Charles S. Schoenheider Sr., Standing Canada Goose

0:00:00.2 Steven Zucker: We’re in the Peoria Riverfront Museum looking at this large decoy of a goose. And it’s really appropriate that we’re here looking at this incredibly beautiful piece of American folk art. Because the Illinois River Valley was and remains home to an enormous number of migrating birds. And this was a place where a lot of hunting took place and still does.

0:00:29.4 Zac Zetterberg: The Illinois River Valley was sort of a Garden of Eden, the habitat that the river provided for ducks and geese. Traveling down the Mississippi Flyway made for great hunting conditions.

0:00:40.0 Steven Zucker: The bird is standing on a single leg. Its webbed foot is there. It protrudes out of the body at precisely the point that would allow it to be balanced. The neck is erect and the bird looks attentive. It looks awake and as if it’s really paying attention. And it’s such an interesting thing to look at because the maker’s audience is not me standing in this gallery. The maker’s audience is the purchaser of the object. But it’s also really other geese. That is, this is a goose that is meant to attract other geese, that is meant to attract other birds.

0:01:16.4 Zac Zetterberg: The maker of this decoy, Charles Schoenheider Sr., hunted for the market, so he primarily made decoys for himself for his personal rig. But then as other hunters saw the decoys he’s producing, he actually started supplying a local sporting goods store, which would have been blocks away from where we’re standing right now, and would have sold his standing ice duck decoys. And the goose that we’re looking at was specifically commissioned by Daniel Voorhees, who was a prominent business owner, and commissioned Schoenheider to make this unique rig of 11 geese. And all have a unique body and head positioning. So when they were placed out in the field, they all looked like it was a natural scene.

0:02:02.8 Steven Zucker: You can see that the body is not made out of a single piece of wood. Different pieces have been laminated together in order to construct the hole. This would be a very large piece of wood.

0:02:11.7 Zac Zetterberg: Schoenheider, he was a carpenter by trade, so he knew how to work with wood. He was instrumental in building parts of Peoria, built houses all around the city, and would supplement his income as a carpenter by making decoys. So he used this trade that he knew his ability to work with wood and laminated these pieces together. Much like many of the other carvers in this area and around the country. They used the skills that they use every day in their occupation to produce decoys.

0:02:39.9 Steven Zucker: But this goose was never actually used.

0:02:42.5 Zac Zetterberg: Yeah, Schoenheider was commissioned to make this rig for Daniel Voorhees. And upon delivery, Schoenheider was asking $125 for the entire rig of 11.

0:02:53.4 Steven Zucker: And that was back in 1918?

0:02:55.4 Zac Zetterberg: And upon delivery, Voorhees was somewhat outraged with the price, said it was too much, and told Schoenheider he wouldn’t pay him the money. So Schoenheider took the rig back, and they were stored in the attic of Schoenheider’s house, later found by the famous St. Louis decoy collector Joe French in the 1960s. And Illinois collectors and collectors across the country found these decoys, and they’ve become iconic Peoria, Illinois decoys.

0:03:22.1 Steven Zucker: These objects are also, though, a reminder of the ecological damage that was done to this cornucopia of wildlife that existed in the United States. The artist was a commercial hunter. He was hunting for the market. And there were so many people doing that, so many people who were feeding the desire for not only the meat, but also the feathers for women’s hats, that birds across the United States were pushed to the edge of extinction.

0:03:47.3 Zac Zetterberg: That all came to an end in 1918, when the government initiated The Migratory Bird Treaty Act that put regulations on what you could hunt. It also was a part of creating the flyways which exist, that created seasons for hunting.

0:04:02.0 Steven Zucker: And so this bird made in 1918 is really a testament to the end of one era and the beginning of another.

Bird decoys in the collection of the Peoria Riverfront Museum

Stephen O’Brien and Julie Carlson, Masterworks of the Illinois River: Decoys from the Collection of Thomas K. Figge (Boston: Stephen O’Brien Jr. Fine Arts, 2005).

Robert Shaw, Bird Decoys of North America: Nature, History, and Art (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2010).

1898–1945 in the United States, an introduction