Thornton Burgess and the Nature Study Movement

TWB feeding a squirrel. New England Homestead, February 25, 1905

Reading Kevin Armitage's recent book, The Nature Study Movement: The Forgotten Popularizer of America's Conservation Ethic, I was struck by how many Nature Study themes informed the work of Thornton Burgess, from theories of recapitulation and the promotion of gardening to the encouragement of direct observation of nature, birds in particular. I placed TWB as a second-generation Nature Study proponent--influenced by but not directly involved in the movement during its initial years. I was mistaken.

By 1904, Burgess was the "Young Folks' Editor" at the New England Homestead. During this period he instituted an "Outdoors Club" and, foreshadowing his bird sanctuary campaign work at the People's Home Journal, established a correspondence feature, "Friends of our Native Birds." Children were asked to write in with lists of birds they had observed (and gently scolded for their lack of close observation when they would list things such as "brown hawk" or "woodpecker.") They were also asked to write about what they had done for birds, such as putting out food or building houses (or removing house sparrow nests). Readers of this blog will remember that this "help the birds" theme runs through the rest of TWB's career, from his Bedtime Story "personal letters" to the Green Meadow Club, through the various incarnations of the Radio Nature League.

The key text is from December 24, 1904, p. 22 (TWB has a credited Christmas poem on the same page). Following a column on bird study by Lee A. Stafford (about whom the internet is silent), Burgess writes "A Plea for our Feathered Friends."

It begins:

In an apple-tree on the edge of an old orchard which the Young Folks' Editor visits frequently, is fastened by means of wire a suet bone with plenty of suet clinging to it. In another tree in the same orchard hangs a big lump of suet would around with string to prevent some greedy fellow from taking more than his just share at a time. Thither every day come a host of grateful little bird folk and after thoroughly searching the trees for insect eggs and hidden larvae, they complete their meal on the suet. And the Young Folks' Editor knows that, no matter how severe the winter, his little guests will weather it safely, for with full stomachs to keep up the life heat they can withstand almost any weather.

He proposes a club:

Now let us get down to work. Let us band ourselves together informally as "Friends of our Native Birds," until a better name suggests itself. All you have to do is to put out food for the birds and then drop a card to the Young Folks' Editor, this office, telling what you have done. Your name will then be added to the roll and published. This is for older folks as well as boys and girls...

Note, this is a clear model for the Radio Nature League "silver star" membership some 20 years later. Even the hard-sell model of solicitation is familiar:

WHO WILL BE FIRST from his or her county to be enrolled? Think of the suffering you can relieve at no trouble to yourself. ...DON'T DELAY. Think of the vivacious beauty of the plainest of our songsters and then picture to yourself that happy little sprite perishing miserably of starvation and exposure. Don't delay, girls and boys! Did you ever have the cold nip your fingers and toes until you cried? Then think of the little birds who cannot help themselves. If they have enough to eat they will keep warm. Won't you help in this great work? GET OTHERS TO HELP. Don't stop with your own efforts. Get all of your friends to do likewise. When they are also feeding the birds, send in their names to be added to the roll. Let us see what town will lead in this good work. Begin now. Don't postpone.

And thus Burgess effectively begins his first of many nature study clubs.

Note, I am extremely grateful for Michael Dowhan's TWB magazine bibliography, which lists almost all the New England Homestead articles credited to Burgess under his various pseudonyms (with page numbers!) Dowhan, however, does not list uncredited material, which means that much of Burgess's writing as "Young Folks' Editor" goes unmentioned.

Bedtime Story Personal Letters

In September, 1915, Thornton Burgess began writing a weekly column designed to appear on Sundays in newspapers running his bedtime story feature and hosting a Bedtime Story Club. (The Boston Daily Globe, which apparently didn't have a club, ran reprints of Mother West Wind stories instead). These were called "personal letters"--Burgess addressed his readers directly and attempted to guide club activities. 

In many ways this column prefigures the Radio Nature League, not just in the kinds of concerns addressed (feed the birds, make bird houses) but in the way Burgess tries to create a personal connection with his audience. Google News Archive offers access to these personal letters via its Milwaukee Journal collection. Not all of them are indexed, but I was able to browse through a few months worth to give you links to the first 25 or so of these columns. 

You may remember that the Bedtime Story club concept was an invention of the Kansas City Star and was then picked up by other papers, most notably the New York Globe. The Milwaukee Journal first announced the club on May 20, 1915.

   

 To read the copy, click on the image below.  

Children were instructed to clip a coupon from the following Sunday's paper to become a member (and receive a cool badge). It wasn't necessary to formally sign a pledge to be kind to animals; club membership was enough.

   

 Here's the coupon

   

 The club was advertised again the following week. Three thousand had signed up; the Journal wanted tens of thousands.

   

As far as I can tell, the club's main business for the first few months was a story contest. That changed, however, when Thornton W. Burgess himself became the effective club leader.

  Here's the opening column, dated September 26, 1915. 

 

Burgess charges the membership to be "kind to Mother Nature's children" and "protect them from their enemies", adding that he wants to make the club a "tremendous power for good." He also invites readers to imagine that he has a personal relationship with each one of them. 

Pauline stories, or, how to get readers to read the ads

As early as 1903, Good Housekeeping was running advertising-related puzzles. Readers could win cash prizes and advertiser merchandise by solving the puzzles and finding the associated Good Housekeeping ads. Beginning in 1906, Good Housekeeping ran a series of advertising puzzle stories. The stories featured Pauline, as narrated by her husband, James, in a variety of domestic situations. Thornton Burgess wrote the stories. Here's an example from June 1906. (click to read it).

 Look through the ads before and after the Pauline story. Got the answer? No, it's not "Hand-I-Hold Babe Mits."

 Here is the answer, pretty simple in my opinion.  

The Pauline stories work in two ways. First, in an era of increasing advertising clutter (yes, this was a problem even 100 years ago), the contest was a way to focus attention on magazine ads. 

Second, this was essentially branded entertainment. While the stories are not strikingly original, they are well-written and lightly humorous. Good solid slice-of-life long copy ads, really. This was an era in which the relationships between media, advertisers, and readers were still being worked out. 

Next: Bedtime Story Personal Letters

The Colgate Incident

Illustration for "Great fun on a slippery slide" (May 17, 1915).

 In the Thornton Burgess collection at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, there is a folder marked "Colgate Incident." I don't know if Burgess tells this story elsewhere (I don't see a reference in his autobiography) or ever refers to it this way. [UPDATE: the incident is central to a 1929 People's Home Journal profile, titled "Why is Thornton W. Burgess]. Nevertheless, it is an amusing story.

Sometime during 1923, Burgess happened to see an advertisement for Colgate Ribbon Toothpaste featuring an illustration of an otter sliding down a river bank. Burgess wrote a letter to Colgate asking why the otter was sliding with its front legs erect. Had anyone ever seen an otter slide like this? The authorities he had consulted made it doubtful. [Note: I wonder if he was worried that Harrison Cady's 1915 illustration--above--had spread false information.]

Burgess received his reply and soon received an invitation to write stories for a series of six Colgate ads (for a significant amount of money). Colgate's agency at the time was Thresher Service Advertising in New York.

The six stories have Peter Rabbit, in his finest Burgess Bird Book for Children form, visiting a series of animal friends and learning how important their teeth are to them. Animals featured included Paddy the Beaver, Billy Mink (needs sharp teeth to catch fish), Reddy Fox (needs sharp teeth to challenge Old Man Coyote), Happy Jack Squirrel, and Prickly Porky. In one story Peter himself is caught in a trap and needs to gnaw his way out. Clearly teeth are important--maybe "the most important thing anyone can have."

What is remarkable about these ads is how masterfully the stories make the persuasive point (you must care for your teeth; Colgate is the best way to do it) while preserving the integrity of the truthful animal story. It is in fact, completely true that these animals wouldn't survive if they lacked sound teeth.

The HGARC offers other examples of Burgess characters and advertising: "The Baby Turtle that Startles Peter Rabbit" written for the Animate Toy Company in 1920; "Wah Wah Taysee" written for Mohawk Ozonate Beverages; "Peter Rabbit Puts on Airs," licensed for use in an advertising booklet for Frozen Mints chewing gum. Unlike the Colgate Incident, however, the archive only provides the manuscripts, not the background information.

Finally, though this is more Harrison Cady than Burgess per se, a famous (among collectors, anyway) ad for Fisk Redtop Tires.


Next: Pauline stories, or, how to get readers to read ads

Happy Jack's Thrift Club

 

 Thornton Burgess lays out the story of Happy Jack's Thrift Club in his autobiography as well as in a March 1923 profile in The Rotarian (Burgess was a long-standing member of the Rotary Club). I've used the Rotarian account below: 

During the war when the thrift and war-savings stamps were introduced, I was appealed to by a local committee for aid in interesting the school children in buying these stamps. They had not taken hold well in the schools of my city. Patriotism and thrift were the only appeals. Thrift is a dry subject at best even to the adult mind. I wrote a series of stories of Happy Jack Squirrel, the thriftiest of animals, and how he formed a thrift club in the Green Forest to which only such of his neighbors as laid up food for future use and thus were thrifty could belong. Peter Rabbit, happy-go-lucky and thriftless, wanted to become a member, and in his misdirected endeavors to be thrifty made plain even to the smallest child the difference between thrift and thriftlessness. 

 Five Happy Jack thrift stories appeared in the Springfield Republican starting March 21, 1918. 

Burgess masterfully frames the natural behavior of the gray squirrel in moral and persuasive terms. In subsequent episodes, Peter Rabbit attempts to join the club, which includes most of his quaddy friends, and when he fails (Happy Jack breaks the truth to him: "You're lazy") Peter initially thinks to set up his own "thriftless" club but eventually becomes an "associate member" by helping other animals with their collections. The last story in the series makes the sell: "Happy Jack helps Uncle Sam."

   

Burgess's stories were a hit. 

Happy Jack Thrift Clubs immediately sprang up in every school. There were Happy Jack parades, plays and other activities. The relation of thrift to patriotism was so obvious that no child could miss it. The success of the plan was immediate. The idea was taken up by the state committee and later spread to other states. 

 Burgess's skillful use of the natural behavior of animals to communicate about human morality would also be of service in advertising. 

Next: The Colgate Incident

Thornton Burgess, propagandist

In the Thornton Burgess collection at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, there is a folder marked "propaganda." We've already touched upon Burgess's association with the "Vigilantes" and his work for Hoover's wartime Food Administration. The folder includes a few more examples, primarily from the same era.

In one piece, for example, Peter Rabbit is pressed into service to advocate "early shopping" for Christmas. (This was apparently an effort by the government to get much needed revenue from sale taxes for war aims, though "Peter" explains it is based on concerns that there wouldn't be enough labor to deal with the holiday rush). [Here's an image from another branch of the same campaign].

Burgess also wrote at least one piece advocating the purchase of Liberty Loans. This time he didn't employ bedtime story characters--his rhetorical tactic was to stress that "You, the individual, are at war." [Here's an image from another branch of the same campaign]

Finally, Burgess wrote on behalf of the Victory Boys and Victory Girls, asking school children to sign a pledge card to volunteer and raise money for United War Work. This would help supply soldiers with "recreation and amusements" (and keep them away from the licentious behavior that would otherwise dominate). [Here's an image from another branch of the same campaign]

Thus Burgess participated in some of the more significant homeland propaganda efforts during World War I. His most famous contribution, however, involved one of his bedtime characters, Happy Jack Squirrel.

Next: Happy Jack's Thrift Club

Thornton Burgess, Civic Poet

On September 21, 1901, this curious poem appeared prominently in the pages of the Springfield Homestead, credited to T.W. Burgess. Readers at the time would have known immediately what it was about, but readers today may have more difficulty...

"It is God's way. His will be done."
Even as when
From templed hill from plain and from the homes of men
The shuddering forces of the night withdraw at dawn
Before the advancing splendor of the perfect morn
So in this hour of gloom, grief weighted and profane
Our cloistered hearts, sore stricken and sorrow bound,
Refusing to be comforted and making mourn
For him who we so loved, whose death naught can atone
He speaks and lo! A ray divine of purest light
Pierces the curtains of the enveloping night
"It is God's way. His will be done."

"It is God's way" We cannot question it when he,
Before the gates ajar with simple faith could see
The fullness of the Master's plan, and mindful still
Of his great charge, make clear to us the higher will
So would he comfort us and bravely presents the way.
Seeing beyond the crushing gloom the break of day
And we above our noble and illustrious dead,
Mourning the great spirit that was so foully sped
And fearful of the future affairs of state
In growing faith shall hear his voice without the gate
"It is God's way. His will be done."

What is Burgess talking about? The assassination of William McKinley, whose last words title the poem. The death of McKinley was a shock to the nation leading to a period of what seems to have been sincere mourning. Burgess's poem, which appeared the week following McKinley's death, appears to be an attempt at a kind of public consolation for the Springfield readership.

Poetry, of course, served more of a public function one hundred years ago than it does today. It is interesting to see Burgess, the patriotic good citizen, using his pen for ceremonial verse. He had long done occasional verse, providing holiday filler for the New England Homestead with countless poems about Santa Claus, Thanksgiving turkeys, and Valentine flowers. By 1903, however, these poems were appearing on the cover of the Springfield Homestead, no longer filler but rather something akin to the ritual voice of the community.

Here for example, is his 1903 Fourth of July commemoration.

Hark! With tumult that shakes the earth
A nation remembers her day of birth!
From hill and valley--from sea to sea,
Wherever on earth her sons may be,
Above the shout and the cannon's roar,
O'er plain and mountain from shore to shore,
There sounds the note of an ancient bell
Cracked and marred, yet who shall tell
How ineffably sweet is the message rung
From its brazen throat by its iron tongue!

Or, more appropriately, a 1903 cover poem, titled "Voices of the spring:"

From flower strewn mead and templed hills
A mighty anthem rising, thrills
The heart of Nature, and its theme
In grandeur rolls till it would seem
No spirit crushed or over-borne
No heart so buffeted and torn
But still must needs, uplifted, find
Surcease from sorrow, hope to bind
The bleeding wounds and faith to voice
All Nature's song--"Rejoice, rejoice!"

This is not Burgess the romantic, writing reveries about communion with nature based on his own experiences. This is Burgess employing the highly symbolic and formal language of public poetry. (He repeats the "templed hills" of the McKinley poem--you may be reminded of his neo-classical parody advertising the "Origin of Shredded Wheat.")

Next: Thornton Burgess, propagandist