Blatchford, Dr. Barrie
Ph.D. and MPhil - Columbia University, BA (Hons) and MA, University of British Columbia
Research and Expertise
I research the environmental history of nineteenth and twentieth century America. I am particularly interested in the historical interaction of people and animals.
My dissertation explores animal acclimatization - that is, the intentional introduction of foreign wild animals to new areas - in America. It argues that it was far greater in scope, magnitude, and meaning than historians have so far appreciated.
I'm also working on two other projects.
One is a study of the American commercial animal trade and its attendant parts: exotic pet ownership, commercial animal dealers, laws and regulations, exploitation of developing nations, and the interface of the industry with the burgeoning animal rights movement.
The second is a study of the American fur industry after the colonial and early republican periods. Provisionally entitled "Fashion Victims" I explore the longstanding anti-fur, anti-animal cruelty movement as well as the toll the popularity of fur garments has taken on wildlife in the last 150 years.
- Agriculture
- Animal Welfare
- Biodiversity/Ecology
- Climate Change
- Conservation
- History
- Wildlife
- English
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
‘A Monkey in Every Home’: Henry Trefflich and the Twentieth-Century Exotic Animal Trade in America.” (Forthcoming, 2024) in edited collection, Colonial Dimensions of the Global Wildlife Trade, part of a book series published by the Network for Provenance Research of Lower Saxony, Germany.
‘Make the Desert Blossom Like the Rose’: Animal Acclimatization, Settler Colonialism, and the Construction of Oregon’s Nature.” Oregon Historical Quarterly, 122:3 (Fall 2021): 214-249.
* Winner of the 2022 Fishel-Calhoun Article Prize from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.
Public History Articles
“Fish-Fanciers: William T. Innes, Home Aquaria, and the Rise of Fish as Pets in Modern America.” American Philosophical Society Blog. July 10, 2023.
https://www.amphilsoc.org/blog/fish-fanciers-william-t-innes-home-aquaria-and-rise-fish-pets-modern-america
“Dispatches from ‘Anthropoid Ellis Island’: New York City’s More-Than-Human History.” The Gotham Center for New York City History Blog. March 25, 2021.
https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/dispatches-from-anthropoid-ellis-island
Book Reviews
Review of Andrea L. Smalley with Henry M. Reeves, The Market in Birds: Commercial Hunting, Conservation, and the Origins of Wildlife Consumerism, 1850-1920. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2022. In South Dakota History, Vol. 53, 3 (2023): 295-296.
Review of Jeremy Zallen, American Lucifers: The Dark History of Artificial Light, 1750- 1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. In Environment and History Vol. 29, 1 (2023): 161-162.
https://doi.org/10.3197/096734023X16702350656906
Review of Ariel Ron, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. In Agricultural History Vol. 96, 1-2 (2022): 291-293.
https://doi.org/10.1215/00021482-9634673
Review of Steven Turner, The Science of James Smithson: Discoveries from the Smithsonian Founder. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2020. In Isis Vol. 113, 2 (2022): 445-446.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/719715
Review of David J. Nelson, How the New Deal Built Florida Tourism: The Civilian Conservation Corps and State Parks. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2019. In Journal of Tourism History Vol. 13, 1 (2021): 101-103.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X.2021.1890352