Alvin Howard Sanders
SANDERS, JAMES HARVEY (1832–1899), inducted 1904
Artist: James Reeve Stuart (1834–1915)
SANDERS, ALVIN HOWARD (1860–1948), inducted between 1915–1920
Arvid Frederick Nyholm (1866–1927)
Sanders was arguably the most prominent name in livestock publishing when Chicago was taking its place as the capital of the livestock industry. These two portraits of father and son are artistically significant because one was painted by the first Saddle & Sirloin artist, James R. Stuart, and the other was painted by the second official artist, Arvid Nyholm. Virtually all Saddle & Sirloin works by these artists were lost in the 1934 fire, but these two paintings were in the Sanders’s family private collections and were offered to the Club as post-fire replacements. Since Alvin Sanders was one of the founders of the Saddle & Sirloin Club portrait collection, it is fitting that the portraits of him and his father hold the special distinction of being attributed to the first Club artists.
James Harvey Sanders was born in Union County, Ohio, and moved to Iowa in 1852. In 1860, he became secretary of the state senate in Des Moines, and in 1868, established a stock farm of Shorthorn cattle, hogs, and most prominently, horses. Recognizing a need, Sanders founded the first livestock-only journal in America, the monthly Western Stock Journal, in 1869. In 1874, he moved to Chicago and merged it with the National Livestock Journal, serving as its managing editor. James Sanders was involved in the first Percheron breed registries, was president of the Chicago Fair Association and the Chicago Jockey and Trotting Club and was secretary of the American Trotting and Pacing Horse Breeders’ Association. Sanders wrote Horse Breeding and Breeds of Livestock in the 1880s. He served on the US Treasury Cattle Commission and investigated the potential for American imports to Europe for the USDA.
In 1881, James Sanders and his son Alvin founded the weekly Breeder’s Gazette, financed by agricultural implement manufacturer Jerome I. Case. Alvin Howard Sanders had just completed his law degree at Union College of Law (Northwestern University) when the magazine was established; and he took over as editor and publisher in 1883. He served on the American delegation to the Paris Exposition and on the US Tariff Board, but Sanders is best known for his written works, which include published histories of the Shorthorn, Hereford, and Percheron breeds, and the book, At the Sign of the Stock Yard Inn. This latter book documents the establishment of the Saddle & Sirloin Club and portrait gallery by Arthur Leonard, Robert Ogilvie, and Sanders himself. Alvin Sanders was also vice president, and in 1909, became president of the International Live Stock Exposition.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 173