American Museum Of Natural History Research Articles

An Atlas of Malformed Trilobites from North American Repositories Part 2. The American Museum of Natural History

An Atlas of Malformed Trilobites from North American Repositories Part 2. The American Museum of Natural History

Curating the American Past: A Memoir of a Quarter Century at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Curating the American Past: A Memoir of a Quarter Century at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

‘A dangerous and exhausting struggle’: Hunting the devil fish of coastal North and South Carolina from the colonial era to the early decades of the 1900s

Scientists, hunters and business entrepreneurs in the Carolinas all had mutual interests in giant manta rays ( Mobula birostris) during the early decades of the 1900s. Eastern-seaboard coastal communities called them devil fish, because of the horn-shaped fins on their head. Although the Ocean Leather Company in Morehead City primarily processed shark-skin leather, it also experimented with the skins of rays and other sea animals for the manufacture of a great variety of consumer products. Articles were written for scientific journals and ray specimens were contributed to national institutions like the American Museum of Natural History. Local fishermen, along with celebrities like the US president, Teddy Roosevelt, harpooned devil fish in Cape Lookout while marvelling at their grace and strength, breaching up to six feet above the water's surface. Beaufort planter William Elliott presented many accounts of this fantastic sea creature, with vivid stories of enslaved African harpooners jumping off boats onto the backs of giant manta rays. This research combines historical accounts and images, newspaper advertisements and talks at local explorer clubs to illustrate case studies of the community's obsession with collecting, cooking, hunting and conquering rays as an important component of maritime leisure and environmental history. It concludes by addressing international examples of subsistence, recreational and industrial fishing, and its impacts on manta rays.

Рец. на кн.: Сергей Кан. Лев Штернберг: этнолог, народник, борец за права евреев / Пер. с англ. А. Глебовской. СПб.; Бостон: Библиороссика; Academic Studies Press, 2023. 694 с. (Современная иудаика)

This book written by Sergei Kan is dedicated to Lev Shternberg (1961–1927), who was a major Russian ethnographer and public figure, one of the founders of the so-called Leningrad school. The Russian translation of the book is reviewed. The large-scale study, rich in archival sources from all possible collections (American Philosophical Society, American Museum of Natural History, the Kunstkammer, RAS Archives, etc.), has been written in the best traditions of the prominent historian George Stocking’s approach. The reviewer notes several undoubted merits of Kan’s work. The main one is an attempt to place the Russian scholar’s research in the context of the Western anthropology of his time. One of the most profound ideas of the book concerns the assessment of Morgan’s influence on Sternberg’s work, and, in a broader perspective, on the development of the social sciences in Russia and the USSR, where, according to the author, social evolutionism played a much more progressive role than in Europe or the USA. That theory served rather to confirm the necessity of social reform, and neither then nor later was it associated with the reaction in the natural sciences, Eurocentrism, and white racism that Boas saw in it. At the same time, the edition under review contains a few inaccuracies and factual errors, some of which were already present in the original edition, while others have arisen due to a not entirely accurate translation.

“So if you’re going fossil hunting, that’s where you should look”

Abstract Whether directed at adults or children, popularization can be viewed as a process of “translating” and “recontextualizing” expert discourse for a lay audience. In fact, knowledge dissemination for children appears to entail an additional form of “translation,” given their limited background knowledge. This “re-translation” often occurs on dedicated websites based on “edutainment.” While most museum websites function as promotional tools or as agents of knowledge dissemination, a small number of them are targeted at children and offer texts that insert museum objects in a broader context. By means of a small case study, this paper explores how knowledge is popularized and presented in two science museum websites: the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London and OLogy, the science website for children of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. From a corpus-linguistic and discourse-analysis perspective, our interest lies in how popularization takes shape in these two websites, the former intended for different age groups and the latter explicitly addressing children. Quantitative and qualitative results show similarities and dissimilarities, thus accounting for different types of popularization as forms of translation. The analysis aims to grant insights to translators and interpreters engaged in museum adaptations and translation of contexts.

Marvette Pérez: A Visionary Smithsonian Curator

Details the career of Marvette Perez (1961–2013), the first Latina curator at the National Museum of American History. Essay emphasizes her curatorial accomplishments, focusing on her collecting practices including some of the larger and smaller acquisitions that she added to the national collections of the Smithsonian Institution. Large collections discussed include the Teodoro Collection of Puerto Rican History, the Goya Foods Inc. Collection, and the Celia Cruz Collection. Smaller collections mentioned include the Diosa Costello Collection, the Tito Puente Collection, the Mongo Santamaria Collection, and a collection of panos from New Mexico. Archival collections are also referenced such as the Clotilde Arias Collection, Latin Jazz Oral History Program, and the Puerto Rican Division of Community Education. Also mentioned is the prior history of Hispanic collecting in the museum conducted by curator Richard Ahlborn which focused on Spanish settlements in the southwestern United States.

1990s dinomania: Public and popular cultures of palaeontology from Jurassic Park to Friends

In the 1990s, the English-speaking world was swept up in a deluge of popular cultural content on palaeontology. Dinosaurs were featured in programming ranging from B-movie horrors to children's cartoon franchises to popular novels. In some ways, this widespread public interest in palaeontology was mirroring broader public and scientific conflicts such as the Alverez hypothesis, the ‘birds are dinosaurs’ debate, ownership rights over dinosaur fossils, intelligent design and creationism in schools, and major DNA sequencing projects. But in other ways, this popular culture material existed beyond these specific debates, and speaks to the ways that depictions of palaeontology fostered public understanding of science in this period. Perhaps no two depictions of palaeontology frame different, and in some ways conflicting, aspects of the field better than two of the biggest popular culture phenomena of the 1990s: Jurassic Park and Friends. Jurassic Park, for which we are approaching the 30th anniversary of its initial release, spawned two sequels within a decade, and three more since then. The heroes of the original movie were two palaeontologists, Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). Friends, which aired 1994-2004, was certainly the most successful sitcom of the period and one of the most popular television shows of all time. One of the six main characters, Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), is a palaeontologist, who at the beginning of the series works for the American Museum of Natural History and by the show's conclusion, has received tenure at New York University. The depiction of palaeontology in these two programs could not be more different. Drs. Grant and Sattler are competent action heroes, whose expertise regarding dinosaur morphology and behaviour are central to both their survival and their identity. Notably, the filmmakers for Jurassic Park centred the science of palaeontology in its story, working close with palaeontologist Jack Horner. They were also helped by the fact that their source material, Michael Crichton's 1990 novel of the same name, closely engages with scientific ideas and ethics. For Ross Geller on the other hand, his career as a palaeontologist is only on the outskirts of the TV series. Viewers occasionally saw Ross in professional settings (the classroom, the museum, a conference, a fellowship interview), but are not provided with enough information to even determine what sort of research he even does. The focus is always on his personal life; his interest in dinosaurs is just one aspect of his personality, one that does not even get mentioned in many episodes. It thus offers an unusual representation of scientists and science as fully integrated into society and the lived experiences of non-scientists. The palaeoscience occurs off-screen as a facet of the character rather than their defining characteristic. In this article, the authors will situate Friends and Jurassic Park within the dinosaur-mania of the 1990s, while analysing the different versions of palaeontological study that they projected to the public. It will draw connections between how palaeontology was depicted on-screen to the major real-life debates and discoveries in the field at the same time.

‘Biological jewels’: the glass models of Herman Oscar Mueller and the role of the specialist museum glassblower (William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize 2022)

Bavarian glassblower Herman Oscar Mueller ( fl. 1900s–1960s) was employed for over forty years at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in his role as a glassblower making intricate glass models of biological subjects. From 1903 to 1945 he produced over one thousand models of invertebrate organisms that combined beauty, morphological accuracy and exceptional glassblowing skill. His talent often surpassed that of the famous Blaschkas of Dresden. Mueller enjoyed worldwide fame in his lifetime, yet his life and models have since fallen into relative obscurity, and few publications record his achievements. In contrast, the Blaschkas are the subject of extensive documentation. To correct this imbalance, Mueller's life and work are here analyzed, drawing on the large collection of primary sources in the Research Library of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, the Library of Congress, Washington DC, and the Rakow Research Library of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, amongst others. Mueller's life provides important insights into his highly-specialized role as a museum glassblower, the changing role of natural history collections in the early twentieth century, and the ways in which the lives of important figures can be obscured by a focus on other, better documented individuals.

Dental caries in living and extinct strepsirrhines with insights into diet.

Dental caries is one of the most common diseases afflicting modern humans and occurs in both living and extinct non-human primates, as well as other mammalian species. Compared to other primates, less is known about the etiology or frequency of caries among the Strepsirrhini. Given the link between caries and diet, caries frequency may be informative about the dietary ecology of a given animal. Understanding rates of caries in wild populations is also critical to assessing dental health in captive populations. Here, we examine caries frequency in a sample of 36 extant strepsirrhine species (n = 316 individuals) using odontological collections of wild-, non-captive animals housed at the American Museum of Natural History by counting the number of specimens characterized by the disease. Additionally, in the context of studying caries lesions in strepsirrhines, case studies were also conducted to test if similar lesions were found in their fossil relatives. In particular, two fossil strepsirrhine species were analyzed: the earliest Late Eocene Karanisia clarki, and the subfossil lemur Megaladapis madagascariensis. Our results suggest that caries affects 13.92% of the extant individuals we examined. The frugivorous and folivorous taxa were characterized by the highest overall frequency of caries, whereas the insectivores, gummivores, and omnivores had much lower caries frequencies. Our results suggest that caries may be common among wild populations of strepsirrhines, and in fact is more prevalent than in many catarrhines and platyrrhines. These findings have important implications for understanding caries, diet, and health in living and fossil taxa.

The Molina Family Latino Gallery: A PEAS Case Study

The Molina Family Latino Gallery: A PEAS Case Study

Species identification of ivory and bone museum objects using minimally invasive proteomics.

Ivory is a highly prized material in many cultures since it can be carved into intricate designs and have a highly polished surface. Due to its popularity, the animals from which ivory can be sourced are under threat of extinction. Identification of ivory species is not only important for CITES compliance, it can also provide information about the context in which a work was created. Here, we have developed a minimally invasive workflow to remove minimal amounts of material from precious objects and, using high-resolution mass spectrometry-based proteomics, identified the taxonomy of ivory and bone objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection dating from as early as 4000 B.C. We built a proteomic database of underrepresented species based on exemplars from the American Museum of Natural History, and proposed alternative data analysis workflows for samples containing inconsistently preserved organic material. This application demonstrates extensive ivory species identification using proteomics to unlock sequence uncertainties, e.g., Leu/Ile discrimination.

Американистика и компаративистика. Комментарии переводчика

In these comments, the author of the translation reconstructs the wide context in which selected works were written, paying close attention to the character of the personal relationships between Franz Boas and his former students, the current scientific agenda and more general discussions of that time. The article uses interviews with experts and archival data from the American Museum of Natural History (New York), as well as two published collections, in particular the correspondence between the main actors of the events described: Edward Sapir, A.L. Kroeber, Waldemar Bogoras et al. Two main conclusions are as follows: by the period under review, a skeptical attitude to both the methodology of European comparativist studies and the value of constructing a genealogical classification triumphed in Boas's views. This shift is explained by the fact that in his struggle against evolutionism, which, in the scholar's opinion, leads to Eurocentrism, it was important for him to emphasize the importance not of origin, but of the influence of the environment on the history of language. The author declares no conflict of interests.

Designing for diverse museum visitors’ identity exploration around inventiveness

IntroductionThis paper describes an initial phase of research to inform the design of Change YOUR Game—an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH) that aims to promote visitors’ inventiveness in STEM and in other life domains. The exhibition’s content focused on the history of inventions and innovations in sports. The research was framed by the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) and by a set of design principles for promoting visitors’ agentic identity exploration: The PRESS Principles.MethodsFive data collection sessions engaged participants in a virtual, simulated visit to an early rendition of the exhibition. Diverse groups of participants were prompted to consider the self-relevance of the exhibition content to their identities and how they have been and can be inventive in their lives.ResultsFour themes captured participants’ museum visitor role identities, varied readiness to engage in identity exploration of their inventiveness, and how these provided affordances and hindrances to participants’ engagement in identity exploration in the context of the simulated visit. The themes served as bases for design recommendations.DiscussionThe study highlights the potential of the DSMRI and PRESS design principles to address conceptual and methodological challenges of research that aims to inform environmental design of a context that is not yet in existence and that will be relatively fixed. The findings suggest recommendations for design as well as theoretical insights about museum visitor role identities and the contexts that may promote visitors’ active and agentic engagement in exploring their identities.

Pachyderm Matriarchy

One of the essential backstories of Donna Haraway’s essay “Teddy Bear Patriarchy” is the biography of celebrated collector/taxidermist Carl Akeley, and his vision for the African Hall at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. The “Authors and Versions” section of Haraway’s essay examines expedition stories recorded by Carl Akeley, his first wife, Delia Denning Akeley, and his second, Mary Jobe Akeley, to interrogate the issue of authorship, and build a case for an alleged cover-up of Delia’s contributions by “the official scientific community”. The present article pursues a reading of “Authors and Versions” against a more robust historical background, including published sources, and primary archival materials, in order to deepen, and correct, the broader story of the authorship and intellectual labour behind the AMNH African Hall, in particular the purported suppression of Delia Akeley’s voice and labour.

Type specimens and type localities of birds (Aves) collected by Gustav Adolf Fischer (1848–1886) in East Africa

Gustav Adolf Fischer (1848–1886) was an important German naturalist and ornithological collector in Africa. The extensive ornithological collections from his several expeditions were sent to at least two different museums (Zoological Museum Berlin and Zoological Museum Hamburg), and to a smaller extent, some private sales are assumed. Together with Anton Reichenow, Fischer described many species new to science, so the many types in the collections make them especially important. We located 616 bird specimens in the collections of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the Museum der Natur Hamburg along with a few further specimens in the collections of the Museum Heineanum Halberstadt, the Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden, The Natural History Museum-UK (Tring), the American Museum of Natural History, New York and the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Among these, type specimens for 133 species and subspecies of birds were traced. For all of them, an update of the collecting localities with particular emphasis on some previously unknown locations is provided. A taxonomic update of the described species is given and a designation of lectotypes for the following four taxa was necessary: Francolinus Altumi G.A. Fischer & Reichenow, 1884, Accipiter minullus tropicalis Reichenow, 1898, Hypochera ultramarina var. orientalis Reichenow, 1894 and Spinus citrinelloides frontalis Reichenow, 1904b.

The tracheal system of the Common Wasp (Vespula vulgaris) – A micro-CT study

X-ray micro-CT has been used to study the tracheal system of Pre and Post hibernation Queen wasps (Vespula vulgaris) and their workers. We have compared our findings in wasps with Snodgrass’s description of the tracheal system of the honeybee as characterised by anatomical dissection. Our images, whilst broadly similar, identify the tracheal system as being considerably more complex than previously suggested. One of the 30 wasps imaged had a markedly different, previously undescribed tracheal system. Since completing this study, a large micro-CT study from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) has been published. This used different software (Slicer) and analysed 16bit digital data. We have compared our methods with that described in the AMNH publication, adopted their suggested nomenclature and have made recommendations for future studies.

Safeguarding our dentistry heritage: a study of the history and conservation of nineteenth–twentieth century dentures

In the 1870s, dentures were one of the first products made with celluloid, the first semi-synthetic plastic. Despite the significance of denture development in the history of celluloid and plastics, the chemical characterization of dentures in museum collections has never been attempted. It is urgent to assess the extent of celluloid heritage in denture collections due to the high degradation risk that this material imposes. In this work, 21 dentures from the National Museum of American History and from the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry were characterized using a multi-analytical methodology using handheld Raman, X-Ray fluorescence, and micro-Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopies. All dentures were successfully characterized: 12 are made of celluloid, 4 of vulcanized rubber, 2 of phenol–formaldehyde, 2 of polyvinyl chloride—polyvinyl acetate copolymer (PVC-PVAc) and 1 of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The identification of the dentures’ base materials allowed a better understanding of their history and posed new questions about their conservation. Handheld Raman was demonstrated as an excellent in-situ tool for the study of polymeric materials.

Proximity, wholeness, and animality: The case of Little Sorrel's repatriation

AbstractFrederic Webster, chief preparator at the Carnegie Museum (CM) from 1897 to 1907, is credited by some for “rescuing” Lion Attacking a Dromedary (LAD) from destruction by the American Museum of Natural History. Webster's work on LAD was not his only involvement with the preparation and display of controversial bones, however. Webster mounted the hide and bones of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson's war horse, Little Sorrel and displayed the skeleton at CM. In 1949, Little Sorrel's skeleton were returned to Virginia, where it was eventually cremated and interred under a statue of Jackson in a public ceremony in 1997. This article compares the return and reburial of the bones of a Confederate horse to the continued display of the remains of a person of unknown origin in LAD to highlight the very differing treatment of these human and equine individuals. By considering the return of Little Sorrel's remains to be a repatriation, I argue that the horse was transformed from a museum specimen into a monument, leveling him as a symbol of the Lost Cause and further cementing the status of the individual contained within LAD as a specimen. Through a displayed proximity to animals, Jackson (and his horse) become more human, while the person whose remains remain on display in LAD is treated as less than human.

A Resurgence of Cooperation between Scientists and Laypersons

After a long period during which the involvement of laypersons was considered undesirable in the Western tradition of science, we have recently witnessed numerous collaborations which suggest that the desirability of societal involvement in the scientific practice is becoming recognized. This article argues that the historical considerations that once led to this division in cognitive labour have been in transformation, having undergone diverse shifts. In a first instance, the exclusion of laypersons from science is analysed in terms of the key concepts of systematicity, universality, and authority. For that, two examples are given: the case of the British photographic survey and that of the American Museum of Natural History. Next, the dissolution of these barriers between scientists and laypersons is discussed and illustrated by examples: the Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association in Austria, Fukushima nuclear monitoring stations, and the French Association of Muscular Dystrophy. It is concluded that, for science to be truly democratized, co-produced knowledge needs to be integrated in political decision-making processes, which is currently still lacking. Furthermore, since expertise can also be found in society, non-certified experts should work in conjunction with scientists, yet at the same time, the divide between experts and non-experts must be maintained. The inclusion of non-scientific experts in decision-making is fundamentally different from the inclusion of lay stakeholders. Hence, different participatory roles should be expected from stakeholders, experts, or scientists, and the most important challenge now is how to formally define such roles.

The curious case of Central Park's dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' Paleozoic Museum revisited

In May 1871, models and skeleton casts of dinosaurs and other ancient vertebrates destined for a new Paleozoic Museum in Central Park, New York were smashed and destroyed. This greatest act of vandalism in the history of dinosaur study and museum development was attributed to the infamous William ‘Boss’ Tweed, leader of a notorious group of rogue politicians who at the time held the reins of power in the booming city. Our research on primary sources shows that Tweed was not involved, and the real villain was Henry Hilton, a powerful lawyer and businessman. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins had been employed to do the work and yet he was dismissed and not compensated, creating a scandal. Contrary to the generally accepted narrative of these events, we find no religious motive for the destruction, only potential conflict with the developing American Museum of Natural History. Further, based on well-reported evidence, we find that Hilton exhibited an eccentric and destructive approach to cultural artefacts, and a remarkable ability to destroy everything he touched, including the huge fortune of the department store tycoon Alexander Stewart. Evidently the destruction of Hawkins' New York City dinosaurs was one of many such crazy actions through his life; Hilton was not only bad, but also mad.