Eureka! The Academy of Natural Science s in uncorked a sometimes maddeningly democratic process of discovery in the young republic By Richard Conniff

In November 1868 , without fanfare or even much thought to how the public might respond, the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia opened its doors on one of the most sensational museum displays ever. It was the world’s first nearly complete and realistically displayed dinosaur skeleton, discovered 10 years earlier in Haddonfield, N.J. Hadrosaurus foulkii stood on its hind legs and was more than two stories high. So many visitors showed up to gape at this astonishing monster Academy scientists complained about “the excessive clouds of dust produced by the moving crowds,” not to mention broken glass and battered woodwork. The exhibit marked the beginning of dinosaur-mania in North America, and it changed the way museums everywhere would re-create the lost world of extinct species. The Academy might have preferred to go about its work more quiet - ly. But it had grown accustomed to playing an important part in the his - tory of the nation, and of science. Philadelphia considered itself “the Athens of America” in 1812, when a small band of naturalists met at the home of a local apothecary to found the Academy. That the founding occurred during the War of 1812 “was no coincidence,” says Robert Peck, a curator at the Academy. “The United States was declaring our independence politically and economically again , and we were declar - ing our intellectual independence for the first time.” Founding the Academy meant founding a democratic American science, the equal of its Old World counterparts but without the elitist trappings. The

Treasures currently on exhibit chronicle the Academy of Natural Science’s historic role in showcasing wonders of the world. An African bushman figurine (left) was created in 1937 for the Academy’s Hall of Earth History, and the 10,000-year-old skeleton of an Irish elk (right) invites comparisons to its American cousins.

42 AMERICAN HISTORY ALL PHOTOGRAPHY UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED ROSAMOND PURCELL; FACING PAGE: LAUREN DUGUID/ANSP AUGUST 2012 43 II For better or Academy would also have its own journal, so American scientists “would not have to worse, no other run to Europe to have their discoveries scientific institution vetted.” The periodical would be intellectu - ally rigorous, but also inexpensively print - had more impact ed, so working people like the founders on the evolution of themselves could afford to read it. The Academy, which marks its 200th the young republic’s anniversary this year (see “Bicentennial character II Celebration,” p. 49), is the oldest natural history institution in the New World. Some of the Academy’s counterparts, in- cluding its main early rival, the Smith- sonian Institution in Washington, D.C., are bigger and more renowned. But for better—and sometimes for worse—no other scientific institution had a more seminal impact on the evolution of the young republic’s character. Academy scientists helped plan and carry out the early exploration of the American West, established the science of in America and endorsed sci - entific racism in the decades leading up to the Civil War. The Academy counted Thomas Jefferson and Charles Darwin as corresponding members, was frequented scholarly work, avoiding the kind of Young horse-eye jacks from the Caribbean coast of the Dominican Republic were treated with by Edgar Allan Poe and, in the 20th cen - hoopla Peale sometimes indulged in to a chemical bath to make their tissue transparent. The skeletons were then stained red to tury, gave the world that dashing British attract customers. The Academy was also facilitate study. The species was first identified in 1831 by Academy member Louis Agassiz. spy James Bond—or at least his name - determined to be democratic. Whereas sake. (Novelist Ian Fleming, a weekend the Philosophical Society drew its mem - birder in Jamaica, thought the name of bers from the elite (including 15 of the 56 the Academy in its early years, “when we onlookers’ feet. Diplomatic dignity wres - the author of the field guide Birds of signers of the Declaration of Inde- shall no longer be indebted to the men of tled momentarily with scientific passion. the West Indies sounded suitably Anglo- pend ence), the Acad emy’s founders were foreign countries, for a knowledge of Then Say plunged after the beetle and im- Saxon. He later gave a copy of one of his local businessmen and immigrants drawn any of the products of our own soil, or for paled it on a pin, for which the aston ished books to the ornithologist, a member of to gether by a single idea: “We are lovers our opinions in science.” Say himself Kansa admiringly dubbed him a medicine the Academy, signed, “To the real James of science.” They resolved that their would become the father of American man. Another of his dis coveries, the mos - Bond, from the thief of his identity.”) organization would be “perpetually exclu - entomology, in his lifetime describing quito species Anopheles quadrimacula - sive of political, religious and national roughly 1,400 insects, including pests and tus , actually led to a major medical In 1812, Philadelphia was al- partialities, antipathies, preventions and pollinators of critical economic impor - advance. Long after Say’s death, scien - ready home to the American Philo- prejudices.” This was no doubt wishful tance in agriculture. tists identified A.quadrimaculatus as the sophical Society, dedicated by Benjamin thinking. As at most such institutions Say would also become the first trained chief carrier of “ague,” or malaria, a Franklin to all studies “that let Light into then, the Academy’s membership was naturalist to visit the American West. As scourge that until then routinely killed the Nature of Things, tend to increase the entirely white and male, until the widow chief scientist on the Long Expedition Americans along the Gulf Coast and as Power of Man over Matter, and multiply of a founder was admitted in 1841. Even of 1819-20 (see “What Is Out There?” far north as Boston and the Great Lakes. the Conveniencies or Pleasures of Life.” brotherhood would prove elusive. (One American History , October 2010), he Another early member of the Academy, The Philadelphia Museum was also thriv - founder was soon describing another as provided the first descriptions of many Scottish immigrant Alexander Wilson, Snake skin specimens ing, with the artist Charles Willson Peale a “hot headed eccentric Irishman” and now beloved species, from the swift fox to launched the scientific study of birds in from various species, including displaying portraits of great American “some what crack brained.”) the Lazuli bunting to a host of insects. At America with his nine-volume American Agkistrodon piscivorus , a pit patriots and specimens of great American But the founders were sincere in want - one point during the expedition, Say was Ornithology , which was completed in viper from the southeastern wildlife side by side. ing to develop a proper American science seated with a Kansa chieftain, “in the 1814, a year after his death. Ironically, A Megalonyx jeffersonii claw U.S. , and Crotalus ruber , a The founders of the Academy meant to for understanding and describing the presence of several hundred of his people that connection with Wilson also caused comes from a species studied rattlesnake from California, set their enterprise apart by focusing riches of the still largely unexplored con - assembled to view the arms, equipment, the Academy to reject John James by Thomas Jefferson, who id’d were collected in 1942 by exclusively on the natural world, not cul - tinent. “The time will arrive,” wrote and appearance of the party,” when a Audubon when he showed up 10 years it as an enormous cat. It turned herpetologist George Feirer. ture or the arts. And they wanted to do , the intellectual force behind darkling beetle scurried out from among later seeking support for what would out to be a giant ground sloth.

44 AMERICAN HISTORY AUGUST 2012 45 II Samuel G. become the most celebrated work of and integrity,” Robert Peck and Patricia The Academy’s most disturbing influ - tom.” But other scientists still regard Morton argued in the American natural history ever published. Stroud write in A Glorious Enterprise , ence on American life came when a Morton as the founder of physical anthro - Audubon was a colorful frontier charac - their definitive history of the Academy. prominent member, Samuel G. Morton, pology, the science of measuring vari - 1840s that blacks and ter and no diplomat. At a meeting with “By the end of the meeting, it was clear claimed in the 1840s that blacks and ances among human groups. whites originated as George Ord, the quarrelsome, conde - that any possibility of the Academy sup - whites originated as separate species and scending president of the Academy, he porting Audubon’s project had vanished.” that this could be proven by measuring The mid-19th century was the Rainforest leaf insects separate species and promoted his own work by clumsily dis - Audubon had to turn to Europe to get skull capacity. Morton, a Philadelphia last time a naturalist’s scholarship could collected in the Philippines, that this could be paraging Wilson’s. Audubon didn’t realize Birds of America published. Quaker and physician, was convinced span the entire world. Not only were New Guinea and the Seychelles that Ord had been Wilson’s closest friend A few years later, in 1838, the Academy that bigger skulls housed bigger brains explorers from the Academy and other exemplify a remarkable proven by measuring and was his literary executor. “Incensed was aboard when the U.S. Exploring with greater intellectual capacity and that institutions going to new places and mak - survival trait. In the wild, the skull capacity II by the newcomer’s brash and tactless re- Expedition, the nation’s first effort at the biggest brains naturally belonged to ing great discoveries, but in those days insects hide from predators marks, Ord rose to Wilson’s defense, chal - global science, set sail. The four-year cir - white people. the average educated layperson could by adopting the color and lenging Audubon’s scientific credentials cum navigation of the globe had strong Morton eventually accumulated 1,000 understand what their work was all characteristics of foliage. backing from Secretary of War Joel human skulls from arou nd the world, a Poinsett, an Academy member and plant collection his friends described as “the collector who had brought his namesake, American Golgotha.” (The name of the the poinsettia, from Mexico to the United hill on which Christ was crucified meant States. The complement of nine “scien- literally “place of the skull.”) He meas - tific gentlemen” on the U.S. Ex Ex (as it ured brain capacity by filling the inverted became known) included two Academy skulls with granules, a methodology con - scientists and two corresponding mem - sidered remarkably objective and scien - bers. The expedition mapped vast areas tific for its time. He used white mustard of the Pacific and discovered the frozen seed at first, and to improve accuracy continent of Antarctica. The scientists later switched to No. 8 shot. also collected more than 60,000 plant and By offering a “scientific basis” for animal specimens. prejudice, Morton handed ammunition to This collection became the basis of a bigots amid the vicious racial politics proposed new national museum endowed, preceding the Civil War. One Morton dis - as George Ord complained bitterly, by ciple, Josiah Clark Nott, an Alabama some “English fool, named Smithson.” physician and slaveowner, distilled Mor- Ord was enraged that the Smithson- ton’s research into lectures on what he backed group had “laid its grasping paws called “niggerology.” Nott piously de- upon the precious collections” of the U.S. clared that he loathed slavery in the Ex Ex. In an 1842 letter, he predicted that abstract. But, he argued, as a practical his rivals’ plans for establishing a natural reality it was a public service, enabling history museum in the nation’s capital members of a subhuman species to attain would entail “an immense stir; a grand “their highest civilization.” He added, speechifycation , characterized by rant, “the Negroes of the South are now…the fustian and nonsense; the baboons of liter - most contented population of the earth.” ature and science will play their pranks for Rather than distance himself from such the amusement of the mob, and then the twisted reasoning, Morton wrote of his farce will end.” He was of course mistaken. “great pleasure and instruction” at the The two institutions would often collabo - uses to which Nott put his findings. rate in the decades that followed. But ulti - When Morton died in 1851, a New mately the Smithsonian Institution would York newspaper remarked that “probably displace the Academy as the main home for no scientific man in America enjoyed the nation’s accumulating treasures. a higher reputation among scholars through out the world.” A century and a half later, the conclusions Morton drew The skull of a South Australian convict from his skulls have been universally dis - hanged for murder is part of a collection credited. His most vociferous modern Samuel Morton used to advance a theory of critic, the late paleontologist Stephen Jay white intellectual superiority. The Charleston Gould, denounced Morton as the father of Medical Journal praised Morton for giving “the scientific racism, driven by the urge to negro his true position as an inferior race.” put “his folks on top, slaves on the bot -

46 AMERICAN HISTORY AUGUST 2012 47 II Joseph Leidy is about. Professionalization would soon set imagine what he called “the revivifying said to have been in, confining scientists to ever more nar - of the ancient world,” and at a party held row specialties, often comprehensible only inside the mold for one of his models, the the first scientist to to a handful of like-minded experts. guests sang, “The Jolly Old Beast/is not use a microscope Joseph Leidy, who arrived at the deceased/There’s life in him again.” Academy in 1842, bridged both worlds. But in truth, Hawkins’ low, plodding to solve a murder, He was of the new breed, a professional sci - model dinosaurs were about as likely to foreshadowing entist, but still managed to work on every - induce wonder as the average lizard. (You thing from parasites to dinosaurs. Leidy can still see them on display at a park in countless police was the first to demonstrate that the par - London’s Sydenham Hill neighborhood.) procedurals and asitic disease trichinosis came from With Hadrosaurus foulkii , Hawkins undercooking meat contaminated with had the opportunity to do it right. The sci - CSI episodes II roundworm larvae—and thus gets credit entific know-how came from Leidy. (He or blame for a century or so of overdone was assisted by Edward Drinker Cope, a An Academy ballot box pork chops. He is also said to have been young paleontologist who would later com - was used in the early the first scientist to use a microscope to pete fiercely with Yale rival O.C. Marsh in 1800s to select “persons of solve a murder, foreshadowing countless the so-called bone wars to unearth the best gentlemanly manners” for police procedurals and CSI episodes. The Western dinosaur specimens.) membership. Ballots were suspect in that case said that the blood on Hawkins mounted plaster casts of the cast in secret. A white ball his shirt came from a chicken. He con - Hadrosaurus bones, and where needed represented a yes vote; fessed after Leidy demonstrated that the plaster reconstructions, on an iron arma - a black ball meant no. red cells could not have come from a bird ture. Because the fossil was missing its and were probably human. skull, the team modeled a replacement on Fossils are what really made Leidy the modern iguana, and painted it green. famous. As collectors in the American West The finished skeleton, reassembled in two began sending him paleontological speci - months of feverish work, reared overhead mens, Leidy described a saber-toothed cat as if there were truly “life in him again” and a rhinoceros that had once roamed the after 65 million years. Much of Hawkins’ Great Plains. His description in the 1850s working model is now lost, but its innova - of an ancient American camel helped tive approach to fossil specimens contin - encourage the War Department to create ues to influence the way museums around a U.S. Camel Corps, with animals import - the world display dinosaurs. ed from North Africa to transport equip - Academy scientists conduct research ment in the Southwest. today everywhere from Venezuela’s Ori- Leidy also demonstrated that horses noco Delta to Lake Hovsgol in northern had lived in America long before Spanish Mongolia. These specialized studies colonizers re-introduced them. (They dis - rarely attract public attention. They are appeared the first time, he thought, also badly funded: In 2006, on the brink of because of climate change.) He “was dis - financial collapse, the Academy caused a covering an entirely new world in the vir - flurry of protest when it sold off more gin fields of the American West,” write than 18,000 mineral specimens to keep Peck and Stroud. “It was not possible to itself alive. But we ignore the need for base his studies on those of European ongoing research at our considerable paleontologists because, according to the peril. Two centuries ago, Academy natu - eminent scientist Henry Fairfield Osborn, ralists helped shape the American repub - ‘every specimen represented a new lic and its ideas about its past. Their species or a new genus of a new family, counterparts today have the power to and in some cases a new order.’” shape our future. I Indo-Chinese forest lizards I Bicentennial Celebration The Academy of Natural Leidy and the Academy were the best from Burma (now Myanmar) were Sciences in Philadelphia is marking its 200th anniversary available source of paleontological think - collected on a 1935 expedition by ing when British sculptor Benjamin Richard Conniff is a National Magazine Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee, the with an exhibition, “The Nature of Discovery,” on display Waterhouse Hawkins arrived in the Award winner for feature writing. Academy’s curator of ornithology. through next March. The Academy’s colorful history is also United States in 1868. Hawkins had previ - His latest book is The Species Seekers: The lizards display a curious the subject of A Glorious Enterprise , by Richard Peck and ously made concrete models of dinosaurs Heroes, Fools and the Mad Pursuit characteristic during mating season: for London’s Crystal Palace. He liked to of Life on Earth. The heads and upper bodies of both Patricia Stroud, with photographs by Rosamond Purcell, males and females turn bright blue. some of which accompany this article.

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