Six Photographs from the Grand Army Rabbit Drive in Fresno on March 12, 1892 [with] Two Photographs from a Later Rabbit Drive

Fresno, California: F.M. Stiffler & Co., Photographers, (1892), [1893]. Six approx. 6 x 8 inch b&w photographs, numbered in the plate and stamped by the photographer on the verso of the mount + two approx. 5-1/2 x 7-3/4 inch b&w photographs, unnumbered and unstamped. All photos mounted on stiff cardstock. Toning and light edgewear to the series of six photos; toning and some chipping to mounts of last two photos; incorrect pencil numbering to lower border of mounts. Good.

An unsettling group of six photographs (of at least eight in the series, based on the numbering in the plates) documenting the March 12 1892 rabbit drive in Fresno, California, during which members of the Grand Army of the Republic slaughtered some 20,000 jack rabbits, plus two photos from other rabbit drives (at least one from an 1893 drive). The photographs depict the rabbits being driven into fenced-in corrals by men on horseback while members of the public look on, then show men clubbing the rabbits to death, in a large group holding up their carcasses triumphantly, and a studio portrait of a lone dead rabbit hanging upside down by its foot.

Although ostensibly done solely to preserve crops, the scale of the slaughter and the festive air of the proceedings suggest that this was not simply a grimly necessary act of work. It speaks instead to the history of animal cruelty in the U.S., as well as the waste of resources common in the west since buffalo were nearly hunted into extinction. According to an article in the March 13, 1892 issue of The Fresno Republican, "[a] day of exciting sport wound up with wholesale slaughter" and the rabbits "cried like infants". In a book published in 1896 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "[t]he rabbits killed in the drives are utilized in various ways. If they are in good condition some are dressed and shipped to market where they find a ready sale. But usually the drives are carried on solely for the purpose of exterminating the pests. In localities where a bounty has been offered the ears are collected for 'scalps' and the bodies not saved for food are either used for fertilizing purposes, fed to hogs, or thrown away" (T.S. Palmer, The Jack Rabbits of the United States, p. 51).

OCLC locates holdings of two of the photographs in the series at the Library of Congress.