What Do We Do about Audubon?

Celebrated as a self-taught artist and naturalist of unrivaled accomplishment, John James Audubon’s name has long been associated with environmental conservation and citizen science. Until recently, many historians and biographers glossed or ignored facts about Audubon’s life that complicate well-known narratives: through the course of his life, Audubon enslaved as many as 9 people of African descent and was dismissive of the work of Abolitionists in the United States and the United Kingdom. Audubon has frequently been described as a fabulist and a teller of tall tales; such language has obscured or excused Audubon’s sometimes-questionable scientific practices (including at least one example of outright dishonesty). Audubon was the illegitimate son of a Frenchman living on a Caribbean sugar plantation and his chambermaid. Audubon’s mother, Jeanne Rabin, is often described as “creole,” suggesting she may have been a person of color. Professional ornithologists and hobbyist birdwatchers are now confronting these realities about John James Audubon (as in this article by J. Drew Lanham from the spring 2021 issue of Audubon Magazine: What Do We Do about John James Audubon?).

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Cited articles and additional readings: What Do We Do about Audubon?: Reconsidering Audubon’s Life and Legacy, Reconsidering The Birds of America

J. Drew Lanham, “What Do We Do about John James Audubon?”, Audubon Magazine, Spring 2021.

Emily Raboteau, “Spark Bird: Bearing Witness to New York’s Endangered Species,” Orion Magazine, Spring 2021.

Gregory Nobles, “The Myth of John James Audubon,” Audubon Magazine, Summer 2020.

Matthew R. Halley, “Audubon’s Bird of Washington: Unravelling the Fraud that Launched The Birds of America,” Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club, 140(2):110-141 (2020).

Ted Loos, “Kerry James Marshall’s Black Birds Take Flight in a New Series,” New York Times, July 29, 2020; Black and Part Black Birds in America at Zwirner.

Audubon magazine’s Illustrated Aviary: Contemporary artists reimagine The Birds of America

Ann Raver, “The Dark Side of Audubon’s Era, and His Work,” New York Times, March 30, 1997

What’s in a Name: Reading and Resources