Abstracts
Abstract
This paper troubles and historizes the symbolic use of the antelope in the field of library and information science by examining correspondence during the Lewis and Clark expedition in the nineteenth century. It shows how taking the antelope from the wild, naming and classifying the animal, and mounting it for display in a museum were part of a national literacy education program in the early United States. The “American antelope” was observed and killed during the expedition, and Thomas Jefferson, serving as both president of the United States and president of the American Philosophical Society, was intimately engaged in conversations about what to call the animal. Charles Willson Peale mounted an antelope that had been sent from the expedition and classified it according to a Linnean system. This moment is instructive for understanding how information and wild animals became things in processes of settler colonialism and empire expansion.
Keywords:
- Antelope,
- Information-as-thing,
- Settler colonialism,
- United States,
- Museums,
- Documentation
Résumé
Cet article remet en question et historicise l’utilisation symbolique de l’antilope en bibliothéconomie et sciences de l’information en examinant la correspondance durant l’expédition de Lewis et Clark au XIXe siècle. Il montre comment la capture de l’antilope dans la nature, la nomination et la classification de l’animal, et son montage pour exposition dans un musée faisaient partie d’un programme national d’éducation à la littératie aux États-Unis. "L’antilope américaine" a été observée et tuée pendant l’expédition, et Thomas Jefferson, alors président des États-Unis et président de la Société philosophique américaine, était intimement impliqué dans les discussions sur le nom à donner à l’animal. Charles Willson Peale a monté une antilope envoyée par l’expédition et l’a classée selon un système linnéen. Ce moment est instructif pour comprendre comment l’information et les animaux sauvages sont devenus des objets dans les processus de colonialisme de peuplement et d’expansion de l’empire.
Appendices
Bibliography
- Berger, J. (1980). Why Look at Animals? In About Looking, v.1, 3-28. Pantheon.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Briet, S. (2006). What is documentation? (R. E. Day, & L. Martinet, Trans.). Scarecrow Press. (Original work published 1951)Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 351-360.10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199106)42:5<351::AID-ASI5>3.0.CO;2-3 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Buckland, M. K. (1997). What is a ‘Document’? Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48, 804-809.10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199709)48:9<804::AID-ASI5>3.0.CO;2-V Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Buckland, M. K. (2017). Information and Society. MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/10922.001.0001 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Césaire, A. (1972). Discourse on Colonialism. Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Day, R. E. (2019). Documentarity: Evidence, Ontology, and Inscription. MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/11719.001.0001 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Dugatkin, L. A. (2019). Behind the Crimson Curtain: The Rise and Fall of Peale’s Museum. Butler Books.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Frohmann, B. (2012). The Documentality of Mme Briet’s Antelope. In J. Packer & S. B. Crofts Wiley (Eds.), Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks, (pp. 173-182). Routledge.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Frohmann, B. (2004). Deflating Information: From Science Studies to Documentation. University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442673779 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Halberstam, J. (2020). Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire. Duke University Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Hockett, B., & Murphy, T. W. (2009). Antiquity of Communal Pronghorn Hunting in the North-Central Great Basin. American Antiquity, 74(4), 708–734.10.1017/S0002731600049027 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Kosciejew, M. R. H. (2015). Disciplinary Documentation in Apartheid South Africa: A Conceptual Framework of Documents, Associated Practices, and Their Effects. Journal of Documentation, 71(1), 96-115.10.1108/JD-10-2013-0130 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- LaFleur, G. (2018). The Natural History of Sexuality in Early America. Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Lewis, M., & Clark, W. (1969). Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806, vol. 1. Edited by R. Gold Thwaites. Arno Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Littletree, S., Belarde-Lewis, M., & Duarte, M. (2020). Centering Relationality: A Conceptual Model to Advance Indigenous Knowledge Organization Practices. Knowledge Organization, 47(5), 410-426.10.5771/0943-7444-2020-5-410 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Looney, J. J. (Ed.). (2010). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 7, 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- McCabe, R. E., Reeves, H. M., & O’Gara, B. W. (2010). Prairie Ghost: Pronghorn and Human Interaction in Early America. University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Moten, F. (2003). In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition. University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Montoya, R. D. (2022). Power of Position: Classification and the Biodiversity Sciences. MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/12245.001.0001 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Moulton, G. (1983). Atlas of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Ord, G., Rhoads, S. N., & Guthrie, W. (1982). A Reprint of the North American Zoology, by George Ord: Being an Exact ReproductionofthePartOriginallyCompiledbyMr. Ord for Johnson & Warner, and First Published by Them in Their Second American Edition of Guthrie’s Geography in 1815: Taken from Mr. Ord’s Private, Annotated Copy, to Which Is Added an Appendix on the More Important Scientific and Historic Questions Involved. Haddonfield, N.J: Published by the editor.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Peale, C. W., & Palisot de Beauvois, A.-M.-F.-J. (1796). Scientific and Descriptive Catalogue of Peale’s Museum. Philadephia: Samuel H. Smith, printer. American Philosophical Society. Pam. v.294, no.7.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Peale, C. W. (1983). The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family. Edited by Lillian B. Miller. Published for the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, by Yale University Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Rogers, S., Shreckengast, R., & Dorfman, E. (2019). Origins and Contemporary Status of Habitat Dioramas in the United States. In A. Scheersoi, & S. Dale (Eds.), Natural History Dioramas—Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes, (pp. 11-40). Springer.10.1007/978-3-030-00175-9_2 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Schofield, R. E. (1989). The Science Education of an Enlightened Entrepreneur: Charles Willson Peale and His Philadelphia Museum, 1784-1827. American Studies, 30(2), 21-40.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Silko, L. M. (1996). Interior and Exterior Landscapes: The Pueblo Migration Stories. In Yellow WomanandaBeauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today, 2547. Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Simpson, L.B.(2014). Landas Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg Intelligence and Rebellious Transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3).Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Sundstrom,L.(2000). Cheyenne Pronghorn Procurement and Ceremony. Plains Anthropologist, 45(174), 119-132.10.1080/2052546.2000.11932027 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Taschereau Mamers, D. (2019). Human-Bison Relations as Sites of Settler Colonial Violence and Decolonial Resur gence. Humanimalia, 10(2), 10–41.10.52537/humanimalia.9500 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Tanner, R.L.(2000). An Ethnohistorical Consideration of the Role of Antilocapra americana in the Lives of Indigenous Peoples and american Pioneers, Plains Anthropologist, 45(174), 134-139.10.1080/2052546.2000.11932028 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Turkle, S. 2011. Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. MIT Press.Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Turner, H. (2020). Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation. UBC Press.10.59962/9780774863940 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar
- Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387-40910.1080/14623520601056240 Google Scholar Search this bibliographic reference on Google Scholar

