Can opener from Theodore Roosevelt’s African expedition, Nairobi, British East Africa, 1909

Roosevelt, Theodore · 1910

This fish-shaped can opener went to Africa with Theodore Roosevelt. A keen enthusiast of “vigorous blood-stirring out of doors sport,” Roosevelt began planning his African safari well before he retired from the presidency in 1909. Roosevelt specified the contents of each provision box, as he had for his hunting trips in the Dakota Territory as a young man. He ordered up cans of Boston baked beans, California peaches, and tomatoes, all “in memory of my days in the West.”