Wann Langston, Jr. – a Life Amongst Bones Christopher J
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Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 103, 189–204, 2013 (for 2012) Wann Langston, Jr. – a life amongst bones Christopher J. Bell1, Matthew A. Brown,2, 4 Mary R. Dawson3 and Ernest L. Lundelius, Jr2 1 Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA Email: [email protected] 2 Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, 10100 Burnet Rd, R7600, Austin, TX 78758, USA Emails: [email protected]; [email protected] 3 Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213–4080, USA Email: [email protected] 4 School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, Museum Studies Building, 19 University Road, Leicester LE1 7RF, UK Wann Langston Jr. was born on 10 July, 1921 in Oklahoma another nurse, Clara Louise Jones. Wann was, thus, raised in City, Oklahoma. He was the only surviving son of Wann a family in which higher education, and specifically medical Langston and Myrtle Fanning Langston, who died in child- and anatomical training, was common to both parents. Clara’s birth as his life began. Three previous children all died young. father was the headmaster of Salado College and was a Regent The derivation of the name ‘‘Wann’’ is not fully known, but of The University of Texas, where Wann later spent much of his appears to have been the patronymic of an itinerant, African- professional career as a palaeontologist. Clara was a gifted American Baptist preacher who visited Wann’s grandfather linguist, with an especial passion for Greek (although she did and made a sufficiently strong impression that he named his not know the word ‘palaeontologist’; Wann remembers her son Wann. Middle names were not used in the family. calling him a ‘‘boneologist’’). Wann’s father was a strong supporter of his son’s endeav- His parents encouraged his interest in science, which devel- ours. He was himself the youngest of several siblings, and had oped at an early age. As a young boy, he had little interest in an early career as a schoolteacher near the Alabama border in anything outside of palaeontology. His earliest memories of southern Tennessee. He went to university in Tennessee when ‘palaeontological moments’ are of events that occurred on a he was in his 30s; when he left, he rode his horse to catch a family trip to Europe when he was four years old. In the train, then turned it loose to return home (Fig. 1). He went natural history museum in Vienna, he stood under a mounted on to medical school and became an MD, later joining the skeleton of Diplodocus and looked up with fascination into the military and running a laboratory in France during World gigantic rib cage. He turned five while overseas, and made a War I. He stayed in the Army Medical Corps for approxi- visit to the British Museum. He was so captivated by the dino- mately 20 years and retired as a Major. He held positions saur skeletons that he failed to notice the museum closing as Superintendent of the University of Oklahoma Teaching around him. He was locked inside, and the night watchman Hospital and then as Dean of the OU Medical School, and found a totally unconcerned Wann looking at dinosaur skele- late in life went into private practice as a cardiologist. tons. Apart from that one-year trip to Europe, he did not travel Until he was three years old, Wann Jr. was raised by his much until he was a teenager, but there were many outlets to maternal aunt, who was a nurse. Then his father married channel his interests in palaeontology after he returned home. He admits that he was not particularly good in school, mostly because he hated it. His father was somewhat chagrined by his poor academic skills, and sometimes shut him in his room in an effort to force the boy to study algebra. Instead, Wann dedi- cated his time to drawing and sculpting (Fig. 2). While staying with an uncle in New York City, he would spend his days with a lump of clay at the American Museum of Natural History, recreating the animals he saw there. Wann would bring his day’s labour home for his uncle to critique. His sculpting proclivities became a habit, and continued to serve Wann throughout his career as a palaeontologist. He has been ob- served ‘doodling’ with clay during staff meetings at the Verte- brate Paleontology Laboratory at The University of Texas, and consequently producing nice models of dinosaurs. It is this talent, combined with his profound knowledge of anatomy, which results in the beautiful and accurate mounts of dinosaurs and other skeletons for which Wann is well known. The daily presence of this young fossil enthusiast quickly drew the attention of museum staff at the American Museum. During his numerous childhood visits to that museum, Wann met many collectors, including Carl Akeley (a meeting that took Figure 1 Dr. Wann Langston, Sr., and his horse Polly. Downloaded6 2013 from Thehttps://www.cambridge.org/core Royal Society of Edinburgh.. University doi:10.1017/S1755691013000443 of Athens, on 23 Sep 2021 at 22:05:25, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755691013000443 190 BELL ET AL. Figure 2 Anatomical studies by Wann Langston, Jr.: (a) two primates and (b) Baluchitherium grangeri in clay, all attributed to ‘‘13 yr old Wann Langston.’’; (c) a ceratopsian skull in clay, no date; (d) portrait of a lion in pencil, dated 1938; (e) undated dinosaur in diorama; (f ) Langston sculpting maquettes. place at such a young age that Wann’s memory of it is not latter portions of the volume. Nonetheless, when his father re- clear), Barnum Brown and Roy Chapman Andrews. It was moved the bands some time later, he discovered a finger-stained Akeley’s mounted specimen of a mountain gorilla, the ‘‘Old and obviously well-caressed plate depicting the skeleton of Man of Mikeno,’’ that captivated the young sculptor above all Tyrannosaurus. With financial assistance from his father, other exhibits in the museum. Wann soon made his first major technical book purchase, the Wann also began collections of his own at a young age. At English translation of the Fish and Reptiles volume of Zittel’s the age of nine he began to build his library of palaeontological Grundzu¨ge der Pala¨ontologie (Zittel 1902). By the age of 12, he and anatomy publications, some of which he obtained from was collecting skeletons and had mounted the skeleton of a cat medical students. His father bought him his first book on palae- (his sister’s former pet – exhumed, cleaned and mounted with- ontology, The Earth for Sam (Reed 1930). In an attempt to train out permission). During weekends while he was in high school, Wann to read from cover to cover, instead of centering all atten- he dug up horse bones at an old trash pit site at the Oklahoma tion on dinosaurs, his father placed rubber bands around the City Zoo; his mother brought him out to the site, and he added Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 23 Sep 2021 at 22:05:25, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755691013000443 LANGSTON: A BIOGRAPHY 191 Figure 3 Langston with some of his personal collection, 1930s. the bones to a constantly growing skeletal collection that he The author of that letter was Ralph Shead, the supervisor for kept for many years (Fig. 3). the Works Progress Administration project surveying the State At about this time, he met J. Willis Stovall, then newly of Oklahoma; (a copy is on file in the archives of the Verte- hired at the University of Oklahoma. They immediately struck brate Paleontology Laboratory in Austin; minor typographi- up a professional relationship that lasted until Stovall died in cal errors in the original were corrected above). 1953 (Fig. 4). Stovall had a room full of bones – mostly of On a trip to Chicago in 1933, Wann spent a full week visiting mammoths and mastodons – that was a magnet for Wann’s the Geology Department of the Field Museum of Natural His- attention. Under the watchful and patient eye of Stovall, tory, where he passed the time with Elmer Riggs, and prepara- Wann learned about preparing, curating and identifying fossil tors John Abbott and James Quinn (who would later become bones. The first fossils that he ever prepared were a Leptoreodon John A. Wilson’s first PhD student at The University of Texas). and a mosasaur; the latter is still on exhibit in the Sam Noble Procedure for visitors was to announce oneself to the security Museum of Natural History in Norman, Oklahoma. Those guard at the main entrance, who then called a staff member museum experiences and skills would prove integral to his down from the palaeontology laboratory for escort upstairs to chosen career path. the department. After several days of this routine, Wann took Wann’s early passion for museums, and his persistence, the liberty of bypassing the guard, stepping over the rope and gained him special entry into other institutions. Stovall received ascending the stairs to the 4th floor. Intending this to save staff a letter dated 24 June, 1936 in which Wann was discussed at time and effort, Wann nevertheless met with the ire of Riggs, some length. who found him navigating the halls without a chaperone. He also met other vertebrate palaeontologists when they ‘‘Saturday aft.