Hoosier Authors Book Club - "The Witchery of Archery" by Maurice Thompson

Name: Hoosier Authors Book Club - "The Witchery of Archery" by Maurice Thompson
Start: 2025-10-23T19:00:00-04:00
Location: 200 Wallace Ave, Crawfordsville, IN, United States, Indiana 47933

Schedule

Thu, 23 Oct, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

200 Wallace Ave, Crawfordsville, IN, United States, Indiana 47933 | Crawfordsville, IN

When Thompson wrote The Witchery of Archery, he filled it with various stories, many of which were humorous. However, it also gave practical advice on the sport, such as the manufacturing of archery paraphernalia and how to use the equipment while hunting.
The Witchery of Archery was accredited for returning the sport of archery to public interest. Some of this was due to rifles bringing back bad memories of the American Civil War. However, the revival also served some larger, pragmatic purpose: ex-Confederate soldiers were not allowed guns, but needed hunting to survive; archery became a convenient substitution. In addition, the late 1800s saw the last of the American Indian Wars, thus romanticizing the Native Americans and their cultures, which, in most accounts, included expert archery. In 1880, with the book less than two years old, patents relating to archery items greatly increased. More than any other book, The Witchery of Archery led to the increased interest in archery for the next half-century.