This post examines how the California condor is portrayed in encyclopedias devoted specifically to animals, birds, or nature.
Specialized encyclopedias: 1944-2009
Tag: Books
An unloved bird?
Last year saw the publication of Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird by Katie Fallon (ForeEdge). While this book focuses on turkey vultures, there is considerable discussion of the turkey vulture’s close relative, the California condor. Here’s a review.
Still more color illustrations from books: 1961-2009
This post offers 8 more illustrations of the California condor from 8 books.
Continue reading “Still more color illustrations from books: 1961-2009”
Black & white photos from books: 1906-1999
For this post, I show a diverse set of black & white photos of the California condor.
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General encyclopedias: 1929-1968
This blog includes many posts about articles in newspapers and general-interest magazines. This is because these publications were likely to be found in the hands of a large, diverse readership. Before the internet – and even more so before television – newspapers and magazines were how people learned about our world, including the California condor.
Another widely-available source of information in the pre-internet years was encyclopedias. Encyclopedias covering “all” topics were once fairly common in households, whether in the form of single, large volumes or multi-volume sets. This post is about the presentation of the California condor in these reference works.
Museum guides: 1915-1967
I wish to make a plea in behalf of the educational value of natural history museums.
So wrote Barton Warren Evermann, the Director of the California Academy of Sciences, in the January 1918 issue of Scientific Monthly. Evermann’s article, “Modern Natural History Museums and Their Relation to Public Education”, was 30+ pages of text and photos in support of his plea.
Evermann did not mention the California condor in his article. However, I have acquired original guide books published by 4 museums that do refer to the condor.
Embellishments
What is the name for the images in books that mark beginnings of chapters, fill blank spaces at the end of chapters, or appear in the margins?
A couple minutes of research turned up the terms embellishment, flourish, and ornament. I also learned that these images are part of the art program for a book.
What I will call embellishments are found in both fiction and non-fiction books. In this post, I present examples of condors as embellishments from 6 books.
