Theodore Roosevelt Letter to Elliott L. Coues, 1882 Apr. 21

April 21, 1882

In April 1882, "having recently taken a mild plunge into the 'political arena' and being about to leave my house," 24-year-old Theodore Roosevelt sent a letter to Elliot Coues, Curator of Birds at the Smithsonian, offering the collection of shrews and bird specimens that he (TR) had assembled as an amateur naturalist. "Would the Smithsonian care for a few hundred skins... collected by myself?" The series of letters that followed between Spencer Baird, the Director of the Institution's National Museum and Roosevelt in April and May 1882, when the offer was accepted and the specimens were received and accessioned, is held in the Smithsonian's Archives, but the initial one offering the collection was lacking. It came onto the market from a private owner in 2011, and the Smithsonian Libraries arranged to purchase it with the assistance of the Birds and Mammals Divisions of the Institution, which still hold Roosevelt's shrews and birds.