from there.  Plus, I do like the cat itself.

victoria the post office cat

Washington D.C., 1919:  a young Italian strikes a blow for equality as a single mother and immigrant in the employ of the US Postal Service.  Victor Emmanuel, a tortoiseshell left behind by a foreign official, was adopted by the city post office as a staff mouser, only to surprise her employer with the value-added gift of four kittens and a fast rethink on gender.

-- Angell, George T. (George Thorndike), 1823-1909, and Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Our Dumb Animals. [Boston]: Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, v. 52 no. 2 (July 1919), p. 27.

vintage dog license application

Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Printed Ephemera Collection
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.07303000

Reading, Massachusetts, the 1860's:  here's your application for your MALE dog's license.  I wonder why they didn't simply provide a space to write that in.

two tender creatures

Smithsonian American Art Museum http://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1977.92

"Sit for me just a little," I imagine J. Alden Weir saying to his wife Anna sometime round 1890. "I want to paint you exactly as you are right now."  The result was this small impressionistic oil "Portrait of a Lady with a Dog (Anna Baker Weir),"  kept in the family till the 1970's.  (The dog's name was Gyp.)  Weir was a member of "The Ten," the breakaway group of American artists that challenged stylistic and exhibition norms of the time. An interesting and detailed account of Weir can be found on the NPS.gov site of his farm, here.

wishing you all

Leonard A. Lauder Collection of American Posters, Gift of Leonard A. Lauder, 1984 https://www.metmuseum.org

I borrowed from the great American illustrator Edward Penfield to help me say:

Merry Christmas!

I am grateful for every one of you

and wish you warmth and joy today and always.

who's watching whom?

Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. "Three cats watching fish in an aquarium" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1938. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b992a521-9c85-2498-e040-e00a18063ad7

This illustration by Clyde A. Copson is from a children's book called "A Day with Bum; and the Smart Little Fish," by Morris Wilson, published in 1938.  I can't find anything about Copson or Wilson, but the record for this piece at the New York Public Library notes that the book was created under a Works Progress Administration program for new reading materials.

a chipmunk does a hat

By Gilles Gonthier from Canada
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In which Anna Botsford Comstock relates the tale of a pet chipmunk with a taste for nuts and fashion, in that order...

***

Miss Irene Hardy, of Palo Alto, Cal., has had marked success in making pets of the little chipmunks of the Sierras. One called Chipsy was especially interesting. He was allowed the freedom of her room, and after she had filled the dish on the table with English walnuts, he would keep himself busy for a long time stealing and hiding them. His originality in finding hiding places was remarkable. Once he managed to get his nuts and himself into a covered bandbox on the closet shelf and stored his precious walnuts in the velvet bows of a bonnet. His unsuspecting mistress wore the bonnet thus decorated to church and did not discover the work of her new milliner until after she returned.

-- Anna Botsford Comstock, The Pet Book (Ithaca NY: The Comstock Publishing Company, 2nd ed., 1915) p. 84.

a brave dog in a children's book, 1843

public domain scan from hathitrust.org

No clue who Bose is, or whose dog.  He simply appears on the last page of a little children's book published in New Hampshire 150 years ago, for no apparent reason than to be an object lesson. 

Bogert, J. Augustus., Eastman, H., Merrill, R. (1843-1854). Stories about dogs. Concord, N.H.: Rufus Merrill.