The legendary ornithologist John James Audubon (1785–1851) began his studies of American birds as a teenager, on the banks of the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia. Few figures in American history have weathered as intense a scrutiny of their written work as Audubon. Nearly every scrap of his writing has been transcribed and debated in numerous biographies and articles spanning more than a century, each revisiting the same primary sources in search of a new angle, because no new material has surfaced in decades. Our speaker, Matthew Halley, recently discovered and transcribed several novel primary sources that provide a surprisingly fresh and intimate window into Audubon’s character and story, and fill critical gaps in our understanding of the genesis of his masterpiece The Birds of America.

Matthew Halley is an ornithologist and historian who grew up in Phoenixville, PA, on the opposite bank of the Schuylkill River near Audubon’s home at Mill Grove. He is a Graduate Research Associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, editor of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) and its journal Cassinia, and resident caretaker of the Wyck Historic House and Garden in Germantown, Philadelphia. Matthew is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University (2004, BA Sociology) and Delaware State University (2014, MS Natural Resources), and is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science at Drexel University (BEES), where he studies the systematics, biogeography and behavior of New World thrushes (Turdidae). He has conducted research in Panama, Israel, India, Indonesia, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Canada, and the United States.