Behemoth: The History of the Elephant in America

If the country's official mascot is an eagle, then its unofficial mascot is the elephant. While the eagle soars above the head of the nation from a dispassionate distance, the elephant stands with his feet on the ground and shares the same sufferings and joys as the simplest of wretches and the most powerful of men. The first elephant arrived aboard ship barely twenty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Since then, the elephant has become an unparalleled symbol in the American imagination and a giant figure in our popular culture. As the number of elephants grew in the early 1800s, they ventured onto the frontier, not far behind settlers. They traveled to every state, territory, and possession in the Union from Canada to Mexico and New York to Hawai'i. They worked clearing the land by pulling stumps, tedding hay, and plowing fields. They laid ties for new railroads and hauled cargo in shipyards. In fact, excitement over the elephant seemed to wane until P.T. Barnum began including them in his traveling caravans toward the turn of the century. Soon, elephants were performing Shakespeare and playing baseball, winning over the American public with their imposing yet gentle manner. In 1884, the famous Jumbo, whose name lives on in our daily lexicon, saved the Brooklyn Bridge from collapse. Elephants resumed their place in our culture, from Thomas Edison's famous electrocution of poor Topsy to the CIA's LSD-dropping Tusko in the 1960s, from D.C.'s political animals to Hollywood's giant stars.

In BEHEMOTH, Ronald B. Tobias, a natural historian and filmmaker, has written the first and only comprehensive history of the elephant in America. He traces the elephant from its first steps on our shores to its indelible footprint on our national culture, capturing our imagination and paralleling our own joy and suffering. Interspersed throughout this lively and fascinating chronicle are dozens of illustrations, posters, and news articles from the eighteenth century through the present, underlining the strength of elephant as an enduring symbol of the American experience.