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2017 Fossil Excavation, Museums, and Wyoming: American Paleontology, 1870-1915 Marlena Briane Cameron

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COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

FOSSIL EXCAVATION, MUSEUMS, AND WYOMING:

AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGY, 1870-1915

By

MARLENA BRIANE CAMERON

A Thesis submitted to the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

2017 Marlena Cameron defended this thesis on July 17, 2017. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Ronald E. Doel Professor Directing Thesis

Michael Ruse Committee Member

Kristina Buhrman Committee Member

Sandra Varry Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... iv

Abstract ...... v

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

2. THE BONE WARS ...... 9

3. MUSEUM WARS ...... 22

4. LOCAL PEACE AND VALUES: THE UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING MUSEUM ...... 41

5. CONCLUSION ...... 55

APPENDIX: IMAGES ...... 59

References ...... 67

Biographical Sketch ...... 71

iii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: 1899 Fossil Fields Expedition Participants ...... 59

Figure 2: William Harlow Reed and Assistants Around a Titanothere Mount...... 59

Figure 3: “Megalnosaur paddle – about 1897 – Prof. B. C. Buffum” ...... 60

Figure 4: Carnegie Museum’s Fossil Preparation Room ...... 60

Figure 5: “Bone Room – Mechanic Arts Bldg – 1897” ...... 61

Figure 6: “Bone Room (Mechanic Arts Bldg) – About 1898” ...... 61

Figure 7: “Bone Room - Mechanic Arts Bldg – 1899” ...... 62

Figure 8: “Bone Room – In Mechanic Arts Bldg – 1897. W. H. Reed” ...... 62

Figure 9: “Elmer Riggs with Preparator in Field Museum’s Fossil Preparation Room, 1900 ...... 63

Figure 10: “Museum Room – ‘in Old Main’ – About 1895” ...... 63

Figure 11: “Museum Scene U. of Wyo. Winter 1906-1907” ...... 64

Figure 12: “Museum, 1908. W. H. Reed.” ...... 64

Figure 13: American Museum with First Dinosaur Mount ( Brontosaurus ) on Display, 1905...... 65

Figure 14: Carnegie Museum with Diplodocus Mount on Display, 1907 ...... 65

Figure 15: American Museum Titanothere Models on Display, Circa 1900 ...... 66

iv ABSTRACT

Displays of dinosaurs have become a staple of modern natural history museums, but these did not emerge until the turn of the twentieth century. Through the work of Edward Drinker

Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh in this field (despite their intense rivalry), paleontology grew as a discipline and, after losing federal funding, found a new home in museums and universities.

Recognizing the potential of large dinosaurs for display and education, major natural history museums such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York under Henry Osborn began competing for their own specimens. Much work has been done on the efforts of these emerging large museums. Smaller museums such as the University of Wyoming Museum, however, have been much less studied. Through its proximity to immense, rich fossil fields, the university became directly connected to the major events shaping paleontology at the time. Yet differences in the pedagogy and intentions behind its formation—a sense of state pride rather than the concerns of wealthy, elite sponsors—served to set it apart from larger, more well-known institutions.

v CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Dinosaurs. Large reptile-like behemoths towering above even the largest of modern terrestrial animals, their bones at an unprecedented scale. Not all dinosaurs reached such a large size, but even so, the sheer range of their body sizes, types, and structures have awed scientists and the general public alike. Proof of their popularity extends from being a quintessential staple of the stereotypical museum to a strong presence in pop culture. In science, work continues to be done not just on the fossil record and its role in evolution and earth’s history, but also the morphology, diet, and behavior of dinosaurs—even coloration. 1 Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, however, have not always been in the forefront of public consciousness. Georges

Cuvier’s proof of extinction to scientific communities in 1796, notions of geologic time and uniformitarianism appearing in the mid-1800s, and the publication of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859 constituted crucial changes to scientific thinking and the analysis of fossils and their implications.

This was not to say that fossils had gone unnoticed beforehand. The ancient Greeks had noted parallels between fossils and extant organisms, while the concept of griffins from Greek and Roman legends, incorporated from Saca-Scythian nomads, are thought to have been inspired by the remains of Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus .2 In North America, fossils functioned as symbolic objects and folklore in Native American culture. This ranged from “Plains Indians

[gathering] certain iridescent marine fossils for their magical power to summon buffalo

1 Chris Sloan, “Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time,” National Geographic , January 27, 2010. 2 Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 8-9; 22; 40-49.

1 herds…[to] Sioux myths about Thunder Birds fighting Water Monsters.” 3 Meanwhile, ivory from mastodon tusks was “actively collected and traded,” while “the mounds built by paleo-

Indians in Ohio also contain pieces of fossilized ivory tusks collected more than two thousand years ago.” 4

The 1700s and especially the late 1800s, however, brought with them a focus on collecting fossils specifically for the purpose of studying earth’s history, geology, and paleobiology. The work of Englishwoman Mary Anning in the early 1800s demonstrated these efforts: continuing her father’s work in gathering fossils, she actively collected them from the nearby Jurassic-period cliffs, including the discovery she and her brother made of Ichthyosaurus and “her [own] discovery of the first plesiosaur.” 5 Her fossils found their way to the collections of noblemen, museums, and naturalists, including Georges Cuvier, aiding the discourse on fossils and inspiring artwork of prehistoric creatures and their habitats. The growing popularity of the prehistoric also became reflected in Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ sculptures of prehistoric creatures for the Crystal Palace in England in 1854, tapping into the ‘‘monstrous aesthetic.’” 6

Paleontology in the United States, meanwhile, took off in the mid-1800s. The work of

Joseph Leidy at the Academy of Natural Sciences proved especially influential, while the infamous “Bone Wars” feud of Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh propelled the growth of the discipline. Driven by deep personal animosity and rivalry, the two raced to

3 Adrienne Mayor, Fossil Legends of the First Americans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), xxiii. 4 Ibid., 9. 5 “Mary Anning (1799-1847),” University of California Museum of Paleontology , accessed April 30, 2017, http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/anning.html 6 Mark Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 15; Paul D. Brinkman, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush: Museums and Paleontology in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 248.

2 discover and name the most fossils, attacked each other in print, endeavored to hire each other’s fossil collectors, and, more so in Marsh’s case, ordered the destruction of sites to prevent their use by others. Yet with the means to engage in continuous fossil hunting expeditions, the two men and their collectors uncovered substantial amounts of new fossils and scientific data.

Continuous expansion of the American West, especially through the building of railroads, aided in revealing new, well-preserved, and rich fossil sites to Cope and Marsh. For nearby towns, meanwhile, fossil collection expeditions provided new sources of revenue as parties stocked up on supplies before heading to the badlands.

Considering Cope and Marsh’s larger-than-life feud, which affected all emerging paleontologists and the institutions that supported them, and their landmark scientific work, the

Bone Wars has become a popular topic study among historians and the public alike. Historical works include Url Lanham’s The Bone Hunters , Elizabeth Noble Shor’s The Fossil Feud:

Between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh , David Rains Wallace’s The Bonehunters’ Revenge:

Dinosaurs, Greed, and the Greatest Scientific Feud of the Gilded Age, and Mark Jaffe’s The

Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh and the Rise of

American Science . Several other books have been geared toward juveniles, while both a traditional novel and a graphic novel were dedicated to the subject as well.

Yet the Bone Wars proved to be limited in its role in popularizing dinosaurs among the general public of the time. Marsh’s writing on the subject remained restricted to scientific audiences, while his collections at the Peabody Museum were not intended for public engagement. Although Cope wrote numerous scientific and popular articles alike on a variety of topics and agreed that displaying dinosaurs would be beneficial for public education, his focus

3 was never on the latter. 7 It would be the “second Jurassic dinosaur rush” spurred by natural history museums’ interest in garnering a complete dinosaur skeleton for display, historian of science Paul Brinkman contends, that would have “a greater and more lasting impact on science and society.” 8

Museums initially functioned as displays of rare and unusual objects. Many constituted the personal art collections of European royalty and upper class. Such galleries reinforced the power and authority of rulers, serving as “official reception rooms…meant to impress both foreign visitors and local dignitaries with the ruler’s magnificence… [and those] famous for their richness often attracted foreign travellers [sic]…”9 In other early museums, such as the one founded by Charles Wilson Peale in 1786, they functioned as “cabinets of curiosities,” designed

“to entertain and to educate viewers.”10 This conception of museums for educational purposes emerged in Europe as well following the French Revolution. Determined to eradicate symbols of the French monarchy either through iconoclasm or replacement, the revolutionaries viewed museums as a means to undermine the power of the monarchy and inculcate the values of the state. 11 Following the French Revolution, the idea of providing a “proper” education for citizens persisted, for museums encouraged not only certain aesthetics but morals as well. Indeed, as the concept of social reform grew, so too did the notion that “museums might help lift the level of popular taste and design; they might diminish the appeal of the tavern; they might help prevent

7 Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur , 351; Ibid., 161. 8 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 1. 9 Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach, “The Universal Survey Museum,” in Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts, 1st ed., ed. Bettina Messias Carbonell (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2004), 55. 10 Harold Skramstad, “An Agenda for American Museums in the Twenty-First Century,” Daedalus: America’s Museums , 128, no. 3 (Summer 1999), 110. 11 Duncan and Wallach, “The Universal Survey Museum,” 56-59.

4 riot and sedition.”12 Education, in this context, served to enforce the values of a middle- and upper-class audience as well as reinforcing their authority. And as imperial expansion created new layers of complexity through interactions and the domination of other peoples, museums more often than not reinforced the concept of superiority and the moral justification for such actions.

Fossils interested natural history museum leaders for several reasons. For the purpose of education, fossils provided visual demonstrations of evolution and geological history. Fossils, especially large ones, also offered entertainment and a source of spectacle. In the case of the mastodon skeleton that had been displayed in Peale’s museum, “it remained the prime drawing card of the museum, almost of the city,” while at the Academy of Natural Sciences,

“attendance…had spiked dramatically after the unveiling of Joseph Leidy’s giant

Hadrosaurus. ”13 Further, “superlatives, in general, and superlative size, in particular, were fundamental values in American natural history museums around the turn of the twentieth century….there was a society-wide fascination with gigantic things,” and newspaper articles and other publications highlighted these traits and the valuable nature of fossils. 14 Museums also helped to shape the developing relationship between science and the general public. Increasingly, disciplines were becoming specialized and professionalized, with the term “scientist” emerging in the 1800s, and growing universities made scientific study more accessible to those interested.

With the federal government favoring a more utilitarian relationship in its sponsorship of science, especially valuing practical application, paleontology had been deemed a waste of

12 Tony Bennett, “The Formation of the Museum,” in The Birth of the Museum : History, Theory, Politics (2000), 21. 13 Edgar P. Richardson, Charles Wilson Peale and His World (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1983),122; Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 247. 14 Ibid., 248.

5 government funds. Museums, chiefly the well-funded American Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum, offered a new outlet of patronage for paleontological work. The new museum movement beginning in the 1880s, meanwhile, gave rise to “a new generation of museum administrators in the late nineteenth century [who viewed] their role as professional, instrumental, and educational.” 15 In an accompanying shift, “objects…were assumed to hold meaning and tell stories, giving direct access to knowledge that should not be too highly mediated.”16 Although interpretation by curators remained important, so, too was visitors learning through their own observation, with George Brown Goode of the Smithsonian National

Museum characterizing the ideal education in museums being “‘a collection of instructive labels, each illustrated by a well-selected specimen.’” 17 Fossils, especially large, well-preserved specimens, would function well to that end—and prove a source of competition for several major emerging natural museums.

Universities and smaller, local museums also had interest in supporting paleontology. The scientific value of fossils and plethora of new discoveries grew university collections, often prompting the creation of university museums. Smaller towns near fossil sites developed fossil collections as well, such as the Western Colorado Academy of Science in Grand Junction,

Colorado, “an amateur scientific society devoted to the study of local geology and natural history.”18 The town’s mayor had helped found the society and kept its collection, which included dinosaur bones, on display in his office. 19 Meanwhile, the lobby of the Billings State

15 Sally Kolstedt, “Museum Perceptions and Productions: American Migrations of a Maori hei- tiki ,” Endeavor 40, no. 1, 17; see also Sally Kolstedt, “‘Thoughts in Things’ Modernity, History, and North American Museums, Isis 96, no. 4 (December 2005). 16 Ibid, 18. 17 Kolstedt, “Thoughts in Things,” 588. 18 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 121. 19 Ibid., 108.

6 Bank in Montana included “a small number of miscellaneous fossil vertebrate specimens, including at least one Jurassic dinosaur limb bone.”20

In the case of the University of Wyoming, its proximity to Como Bluff, one of the key fossils sites of the Bone Wars and the second Jurassic dinosaur rush, offered nearly unlimited access to the region. The university took full advantage of its location, regularly sending fossil collecting trips and geology classes into the field. The high yield of fossils contributed to the university museum’s emphasis on paleontology, while two of its curators and geology faculty,

Wilbur C. Knight and William Harlow Reed, regularly engaged in excavations. Their work, and the fame of their site, brought them into regular contact with Cope and Marsh’s collectors and, later, the chief museums of the dinosaur rush. These latter museums—the American Museum, the

Carnegie Museum, and the Field Colombian Museum—would exercise enormous influence on their contemporaries in both their collections and displays. Much research has been conducted into their practices and organization, such as Brinkman’s The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush:

Museums and Paleontology in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century , Ronald Rainger’s

An Agenda for Antiquity: Henry Fairfield Osborn & Vertebrate Paleontology at the American

Museum of Natural History, 1890-1935, and Tom McRea’s Bone Wars: The Excavation and

Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie’s Dinosaur . These museums, while pivotal and pervasive in influence, however represent large, well-funded museums backed by elite patrons and concentrated in major cities. This thesis, then, seeks to explore how smaller museums engaging in paleontological research related to the trends found in larger museums, using the less- examined University of Wyoming Museum as a case study. The first two body chapters will establish key context and developments shaping both paleontology and its relationship with the

20 Ibid., 210.

7 larger museums, while the third will focus specifically on the University of Wyoming. While undoubtedly influenced by these major natural history museums, the University of Wyoming

Museum did not become a smaller version of the them, due, in part, to the differences in the institutions’ implicit missions—those shaped by the context in which they were formed.

8 CHAPTER 2

THE BONE WARS

One of the earliest fossil discoveries in the American colonies appeared in the early

1700s. A large fossil tooth baffled those who encountered it. Some thought it was the remains of a Biblical giant, while others argued it was the remains of an elephant or mammoth displaced by the Flood, resulting in it being referred to as the American incognitum .21 It later caught the interest of Thomas Jefferson, who arranged to have several more fossils found and sent to him over the period of several years. Part of this served a deeper, nationalistic purpose: at a time when notions of American independence were emerging, Jefferson sought to counter the idea of

American degeneracy. Popularized by the famous French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc,

Comte de Buffon, it held that America’s cooler, damp climate had caused its native wildlife and peoples—and even domesticated European animals brought over—to have smaller, inferior forms to those in Europe. 22 But it also reflected Jefferson’s interest in science. Although

Jefferson did not accept the idea of evolution as then understood, he hoped that creatures such as the incognitum could be found living out West and requested Lewis and Clark to keep their eyes out for animals “deemed rare or extinct.” 23 The incognitum , as it turned out, was neither elephant nor mammoth but instead the extinct mastodon. And, of course, no living individuals would be found in the Louisiana Purchase or beyond. The West, however, would become part of the

21 Paul Semonin, American Monster: How the Nation ’s First Prehistoric Creature Became a Symbol of National Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 3. 22 Ibid., 112. 23 Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, June 20, 1805, “Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America, ” on-line exhibit, Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/transcript57.html.

9 United States, and following the Civil War, it would emerge as the source of several fossil hotspots.

Academic interest in prehistoric creatures continued well after Jefferson. The confirmation of extinction and deep time—crucial concepts—developed in the early 1800s, while the very word “dinosaur” emerged in 1842. 24 Before that, nature of fossils remained more obscure: were they just strange rock formations? Diseased, anomalous individuals? Remains of extant species? The aftermath of the Biblical Flood? Remnants of giants? For Western Europe and North America, many of these ideas came from a long tradition of interpreting scientific finds through a Christian lens. One long-standing belief held that living species had been made in their present form through the creation act of Genesis and that all were related hierarchically with mankind on top—the “Great Chain of Being” that proved profoundly influential in much naturalistic thinking at the time, including Carolus Linnaeus’ classification work. 25 Extinction as a concept was problematic, suggesting both an imperfect creation and imperfect God alike. But with the work of French naturalist and comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier making extinction finally accepted by much of the scientific community, the recognition of fossils as species no longer in existence began to increase.

Geology, meanwhile, had grown as a field of study as its practitioners increasingly suspected the Earth was far older than commonly believed—certainly much earlier than

Archbishop James Usher’s approximation of the Earth’s formation in 4004 BC. 26 Work such as that of Charles Lyell’s significant piece Principals of Geology contributed to this rising belief, which not only pushed the age of the earth back into at least the thousands of years, but also

24 Mark Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science (New York: Crown Publishers, 2000), 17. 25 Semonin, American Monster , 115. 26 Ibid., 147.

10 established the notion of uniformitarianism, that the natural processes of the earth occurred at gradual, continuous pace to form its iconic geological features, such as the erosion of mountaintops. This contrasted with the more widely-held idea of catastrophism, which held that the earth’s major features were caused by a series of major catastrophes that dramatically altered the face of the earth. One such example included the Biblical Flood, which was used to explain the distribution of fossils such as shells found on mountaintops and unusual fossil remains. Deep time offered greater accessibility to this antediluvian landscape. It also enabled Lyell and James

Dana, an American geologist, to begin dividing strata, or layers, into the geologic timescale divisions more familiarly known today—age, epoch, period. 27 And it was this sense of deeper geologic time and uniformitarianism, coupled with Thomas Malthus’ work on populations, which helped Charles Darwin form his theory of natural selection.

With extinction and deep time, fossils increasingly grew as a field of study. Dinosaurs and other prehistoric entities were being discovered across Europe, such as the Iguanadon in

1822. Public popularity of the prehistoric was growing, too, with Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins creating sculptures of prehistoric creatures for the Crystal Palace in England in 1854. 28 In the

United States, Joseph Leidy became a significant player, studying and describing fossils extensively and identifying the first dinosaur fossils in the U.S. His presence at the Academy of

Natural Sciences in Philadelphia made the institution a preeminent locale for paleontology, housing “the nation’s only two dinosaur skeletons” and featuring a reconstruction of Hadrosaurs

Leidy had found. 29

27 Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur , 15-17. 28 Ibid., 11-15. 29 Ibid., 10.

11 Geology and paleontology were thus relatively new but growing fields that attracted several bright young minds, especially Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. Both had an interest in natural history. Marsh, after years of schooling abroad, had returned to Yale to be the first professor of paleontology in the United States, while Cope’s interest stemmed from working with Leidy and the Academy of Natural Sciences. The two had befriended one another while studying in Europe. Yet this friendship soon deteriorated into a life-long animosity affecting both their personal and professional lives, as well as the entire paleontological discipline. To this end, the remainder of this chapter will draw from Mark Jaffe’s The Gilded

Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh and the Rise of American

Science unless otherwise noted.

Cope and Marsh’s rivalry began a few years after they had returned to the United States, when Cope reconstructed a fossil Elasmosarus from remains found in New Jersey. After Cope had mounted the species and “written a major paper, with lithographic prints, to be attached to the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society that summer, at his own expense,”

Marsh corrected Cope’s position of the specimen’s skull: Cope had mistaken the tail for the neck. 30 Not long after the two had argued about Elasmosaurus , Cope correctly suspected that

Marsh had diverted the flow of the New Jersey fossils: Marsh had quietly contacted the owner of the land. Despite Cope’s efforts, he failed to recruit the owners’ workers. Amidst these growing tensions, fossils meant for Marsh were sent to Cope on accident. Cope analyzed them in a report before realizing this, and he told Marsh such. Even so, there was a bitter taste in mouths of both.

The end of the Civil War had brought with it continued expansion West. Expanding national borders and railroads alike unearthed fossil specimens that were then sent to places like

30 Ibid., 13.

12 the Academy of Natural Sciences for study. Railroads played a crucial role, not only displacing the ground but facilitating transportation of explorers, geologic surveyors, homesteaders, and the military. From 1850 to 1870, approximately forty-four thousand miles of track had been laid across the United States, and the amount of track only continued to grow. 31 So, too, was the chance of uncovering major fossil beds, especially since the West’s drier climate facilitated fossil formation and preservation. Cope’s Elasomosaurus had been found at a military fort in Kansas, and Marsh decided to head West himself along with some interested students from Yale. His expedition proved a success and he published several articles related to both the expedition and the fossils discovered, which caught Cope’s attention. Although New Jersey had yielded numerous early fossil finds and had been “the richest fossil field in the country,” the increased exploration West rapidly challenged this, and Cope soon embarked on his own fieldwork West. 32

Geological surveys also provided opportunities for traveling West and obtaining fossils. Clarence

King, heading the U.S. Geological Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, sent fossils to Marsh, while

Ferdinand Hayden of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories took Cope on as his head paleontologist.

Cope and Marsh’s friction persisted despite the vast expansion of known fossil sites for excavation. Cope’s work overlapped some of the sites that Marsh had worked, which irked

Marsh as he kept a possessive attitude towards sites he or his associates found. Meanwhile, more of Marsh’s fossils were sent by accident to Cope, and before that, some of Marsh’s associates worked with Cope, including Benjamin Mudge (briefly) and B. D. Smith. As Cope and Marsh continued to overlap in their fieldwork, this time at Bridger Basin in Wyoming, Marsh’s men purposely planted two different fossil remains near each another at one of the excavation sites to

31 Ibid., 34. 32 Ibid., 50.

13 trick Cope into thinking they were the same species. The men’s ruse proved successful, with nearly a decade passing before it was realized.

The major flashpoint that ended Cope and Marsh’s tense civility arose with the discovery of a strange fossil skull, now known as Uintathere . Cope and Marsh had made a competition of naming their finds. As a result, each had his own name for different fossil species and preferred to use these names even if his rival’s name had been accepted as the official one. Overlap of names existed even among their own fossil collections, reflecting both the incomplete nature of their finds and the pressure to publish. Official terms accepted by the scientific community were traditionally determined by the “rule of priority,” which privileged the name found in the earliest publication. Yet the prolific, competitive nature of the two’s writing resulted in exceptionally close dates, complicating the rule of priority. Cope and Marsh debated dates for several fossil specimens, but in this particular case, Marsh attacked Cope in print. Through articles published in the American Naturalist and the American Journal of Science , Marsh enumerated the errors in

Cope’s work and questioned the legitimacy of his finds. Nor did Marsh did not stop there, using his influence in the scientific community to his advantage and endeavoring to have Cope censored by the American Philosophical Society and his publications taken back. One of Marsh’s associates also appealed to the Academy of Natural Sciences to investigate Cope’s work. The attempt in the Academy of Natural Sciences failed, but the American Philosophical Society agreed not to publish any more of Cope’s articles regarding the fossil in question. Cope defended himself in another article of the American Naturalist , which Marsh countered and Cope countered back in turn. Following this, the journal relegated articles on the debate to an appendix and began charging extra money per page from Cope and Marsh alike. Their difference in financial resources enabled Marsh to print nine pages blasting Cope, but Cope only a succinct

14 paragraph. Ultimately, it was decided that Leidy had published his name first. 33 The damage to their relationship, however, was already done.

From there, their antagonism continued to dominate their field work. Each endeavored to maintain a sense of the other’s position in the field. Marsh also tried to prevent some of Cope’s work from being published in Hayden’s survey, writing a seven-page complaint to Hayden on this, even though—as Hayden noted in his reply—Marsh was not a part of the survey despite having been offered. In another instance, Marsh hired a man to cover some of the same ground as Cope, and Marsh’s agent destroyed markings that Cope had carved into a rock the year before as a spot to follow up on. When Cope excavated in Canon City relatively close to one of Marsh’s sites, Marsh sent his main excavator, Mudge, to watch Cope. Mudge managed to see some of the bones and partially engaged the services of one of Cope’s workers to send smaller fossils he’d excavated to Marsh instead.

The intensity of Cope and Marsh’s rivalry in the field affected their associates as well, exemplified by the discovery of enormous bone deposits discovered in Como Bluff, Wyoming.

After Marsh had received a letter from a Harlow and Edwards—pseudonyms of William Harlow

Reed and William Edward Carlin— regarding their fossil finds and requesting payment, Marsh sent one of his men to meet with them and secure their service. Cope, meanwhile, also learned of

Como Bluff and sent his own agents to investigate. Marsh’s belated payments ultimately drove

Carlin into Cope’s service, while Reed remained loyal to Marsh despite late pay and interpersonal tensions with fellow workers. At the encouragement behest of Marsh, Reed purposefully destroyed some bones in a low-yield quarry when closing it, harried some unaligned fossil hunters who tried to work in one of Marsh’s sites, and guarded the open quarries

33 Much later it would also be discovered that Cope and Marsh had, in fact, found two entirely separate species.

15 when Cope briefly visited. Eventually, Reed stopped work for Marsh in 1883 and would later serve as the University of Wyoming’s museum curator in 1897. 34

The federal government was not safe from Cope and Marsh’s rivalry either. Beginning in

1879, the United States Congress moved to consolidate its geological surveys. Initially, there had been six key government surveys exploring the United States. These included the U.S Coast and

Geodetic Survey, the “civilian homestead land-parceling survey,” and four geological surveys headed respectively by Hayden, King, John Wesley Powell, and Lieutenant George M.

Wheeler. 35 The latter four overlapped with one another in the physical space they surveyed, but each differed in their goals, foci, and even map scales. This proved inefficient, especially for anyone endeavoring to use more than one survey. A proposal in Congress called for merging those four surveys under one, as the land office and coast surveys were deemed distinctive enough to retain. However, as the remaining surveys had involved Cope and Marsh, each supported the surveys that had employed him: Cope had excavated and published under Hayden for several years and also worked under Wheeler, while Marsh had published under King’s survey and received fossils from Powell’s. Both Cope and Marsh drew upon their influence and allies to make his case. Cope now owned the journal American Naturalist after purchasing it, and he published articles in it that argued against consolidation. Marsh meanwhile served as president of the National Academy of Sciences, an organization of scientists formed to advise the federal government on scientific matters. As Congress sought a recommendation from the

Academy on the consolidation of the surveys, Marsh made full use of his position to recommend those he favored and endeavor to set Cope at a disadvantage. Cope, Marsh, and their scientific affiliates wrote in newspapers, lobbied Congress, and even visited the president to present their

34 Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur, 247. 35 Ibid., 110.

16 cases. Marsh ultimately succeeded when Congress appointed King as head of the consolidated survey. However, King was reluctant because the post would restrict some of the ways he could earn money, and in 1881, he stepped down. Powell succeeded him, and he worked to expand the survey and its funding, including making Marsh in charge of the division of paleontology.

Congress returned its attention to the survey in 1884 when evaluating the efficiency of several federal departments, broaching the broader question of government’s relationship with science. Again, Congress turned to the Marsh-led National Academy of Sciences, and they stressed that science should remain imperative to the government and public-oriented. Opinions in Congress, however, were divided, with Congressman Hilary Herbert vocally arguing for science becoming privatized and separated from government. With Powell’s survey and, by extension, Marsh being questioned, Cope chose to side with Herbert. Paleontology and publications through the surveys became key funding questions that Herbert raised, especially given the amount of costs in some of the books’ printing. But ultimately, the commission decided to maintain its relationship with scientific organizations, and the survey was largely unaffected.

Over the next few years, Cope sought funding from Powell to publish the monograph

Cope had written for Hayden’s survey. Yet given Powell’s connection to Marsh and Cope having written unflattering comments about Powell in the American Naturalist , Powell and the

Secretary of the Interior continued to deny Cope’s request. Finally, in December of 1889, Powell stipulated that Cope would need to submit the fossils he collected while part of Hayden’s surveys first. Irked, Cope turned to the penny press newspaper The New York Herald . He supplied all his

“Marshiana,” evidence he had compiled against Marsh over the years that included both his own and others’ grievances and observations to journalist William Ballou. Ballou used this evidence

17 along with sensationalism and embellishments. Despite Marsh’s determination to prevent Cope’s article—indeed, “there was no tactic Marsh would not use to stop the story”—dramatic headlines beginning in January 12 and ending January 26, 1890 included “Scientists Wage Bitter Warfare,”

“Red Hot Denials Put Forth,” “Heavy Blows Dealt,” “Will Congress Investigate?”, “Volley For

Volley In The Great Scientific War,” “Men Of Science Agog Some Shocked, All Stirred Up, By

The Sensational Disclosure In The Herald…” and “Yale’s Professor Picks Up Two Gauntlets Of

The Pennsylvania Paleontologist And Does Royal Battle In Defense Of His Scientific

Reputation,” while Ballou recounted a fictitious interview he had with Cope. 36 Some of this sensationalizing stemmed from the nature of the penny press itself: with a working-class audience, attention-grabbing titles encouraged sales. The results, though, largely pleased Cope: he described Ballou as a “rough customer” but offering a needed push.

Two key points blocked Cope’s tactic from succeeding. The first stemmed from Cope’s extensive name dropping, which involved numerous members of the scientific community in the debate. Some were even contacted by Ballou directly, but never informed that they were giving a newspaper interview. Most scientists disagreed with Cope’s handling of the situation, although a few were glad that Cope brought these up. Before Cope’s publications, upper-class newspapers had hinted at the Cope-Marsh feud, but never so blatantly. Yet the highly public nature of Cope’s attack garnered attention from them. The New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer ’s short pieces on Cope’s accusation in the Herald mainly discounted it, although the Times did acknowledge some of the problems raised about Marsh. The New York Sun and Philadelphia

Record also mentioned Cope’s charges. The second point came from Cope’s rush to publish.

Despite having years of collected material and grievances regarding Marsh, Cope had favored

36 Ibid., 320-330.

18 speed over a more structured, pointed argument. Marsh seized this advantage in a very thorough rebuttal to Cope: as Cope’s work “was filled with unsubstantiated accusations, half-truths, and errors” that allowed Marsh to “[knock] them off one by one—in the sharpest, nastiest of manners” and so settle the debate in print. 37 By Tuesday, the articles on Cope and Marsh had subsided. Although two articles by disaffected former Marsh employees appeared in the

American Naturalist a couple months later with much more direct charges, Marsh and Powell’s positions remained unaffected and Cope’s monograph was not published.

Cope’s decision to publicize his grievances, however, had more long-term effects on

Marsh. Senator Herbert had noted The Herald ’s articles and employed them in his continued efforts against the enlargement of government science. This case stemmed from broader arguments in Congress about irrigating the West in the early 1890s. Although Powell had wanted to create long-term solutions that were better suited to the more arid environment and others had proposed short-term solutions of building quick dams, both would be costly to implement.

Moreover, they would restrict settlement in portions of Western land, especially Powell’s ideas.

This made Powell highly unpopular amongst politicians, and with him also requesting increased funds for the U.S. Geological Survey, it offered an opportunity for his opponents to attack. Given

Marsh’s affiliation with the survey as head paleontologist, Herbert chose to target paleontology in his opposition. He characterized paleontology as impractical and thus undeserving of government funding. He also used Marsh’s special edition on his book on birds with teeth— “red

Moroccan leather binding, gilt edges, and tinted paper”—to emphasize its drain on resources, regardless that the reprint was funded privately by Marsh and not the government. 38 Cope’s accusations were partly raised, but the penny press fiasco had made other scientists unwilling to

37 Ibid., 320. 38 Ibid., 338.

19 become involved in this case. Henry Osborn, a rising paleontologist socially and politically well- connected, was asked by Congress for advice, but as Osborn had connections to Cope, it prompted the former to reply that while invertebrate paleontology and to a lesser degree vertebrate paleontology too was useful, the real problem lay in the conduct of government paleontology. He also highlighted Marsh keeping the government’s fossils at Yale and making them difficult to access. Congress ultimately chose to make major budget cuts to the USGS, and

Marsh lost a lot of money himself, along with his government position. Though financially unable to continue collecting, he still retained a lot of material to process.

The prominence of Cope and Marsh’s antagonism faded with the end of their government support. Cope succeeded in finally achieving a professional position at the University of

Pennsylvania a Chair of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy and managed to continue fossil collecting. Yet facing substantial financial difficulty, in 1895 he began selling his extensive fossil collections primarily to the American Museum of Natural History, where Osborn worked.

Osborn also arranged for prehistoric artist Charles R. Knight to draw color reconstructions of some of Cope’s fossils, including Elasmosaurus .39 Cope died in 1896. Marsh, meanwhile, suffered from financial difficulties of his own after losing his role in the USGS. Few new fossils entered the Peabody Museum, and it lost its reputation as the center of American paleontology to the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Vertebrate Paleontology under

Osborn. 40 Meanwhile, the federal government remained unable to reclaim its fossils from the

Peabody until Marsh’s death in 1899.

39 Ronald Rainger, An Agenda for Antiquity: Henry Fairfield Osborn & Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, 1890-1935 (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1991), 162. 40 Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur, 367.

20 Both Cope and Marsh had made significant contributions to the field. They discovered numerous prehistoric species and genera. “Marsh’s names for dinosaur groups—sauropods, theropods, and ornithopods—are still used today” while “Cope’s concept of archosaurs and his

‘law’ that over time species tend to become bigger are still used by and debated among scientists.

For decades, Cope’s law has been one of the organizing principles of paleontology.” 41 Their feud had forced up-and-coming paleontologists and natural history museum professionals alike to take sides or navigate with care between them. Their involvement with key debates regarding the federal government’s relation with science influenced the drastic cuts to government-sponsored paleontology, forcing those in the field to seek other sources of financial support. Cope and

Marsh’s competition, meanwhile, heightened publicity and interest in fossils, and their decline and death made key fossil sites much more accessible to fossil collectors of several universities and museums who looked to capitalize on fossils’—and dinosaurs’—emerging popularity.

41 Ibid., 380-381.

21 CHAPTER 3

MUSEUM WARS

Cope and Marsh’s legacy to paleontology extended beyond their scientific contributions, changing how, where, and why paleontology was conducted. Rather than through independent or geological surveys, paleontology became concentrated in universities and natural history museums, as apart from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a little work with the U. S. Geologic Survey, the federal government had ceased its funding of paleontology.

In universities, growing collections prompted many to create their own museums, and by 1907, over two-thirds of American museums had ties to universities. 42 The increasing trend of specialization within academic disciplines, meanwhile, influenced the formation of dedicated natural history museums—which constituted most of the museums at the turn of the century. 43

Such museums tended to offer more stable funding and resources, as here paleontological work did not have to compete with the rapidly developing field of experimental biology and genetics. 44

Large natural history museums had greater access to funding as well, with sponsorship from elite members of society. As part of the broader Progressive Era movements dedicated to social and moral reform, their wealthy trustees viewed museums as outlets of education for the good of the public. 45

42 Sally Kolstedt, “Academic Collections: Teaching and Exhibition on Nineteenth-Century American Campuses,” in Science Museums in Transitions: Cultures of Display in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America, ed. Carin Berkowitz and Bernard Lightman (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), 238. 43 Ibid. 44 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 19. 45 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity , 48.

22 Museums were not a new concept for the United States. Charles Wilson Peale’s museum in Philadelphia in 1773 served as one of the first museums. 46 Originally an art gallery, Peale expanded the scope and size of his collection to be much more natural history oriented. His collections of taxidermied animals, insects, reptiles, fish, and minerals followed a Linnaean schema. 47 It also featured more organization than the traditional cabinets of curiosities in the past. Peale worked to portray his animals in natural poses with backgrounds reflective of their natural habitats. 48 Fossils featured in his exhibits as well. Peale sponsored an excavation of a mastodon in 1801, also depicting the event in his painting Exhumation of the First American

Mastodon (1806-1808). The complete skeleton was mounted and put on display. It proved to be a wildly popular attraction, bringing so many extra visitors that Peale began charging a small extra fee to view the skeleton. 49 His self-portrait The Artist in His Museum reflects this popularity, including Peale standing beside a massive fossil limb and a woman viewing the mastodon, hidden from view, in the background. Balancing a mixture of education and entertainment was also of importance for Peale’s Museum. Prices were kept low, allowing a broader section of the public to visit, and the museum kept evening hours to increase accessibility. 50 He had lectures and scientific demonstrations hosted in the museum, as well as displays of technologic innovations and ideas for inventions. 51 The taxidermy exhibits were both

46 Edward Alexander, “What is a Museum,” in Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums, 1st ed. (Plymouth, UK: Altamira Press, 1996), 11. 47 Edgar P. Richardson, Charles Willson Peale and His World (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1983),113-156; David C. Ward, Charles Willson Peale: Art and Selfhood in the Early Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 177. 48 Richardson, Peale and His World , 135. 49 Ibid., 122 50 David R. Brigham, Public Culture in the Early Republic: Peale’s Museum and Its Audience (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), , 6-7, 88; Sidney Hart and David C. Ward, “The Waning of an Enlightenment Ideal: Charles Wilson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum, 1790-1820,” Journal of the Early Republic 8, no. 4 (Winter, 1988): 396. 51 Richardson, Peale and His World, 113-156.

23 informational and visually engaging, while the physiognotrace allowed patrons to have silhouettes of their heads made and permitted a degree of interactivity between patrons and the museum. 52

Peale’s Museum eventually closed in the early 1830s, unable to adapt sufficiently to the increasing push toward specialization over generalization of disciplines, yet fossils remained of interest for display. In England, the life-sized sculptures of prehistoric creatures by Benjamin

Waterhouse Hawkins for the Crystal Palace drew numerous visitors there. Later in the United

States, Joseph Leidy’s pivotal work in paleontology and arrangement for Hawkins to mount

Hadrosaurus in the Academy of Natural Sciences caused “attendance… [to spike] dramatically after the unveiling…” and, as “the world’s first and only mounted dinosaur until 1883,” it would remain popular for a while afterward. 53

As fossils grew in popularity and, following the Civil War, became more accessible through the increasing discoveries of fossil sites spurred by Cope and Marsh’s groundbreaking work, universities and academic institutions made their own collections. Yale’s Peabody

Museum, founded by Marsh’s uncle in 1866, came to store the numerous fossils Marsh collected. 54 Meanwhile, Princeton University established a natural history museum in 1873 and worked to “instruct students and provide an overview of the earth’s geological and biological history.” 55 A year later, they commissioned Hawkins to make a cast of Hadrosaurus and seventeen watercolor paintings of prehistoric life for display there, while their preparator

“mounted over thirty specimens of fossil vertebrates.”56 The American Museum of Natural

52 Brigham, Public Culture, 68. 53 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 247; Ibid., 13 54 Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur , 23-24. 55 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity , 27. 56 Ibid.

24 History (founded in 1869 in New York City), the Carnegie Museum (founded in 1896 in

Pittsburgh), and the Field Colombian Museum (founded in 1893 in Chicago) would grow their own collections as well, and the remainder of this chapter will draw its discussion of them from

Ronald Rainger’s Agenda for Antiquity: Henry Fairfield Osborn & Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, 1890-1935 and Paul Brinkman’s The Second Jurassic

Dinosaur Rush: Museums and Paleontology in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century unless otherwise noted.

The American Museum would have an incredibly important role in paleontology and museum work alike. It began with a board of elite trustees who purchased collections according to their whims. At first, its “early collections were neither well displayed nor effectively labeled, the museum’s hundreds of birds, animal skins, insects, molluscs, and fossils suggested the bounty of nature… and a testament to the wonders of creation.” 57 When businessman Morris K.

Jesup became president of the museum in 1881, he strived to make the museum better suited for display. In addition to cataloging, labeling, and making better displays, Jesup arranged for

“lectures on nature for the state’s school teachers,” which proved popular and help offer publicity to the museum. 58 The collections were also opened to scientific research. His work helped solicit specimen donations, while the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural

History described its holdings and provided a venue for publication. Jesup also worked to found a vertebrate paleontology program, advocating the purchase of a mounted mastodon skeleton in

1887 from Ward’s Scientific Establishment, in part because of “‘the extreme interest which the

57 Ibid, 56. 58 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity , 58.

25 skeleton…excites.’” 59 Thus fossils had retained public interest enough to warrant their continued enclosure in museums—they drew guests.

Arguably, hiring Henry F. Osborn for the American Museum’s new paleontology program in 1890 was Jesup’s most important contribution to the institution. Osborn became curator less than a year later, and capitalized on his interest in paleontology, his social standing and connections, his ambition, and the role of publicity to elevate the museum to the forefront of vertebrate paleontology programs and one of international renown. An ally of Cope and opponent of Marsh, part of Osborn’s drive came from the desire to outdo the reputation Marsh had created for Yale and himself. The publication of Marsh’s influential, detailed book The

Dinosaurs of North America in 1896 made the generally guarded specimens in Yale’s Peabody

Museum accessible for study by including not just numerous descriptions and measurements but also several drawings of reconstructed skeletons. Nor was Osborn alone in wanting to correct

Marsh, as the man had made several enemies: for many post-Marsh paleontologists, “it would be difficult to overstate just how eager they were to tear Marsh down.” 60 In order to challenge

Marsh and the Peabody Museum as a center of vertebrate paleontology, Osborn began arranging for fossil collecting expeditions to expand the American Museum’s collections.

Marsh’s The Dinosaurs of North America also inspired the reconstruction and mounting of complete dinosaurs. While fossils were indeed popular, Cope and Marsh’s work had largely been inaccessible to the general public. The fossils displayed in the Peabody Museum, for example, were not designed to engage guests. Marsh himself was opposed to reconstructions, feeling that errors in mounts would do more harm than good for education, especially that “such

59 Ibid., 59. 60 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 12.

26 errors, once established, would be impossible to dislodge from the public mind.” 61 Cope recognized the educational draw that fossils could offer, but never had a museum nor published his own drawings of a reconstructed Camarasaurus , likely due in part to him investing what money he had in collecting rather than display. Yet Marsh’s drawings were evocative and influential outside of the scientific community, appearing frequently among textbooks, encyclopedias, and newspapers. And when steel magnate Andrew Carnegie decided to pursue a mount-worthy dinosaur specimen for his museum in 1898, he incorporated Marsh’s drawn reconstructions into his arguments for such a pursuit.

With Cope and Marsh no longer dominating the paleontological field, other museums and fossil hunters stepped forward to fill the gap. Osborn’s primary focus after becoming curator of the American Museum’s Department of Mammalian Paleontology initially was expanding its fossil mammal collection. To that end, he sent his collectors into areas that were dominated by

Marsh, especially Wyoming’s Como Bluff, in 1892 and employed his strong social connections to break Marsh’s monopoly on the sites. American Museum employee Barnum Brown’s discovery of more large fossils at Como Bluff in 1897 brought the promise of finding a mountable prospect. The reports of University of Wyoming collector William Harlow Reed’s massive dinosaur find in 1898, meanwhile, spurred Carnegie to send his own collectors to Como

Bluff as well. This increasing sense of competition between emerging natural history museums—chiefly the American Museum, the Carnegie Museum, and the Field Museum—to excavate and mount the first sauropod dinosaur was what Brinkman calls the second Jurassic dinosaur rush, the first rush being Cope and Marsh’s Bone Wars.

61 Ibid., 13.

27 The competition between these three museums echoed the intensity of Cope and Marsh’s competition in some ways. The museums held regular rival excavations, often in the same areas.

The museums also actively worked to recruit each other’s laborers and gain their skills. In some cases, they also staked legal land claims to their field areas to restrict access to their finds.

Workers from different museum camps were civil in their interactions with one another, such as celebrating July 4 th together, but also used these interactions to spy on the others’ sites and gain a sense of their progress. Yet unlike Cope and Marsh, hostility generally did not color the museums’ competition. Part of this stemmed from Osborn’s much more extensive influence in both museums and paleontology and his desire to build a strong network of connections to aid his work, likely coupled with the memory of the two’s paleontologists’ acerbic relationship and publicized arguments across the field.

The efforts of geologist and University of Wyoming faculty member Wilbur C. Knight also helped promote good will across the paleontology discipline. In 1899, he, along with E. L.

Lomax of the Union Pacific Railroad, organized the landmark Fossil Fields Expedition at Como

Bluff. Invitations were sent out to numerous colleges, universities, and museums to send students to participate in several days of field work under the general guidance of Knight while the Union

Pacific would provide free transportation to both the collecting parties and their finds. Knight, unlike Osborn and ambitious Carnegie Museum director William Jacob Holland, felt that the

“fields are ample for all.” 62 Part of this stemmed from the bone-rich deposits in Como Bluff and its surrounding areas. The proximity to the University of Wyoming enabled easier fossil collecting: “by the late 1890s, the Jurassic dinosaur collection at the University…was probably the second largest in the world—after Marsh’s storied collection at Yale.” 63 By 1913, in fact, a

62 Ibid., 72. 63 Ibid., 10.

28 separate Science Hall with a museum in its basement would be built to better house the university’s fossil collection. 64 But Knight also appeared to genuinely believe in working cooperatively for the good of science, and the large turnout to this key fossil deposit indicates the success of his efforts. 65

The Fossil Fields Expedition was less appreciated, however, by the American and

Carnegie Museums. It enabled their emerging rival the Field Museum to participate and make several good finds, intensifying the feeling of competition and limited resources. 66 It also bolstered Como Bluff’s fame as a rich source of fossils, making it more desirable to local fossil hunters and national institutions alike. Osborn continuously urged his workers to search for more locations and claim them. And when he and the other museums’ field parties did find more sites, they worked hard to keep their exact location secret. 67 This of course was not a full-proof method. In 1900, when Elmer Riggs of the Field Museum received a tip about a good fossil site near Grand Junction, Colorado, he took pains to keep the location quiet. Yet the mayor, an avid local naturalist who had founded the Western Colorado Academy of Science and provided the tip, viewed what proved to be the find of an immense fossil limb as good publicity for the town and information found its way into newspapers. A local article “described the new specimen in tempting terms, celebrating it as one of the largest dinosaurs discovered,” while a New York

Times article said he had found “‘a near perfect skeleton.’” 68 Even when an area was less close to a town or not in the newspapers’ eye, it was impossible to keep everyone the excavation teams interacted with quiet. This also fed the feelings of urgency and rivalry.

64 Brent Breithaupt, “Geological Museum the University of Wyoming,” Rocks and Minerals 59, no. 3 (1984): 127 65 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 72. 66 Ibid., 99. 67 Ibid., 49. 68 Ibid., 115.

29 Meanwhile, funding was still needed for these trips. Railroads continued to make special deals with the museums for the transportation of fossils. Publicity of the museum’s activities, meanwhile, helped solicit donations and continued investment into their paleontology programs and even attract eager volunteers wanting practical field experience, such as an assistant professor from Massachusetts Agricultural College’s Department of Zoology and Entomology.

Osborn especially used the media to his advantage. He maintained a steady flow of both scientific and popular publications, while newspaper and magazine articles reported on the fossils the American Museum collecting party found. Osborn also occasionally embarked on major publicity campaigns. When the first major set of fossils were found at Como Bluff in

1897, Osborn made sure to travel to Wyoming and obtain several pictures of the site and his presence there. Later in the 1920s, when Osborn sent an expedition to Mongolia in hopes of finding human ancestors, it was advertised as a quest for the missing link. He also tapped into and perpetuated the romantic notions surrounding the West and fossil hunting. The American and Carnegie Museums further benefitted from wealthy, interested trustees who could pour thousands into their efforts. The Field Museum, however, suffered from a curator and director who were not financially interested in the paleontology program, and had to cease its fieldwork in 1903.

With the American, Carnegie, and Field Museums finally obtaining large, display worthy specimens by 1905, their attention shifted to preparation work within the museums. Even without the pressure to assemble and mount their specimen first, each museum’s preparators faced a daunting workload from the extensive amount of fossil material the yearly expeditions yielded. In some cases, several fossils had been sent back encased in rock and needed to be carefully extracted. Initially, hammer and chisel had been the primary tools at the preparators’

30 disposal, but these soon proved to be woefully inefficient for processing the quantity of fossils piling in and ensuring the specimens’ integrity. Meanwhile, the increasing size of unprocessed collections, coupled with the larger size of some of dinosaur remains themselves, necessitated increased work and storage space. As the museums reorganized their spaces or constructed new buildings, the preparators developed new techniques and made use of new technologies.

Electricity enabled better lighting as well as tools like “the ‘indispensable’ portable electric drill, a new invention.” 69 The use of an overhead trolley system accommodated large, heavy fossils and assisted with mounting. The use of acid and sandblasting freed fossils from the stone surrounding them. Pneumatic tools proved the most helpful, with Riggs’ pneumatic hammer/chisel making fossil cleaning “faster, more accurate, more versatile, and easier on the fossils and the men who prepared them.” 70 Mounting specimens also involved a great amount of work: the metal mounts themselves needed to conform to the dinosaurs’ shape, support the massive bones, and be relatively invisible to the observer’s eye. None of the museums’ centerpiece specimens were complete, so for the pieces they lacked, they had to use casts, models of tinted plaster, and bones from other individuals of the same species. Although the

Carnegie had found its display specimen, Diplodocus carnegii , first, the American Museum mounted its Brontosaurus first in 1905. 71

Making exhibits was also an involved process. Osborn firmly advocated for the mounting of dinosaurs in active, lifelike poses. His preparators compared their specimens to extant animals to determine how the creatures would have been most likely to move. To that end, they built small models to experiment with poses as well as dissected reptiles from the nearby Bronx Zoo

69 Ibid., 221 70 Ibid., 229 71 The Field Museum, hampered by its inability to continue fieldwork, only had half of an Apatosaurus to display.

31 for a better sense of musculature. Osborn also worked to have the American Museum’s exhibits offer a sense of prehistoric creatures’ habitat and behaviors. One mount included an Allosaurus crouched over an Apatosaurus ’ spine, while for two Anatosaurs , “one was shown eating foliage from the ground. The other, according to a description…was up on its toes searching the surrounding area after being ‘startled by the approach of a carnivorous dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus , their enemy.’” 72 For a display on the evolutionary development of fossil horses, Osborn’s staff photographed horses running to mount the fossil specimens in similar positions. The exhibit also featured charts visually showing the development of select traits in fossils, such as the feet, and

“an informative guide leaflet.” 73 Throughout the horse exhibit and in several others, Osborn included large, colorful murals by artist Charles R. Knight that featured how the species would have looked like in their ancient environments. Reconstructed, life-sized models of dinosaurs and early mammals also rounded out the exhibit visuals, while labels and descriptions provided interpretation.

The American Museum of Natural History set the standard for exhibition in other museums. It was common practice for museum workers to visit other museums: Osborn toured international museums and fossil displays in 1898 and had toured several museums in the West as well as the Carnegie Museum. 74 Director Holland of the Carnegie Museum visited the

American Museum a few times, while Riggs of the Field Museum studied several museums for inspiration on how to arrange his exhibit hall. 75 The American Museum’s rivals borrowed its display strategies, incorporating lifelike poses for their mounts, while both the Carnegie Museum and Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History commissioned work by Knight was

72 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity , 158. 73 Ibid., 164. 74 Ibid., 62. 75 Ibid., 175.

32 well. The American Museum also influenced the interpretations of dinosaurs themselves. For several dinosaurs, Osborn considered them to have been lively and active, and incorporated these views into his displays. This also echoed Cope’s opinions on the matter, while Holland, who had worked under Marsh, promoted the latter’s view that dinosaurs were sluggish creatures in the

Carnegie Museum exhibits.

The American, Carnegie, and Field Museums actively raised publicity for themselves as well. Osborn ensured that both he and the American Museum continually published content, encompassing scientific writings, popular pieces, books, museum bulletins and journals, and newspaper articles chronicling the museum’s findings and activities—especially in Century

Magazine, Science, and The New York Times , where Osborn had “ties to [the] publishers.” 76

Scientific American repeatedly featured Knight’s work on its cover, while Osborn “copyrighted

Knight’s work and sold reproductions of his paintings and sculpted miniatures to other institutions and individuals.” 77 Many of these publications worked to “emphasize the department’s rare and valuable discoveries, the importance of new restorations, and the dramatic features associated with the habits and appearance of the dinosaurs.” 78 Osborn engaged in publicity tours, coming to Como Bluff in 1897 when his employee Barnum Brown had found several dinosaur fossils and ensuring that he featured prominently in several photographs. In

1899, during the Fossil Fields Expedition, both Osborn and Holland visited their sites and had photographs taken of them and their teams together. Knight meanwhile had taken some geologists and journalists to tour several fossil sites at the end of the Fossil Fields Expedition. On one occasion, they visited Riggs’ team, who had been cleaning their site for photographs of their

76 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity, 73. 77 Ibid., 89. 78 Ibid., 98

33 own (member Harold Menke was a photographer). Riggs’ team talked for a while with a magazine writer from the Cosmopolitan and offered some of their photographs, noting that “ours were the only quarry views he could get so we have a corner in that way.’” 79

Nor were publications the only means of promoting museums. Lectures offered another method. During the Fossil Fields Expedition, Holland gave a lecture at the University of

Wyoming, while Riggs presented to “a small but attentive crowd” invited by mayor Stanton

Bradbury in Grand Junction, Colorado, where Riggs had been doing field work. 80 Riggs discussed some of the earth’s history, dinosaurs, evolution, and paleontological excavation work and also agreed to give the lecture again at the high school. Riggs also hosted several curious locals who visited his site. At first, Bradbury brought a few prominent citizens by, then

“organized a picnic and invited local families… Dozens of people made the trip from town on horseback or in wagons or buggies.” 81 Others rode their popular safety bicycles to the site, reflecting the growing sense of amusement and entertainment that the excavation brought to the town. More visitors came by, and while Riggs at times tired of having to simultaneously work and ensure the site was always watched—“‘souvenir fiends began prying off pieces when we were not around’”—he overall “‘enjoyed having visitors and took pains to explain things to everyone interested’” and “boasted about the spectacle” in his reports to the Field Museum. 82

Meanwhile, to promote his horse exhibit, Osborn involved the horse community by taking part in their clubs and publications, as well as writing and lecturing on the topic; he additionally gained two famous race horse skeletons for display through his connections and efforts. Osborn also arranged for educational programs “designed to present the values of nature study to the

79 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 97. 80 Ibid., 114. 81 Ibid., 117. 82 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 117.

34 schoolchildren of New York City,” and, following the completion of the Brontosaurus mount,

“hosted more than five hundred scientists and other special guests at a tea party with the new dinosaur.” 83 Finally, following Andrew Carnegie’s agreement to “fund the making and mounting of a plaster replica of Diplodocus carnegii for the British Museum… the Carnegie Museum was a veritable Diplodocus factory, churning out facsimiles… to several European capitals, to

Argentina, and to Mexico…” and promoting both paleontology and the Carnegie Museum internationally. 84

These public successes rested firmly on the work of those employed by the museums.

Staff varied in experience and skill, ranging from untrained laborers hired to assist with fossil excavation to museum preparators and curators who had years of experience from working with

Cope or Marsh. In some cases, workers volunteered their labor for practical field experience; in others, museum heads actively endeavored to recruit talented professionals, such as Osborn’s unsuccessful efforts to hire John Bell Hatcher.

In several instances, museums hired their rivals’ workers away: Osborn hired some of

Marsh’s assistants, Holland hired Jacob Wortman from Osborn, and Oliver Farrington with the

Field Museum hired Riggs and Menke from Osborn, to offer a few examples. Two factors influencing the decision of employees leaving one museum for another was the hierarchical structure and interpersonal problems. Some workers had formerly served Marsh, who rarely allowed them to publish their own work and stifled their professional advancement. Though the hierarchical museum structures run by strong personalities like Osborn and Holland were in some ways less restrictive: workers, for example, had more freedom to publish. Yet many restrictions remained. Osborn, “on matters of museum policy, particularly displays …was an

83 Ibid., 152; Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 239. 84 Ibid., 240

35 insistent and frequently overbearing taskmaster” insisting on determining small questions such as arranging paintings or lighting and “more than once demanded that wholesale changes be made in [Knight’s] murals.” 85 Holland prized “’Docility, willingness, the disposition of the soldier, who obeys orders, [as they] are needed in an institution of this character as much as the army or navy. Men who imagine that the holding of a minor position in an institution of this sort entitles them to assume the airs and to talk in the tone of men who have attained to scientific distinction…are to be avoided.’” 86 And while Riggs remained at the Field Museum, he also suffered from the hierarchical structure. At one time, he wrote directly to director Frederick

Skiff instead of curator Farrington regarding the status of funding for fossil collecting that resulted in a response addressed “(tellingly, in a letter to one of [Skiff’s] own assistants, rather than to Riggs) more to the perceived impertinence than to Riggs’s urgent request… ‘I do not care to have Mr. Riggs make recommendations to me direct.’” 87 Employment offers by other institutions allowed some negotiation for the individuals in question, however, with the rival museums—and, occasionally, the museums wanting their employees to stay— promising more of preferred work or greater freedom in executing responsibilities.

The cost of paleontological work constituted another factor affecting labor. The increasing costs of processing fossil material had to be balanced with commensurate wages, while less money for fieldwork reduced job opportunities for collectors. Riggs offered a case in point of the latter. He joined the Field Museum after the American Museum was unable to confirm summer funding for his fieldwork. Later, the Field Museum’s unwillingness to commit more funding to paleontological endeavors made it unable to complete with the American and

85 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity, 74. 86 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 132. 87 Ibid., 177.

36 Carnegie Museums in fieldwork and collection size, nor able to hire more workers to help Riggs prepare fossils. In fact, the overall cost of maintaining and displaying a large fossil collection,

Brinkman argues, was the reason why paleontology appeared to be declining as a field when compared to the contemporaneous emphasis on applied science and “explosive growth” of interest and work in experimental biology and genetics. 88

Museum interest in paleontology and large dinosaur displays sprang from several factors.

Cope and Marsh’s work represented momentous contributions to understanding earth’s history and evolution. Museums thus provided an avenue to make these recent scientific findings accessible to the public and, through the fossil record, help prove evolution; indeed, “the demand more and more was for visible striking evidence of evolution.” 89 Dinosaurs, with their often- immense size and unusual skeletal structures, provided the eye-catching means of doing so, adding entertainment to their educational value. Entertainment attracted guests, while high popularity encouraged donations and funding. Through the use of lifelike mountings and contextual murals, museums could convey key attributes of dinosaurs to the even the most casual viewer.

Yet those in charge of museums, especially the big three of the Jurassic dinosaur rush, had more personal motives for their interest in natural history. Upper class sponsors, through trustees such as Jesup, J. P. Morgan, and Carnegie, had a strong interest in philanthropy and social welfare. So, too, did some of the upper class museum leaders like Osborn and Holland.

Elite patronage of museums provided one of many venues for promoting such values; others included founding hospitals, charities, universities, and other institutions all designed to

88 Ibid., 255. 89 Michael Ruse, The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), 103.

37 encourage the “moral and cultural uplift of the masses.” 90 What constituted such uplift, however, was the maintenance of the existing social order and messages of anti-industrialization. Despite the fact that industrialization enabled individuals such as Morgan and Carnegie to gain social power, the same industrialization and accompanying forces of modernization threatened their positions. Museums, tied as they were to elite members of society, offered a means to impose their values on visitors, especially with many charging little to no admission fees. 91

Evolution provided one method for communicating these upper class agendas, as curator

Farrington of the Field Museum well understood. Historian of science Brinkman notes:

In a lecture to church groups and teachers, Farrington argued that the record of extinction and survival over the course of geologic time showed that forms of life characterized by “great size, strength, eccentricity, [or] selfishness [as exemplified by the] warring monsters of the early seas” have gone extinct, while “activity, agility, swiftness, intelligence, meekness, social organization, and a mastery over appetites and passions” characterized the survivors. Museum visitors who absorbed these lessons would become better citizens and better individuals. (66)

Thus, the active, lively dinosaurs that characterized Osborn’s exhibits reflected these attributes.

Osborn’s strong opposition to the specialization of labor and academic disciplines was reflected in his exhibits as well. Specialization, for Osborn, was tied to urbanization and modernization.

Experimental biology and its focus on lab work rather than the observation of nature was symptomatic of the modern lifestyle, isolating humanity from nature and creative thought. In

Osborn’s displays on titanotheres, rhinoceros-like mammals with increasingly massive horns, the underlying message was that the increasing specialization led to extinction. By incorporating such values into exhibits, it was “believed to be invaluable for teaching non-English-speaking

90 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 16. 91 Ruse, Evolution Wars, 104.

38 immigrants and the illiterate urban masses about morality, order, and proper behavior. Species that misbehaved went extinct was the implicit message.” 92

Natural history museums promotion of the preservation of nature offered another angle to propagate upper class values. For extant animals, discussing the ways in which industrialization and the destruction of their habitats negatively impacted their lives and the environment functioned as an anti-modernization tactic. Detailed displays of taxidermied and fossilized animals alike helped guests learn about animal behaviors and their complexity, ideally making them interested in the natural world and their relationship to it. For Osborn and other members of the upper class such as Theodore Roosevelt—a friend of Osborn’s younger brother and a member of the American Museum’s board of trustees in 1908—confrontation with and exposure to nature and “rugged individualism” represented key attitudes toward the relationship between humans and the world around them. 93 Combating “‘overcivilization’” and its perceived emasculating effects could only be achieved through continual exposure to nature. 94 Here, the

American Museum’s lifelike mountings and Knight’s murals emphasized dinosaurs “in active, dramatic situations of combat and struggle for survival…[,] embodied Osborn’s emphasis on the power of nature,” and “meshed with Osborn’s interest in glorifying the struggle for existence.” 95

Exhibits provided a proxy through which urban city dwellers could experience nature for themselves, while fieldwork provided an effective way to experience the outdoors. Osborn furthermore supported a version of evolution that accounted for Christianity through its emphasis on direction and progression. The layout of the American Museum’s paleontological halls spoke to evolutionary progress as well: from the Hall of Reptiles to the Hall of Mammals to the Hall of

92 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 20. 93 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity, 118. 94 Ibid., 117. 95 Ibid., 99, 163.

39 Man, each featured careful exhibit designs to indicate a sense of direction, such as tracing the development of the modern horse. Progress, tied to the laws of nature—and God—unsurprisingly supported a society that kept the upper class in power.

The growth of popularity in natural history museums and fossils thus stemmed from a variety of factors. These museums offered fertile ground for further paleontological work and funds, while contemporary trends in education emphasized learning through observation. Indeed,

“virtually all biological classrooms in the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century featured abundant visual displays,” while physical objects often were viewed as more educational than books. 96 Museums, rather than universities, “were seen as places where the work of producing…[new] knowledge would take place.” 97 The increasing status of museums and their aptitude for educating the populace appealed strongly to upper class aims of bettering the public while bolstering their own social position. Natural history museums could do so by promoting the preservation of nature and evolutionary progress. The American Museum,

Carnegie Museum, and Field Museum’s work greatly furthered the development of paleontology, both in field work methodology and the creation of exhibits designed for public viewing, while simultaneously strongly reinforcing these values.

96 Ronald E. Doel and Pamela M. Henson, “Reading Photographs: Photographs as Evidence in Writing the History of Modern Science,” in The Historiography of Recent Science, Technology, and Medicine: Writing Science ed. Ronald E. Doel and Thomas Söderqvist (New York: Routledge, 2006), 213. 97 Kohlstedt, “Academic Collections,” 239.

40 CHAPTER 4

LOCAL PEACE AND VALUES: THE UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING MUSEUM

Wyoming, and especially the Como Bluff region, had become a fossil hotspot in the late

1800s as Western expansion, railroad construction, and the end of the Civil War enabled Cope and Marsh to work the rich fossil quarries and make them of national scientific interest. The

University of Wyoming in nearby Laramie benefitted greatly from its proximity to the sites and conducted regular excavations—especially through the efforts of W.C. Knight and W.H. Reed— and the fossils its geology faculty and staff found generally went to their own university museum after its creation. Como Bluff’s rich fossil deposits would continuously attract other universities and institutions, with the three main rival museums of the second Jurassic dinosaur rush working the fields consistently from about 1895 to 1905, and continue to serve as an excavation site for both the University of Wyoming and other institutions afterward. Unlike the competition that fueled Cope and Marsh and the museums of the second Jurassic dinosaur rush, the University of

Wyoming promoted institutional cooperation, hence this chapter title’s use of “peace” rather than

“wars”. While the American Museum of Natural History, the Carnegie Museum, and the Field

Colombian Museum dominated the natural history museum scene with their much-publicized work and the strong financial backing of the former two, numerous other universities like the

University of Wyoming created their own paleontological collections. While these museums were certainly influenced by these Eastern counterparts, several other factors contributed to the extent the smaller museums followed the former’s broad trends. The University Museum of

Wyoming offers one such example, and to this end, several photographs will be used to make comparisons between this museum and the Eastern ones and are included in the appendix

41 The use of photographs in historical analysis presents several advantages and disadvantages. Like any other source, photographs are subject to their creator’s explicit and implicit biases. This is expressed through the selection of the photograph’s subject as well as the layout of the image itself. Even the angling of the camera aides in the presentation of a particular tone. Photographs are thus incomplete images, telling a selective story within a frame that cannot reveal the entire setting. Yet photographs offer rich, useful source material as well, communicating values and world-views of both their creator and subjects. 98 They can also reveal aspects of society less well documented, such as the large number of female students attending the University of Wyoming—and participating in fossil excavation work. 99

The shift in photographic technology from the initial daguerreotypes to wet and dry plates also enabled the reproduction of photographs. 100 The inclusion of photograph reproductions in books and pamphlets creates additional layers of interpretation: both text and captions alike construct meanings for the images, some at odds with the image depicted. 101 In the case of the Union Pacific Railroad’s promotional photographs taken by the railroad’s official photographers, these were featured in books and glass lantern slides, helping to further build the railroad’s reputation. 102 The larger natural history museums also took advantage of

98 Doel and Henson, “Reading Photographs,” 211. 99 Ronald E. Doel and Pamela M. Henson, “Are You Sure? How Historical Images Can Shape Up Text-based Narrative,” History of Science Society annual meeting, 20 November 2015. 100 Mary Warner Marien, Photography: A Cultural History (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2002), 167-168. 101 Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), 119-127; 154. 102 Martha A. Sandweiss, Print the Legend: Photography and the American West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) 169-176.

42 photography’s potential as an advertising and educational platform, such as Osborn’s inclusion of photographs of American Museum exhibits in some of his publications. 103

The University of Wyoming Museum’s photographers, however, engaged less in promotional work. Most of the university’s photographs serve a documentary purpose. Several images, mounted on cardstock with brief labels identifying the subjects, feature scenes of university buildings or of individuals in the institution: members of classes, faculty, graduating students, and clubs, among others. Most of the university’s images, then, seem for local use. A photograph of Reed in the “Bone Room,” featured in a Cosmopolitan article (Figure 8), appears to be an exception, and the picture’s use about two years after its creation indicates it was not staged for commercial publication, at least for that magazine. Instead, this image and other

University of Wyoming photographs emphasize groups of people and places important to the university. The museum and fossil storage rooms constituted such places, but so too did paleontological fieldwork. These images demonstrate the continuing contributions to paleontology by the university well beyond the 1899 Fossil Fields Expedition.

The University of Wyoming was founded in 1886 under the Morrill Land Grant Act, which put land aside specifically for the formation of a university. The second Morrill Act provided more funds to colleges of “‘agricultural and mechanical arts,” reflected the broader national push for funding disciplines viewed as practical. 104 Despite these funds, money remained a problem for the early university because not all Wyoming citizens supported it. 105

103 Henry Fairfield Osborn, A Mounted Skeleton of the Columbian Mammoth (Elephas Columbi) (Cambridge, MA: Edward W. Wheeler, 1907), 255. 104 Wilson O. Clough, A History of the University of Wyoming 1887-1937 (Laramie: Laramie Printing, 1937), 10. 105 Ibid., 15

43 Still, “it survived through the early years” and was able to cultivate a reputation in mineralogy and paleontology. 106

Museums in Wyoming before the university formed its own in 1891 functioned more as centers of curiosities.107 “The first establishments in Wyoming calling themselves ‘museums’ were places more for the purpose of amusement than for scholarship,” populated by oddities rather than artifacts and specimens for education. 108 This was exacerbated by Wyoming fossils being shipped out of the state by Cope and Marsh’s collectors. However, when John Wesley

Hoyt became governor in 1878, he supported museums “devoted to the enrichment of the cultural and scientific atmosphere in the state.” 109 Later, in 1884, state geologist Samuel Aughey hired his former student W.C. Knight to help collect fossils for Wyoming, as despite the activity in Como Bluff, “the state had no collection of ‘these educational treasures’ of its own.” 110 When the University of Wyoming finally opened its museum, co-located with the library, it was soon filled with not only fossils, but also minerals, animal specimens, anthropological and historical artifacts, and “a strange assortment of curiosities of dubious scientific value.” 111 Knight became a curator in 1893 (he also become a faculty member at Wyoming), and Reed would succeed him.

Both men were key fossil collectors for the campus and continuously engaged in excavation work, with Knight organizing regular field schools for the university after the 1899 Fossil Fields

Expedition.

106 Donald L. Veal, “University of Wyoming Our Heritage: Cornerstone for Our Future,” in Newcomen Society in North America no. 1275 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986): 12 . 107 Beth Southwell, “J. D. Conley’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Other Early Wyoming Museums,” in Annals of Wyoming: The Wyoming History Journal (Summer 2004): 24. 108 Ibid., 25. 109 Ibid., 28. 110 Ibid., 29. 111 Ibid., 31.

44 Fossil collection was closely related to railroads, as railroads provided increased access to fossil sites—especially across the burgeoning Central and Western states where the majority of fossil beds lay—and the transportation of fossils to the excavators’ institutions. The Union

Pacific Railroad was heavily involved in this endeavor as the main rail line to the area, providing transportation for both those involved in the excavating and the fossil material itself. 112 When

Knight worked with the Union Pacific Railroad to arrange the Fossil Fields Expedition, the railway provided free transportation of the invited collectors and the fossils they excavated. 113 A pamphlet regarding fossil finds in Wyoming published by the Union Pacific also accompanied the invitations, the latter advertising the Expedition as the chance to “‘collect and create museums as large, if not larger than any that have been built up during the last quarter of a century.’” 114 The heavy involvement of the Union Pacific Railroad in paleontology, especially the Fossils Fields Expedition, served to bolster the railroad’s publicity. To that end, several promotional photographs were taken during the trip. Beyond the marking “Copyright by Union

Pacific RR 1899,” the photograph in Figure 1 tied into romanticized notions of the West for an

Eastern audience. The entire excavation party in the photograph wears wide-brimmed hats and stands behind a row of strung-up game. Some men face the camera directly with wide, confident stances, while others are angled gazing off into the distance. At least one man holds a rifle.

Overall, the ensemble creates a feeling of rugged, masculine adventure that railroads facilitated.

Similarly, an article on the excavation published a few months after the excavation in Science noted that “free transportation was furnished by the railroads from Chicago and return, as well as

112 Ibid., 80. 113 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 78. 114 “Short Stories,” Cheyenne Daily Sun-Leader, March 6, 1899, 4; Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 72.

45 from other northern and southern railroad centers, to Laramie, Wyoming.” 115 The article characterized the excavation as an expedition and “‘outfit’” and described the equipment brought along, as well as the kinds of terrain they visited; toward the end of the report, it spent a paragraph discussing the kind of game available to the party. 116

Publicity of the university’s Fossil Fields Expedition and the Union Pacific’s involvement also came from those more affected by the efforts. Nebraska writer E. F. Test’s criticism of the New York magazine Cosmopolitan’s article on expedition—the same magazine which Riggs’ team had talked with and submitted photographs to—spoke to the impression that the railroad’s involvement had made on those involved in the expedition. Although the article did not indicate whether Test had accompanied the Fossil Field Expedition, his familiarity with several of its members from multiple states suggests a strong likelihood of such. Test held that in addition to Knight’s work being inadequately recognized, “the splendid enterprise and liberality of the Union Pacific in promoting, furnishing transportation and tendering its courtesies to the expedition [were] not given the slightest consideration.” 117 It was a warranted critique, as the article never referenced the Expedition, the number of people involved, or the Union Pacific. It instead included details on the excavation process, the three major museums involved, Director

Holland of the Carnegie Museum, Marsh and Yale, Reed finding the first fossil in Wyoming and becoming a collector, Wyoming in the Jurassic (suggesting that early humans and dinosaurs coexisted), and the University of Wyoming museum, among others. 118

115 Charles Schuchert, “The Fossil Field’s Expedition to Wyoming,” Science 10, no. 255 (November 17, 1899): 725. 116 Ibid., 728 117 “The Fossil Expedition,” Laramie Republican , January 24, 1900, 4. 118 Howard W. Bell, “Fossil Hunting in Wyoming,” Cosmopolitan 28 (January 1900), 267.

46 The efforts of Knight and the Union Pacific Railroad to promote connections between universities, museums, and the railroad line had resulted in “several tons of good fossils” collected and transported out of the state. 119 Between the work of Cope, Marsh, the Fossil Field

Expedition, the American Museum, the Carnegie Museum, and the Field Museum, Wyoming fossils found their way into numerous institutions. This constituted its own form of publicity for the state, one that local newspaper writers seized upon. In the Cheyenne Daily Leader , a bulleted piece of facts and points of interests about Wyoming included “Wyoming’s fossil deposits supply the great museums and universities of the world,” while the Centennial Post asserted that

“the state of Wyoming…is looked upon with longing eyes by every institution of prominence in the country.” 120 Knight continued to help various institutions find new excavation sites around

Como Bluff, while Reed had been employed as a collector for Marsh and later the Carnegie

Museum and sold a quarry site to the American Museum. Fossils flowed into the University of

Wyoming’s museum as well. Though lacking a separate paleontological department like that of the American and Carnegie Museums, the sheer amount of fossil material finally prompted the university to erect a new Science Hall that could better accommodate them.

This continued interaction between the University of Wyoming Museum curators and the major natural history institutions resulted in several similarities between them. The 1906 photograph of Figure 2 shows Reed with a small group of who appear to be preparators clustered around the mounted skull of a Titanotherium with some mounted dinosaur limbs of presumably part of the university’s museum in the background. 121 When compared with Figure 3’s 1897

119 Schuchert, “Fossil Field’s Expedition,” 726. 120 “Information About Wyoming,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, January 1, 1902, 7; “The University of Wyoming,” Centennial Post , May 7, 1904, 10. 121 Rick Ewig and Tamsen Hert, The Campus History Series University of Wyoming (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2012), 31.

47 outdoor shot of the university’s agriculture professor Burt C. Buffum by the mounted prize

Meganolsaur paddle –a specimen that would be a source of great pride for the museum, with a plaster model sent in its stead to the St. Louis Exhibition because of “the original being much too precious to trust out of the University museum”—a few key points appear. 122 First, the photograph of Reed and his assistants represents a much greater degree of museum professionalization. Despite the large size of the central skull, the assistants loom above it, fixing the camera with direct stares but little emotion. In the other photograph, Buffum stands at the edge, leaning on his elbow toward the center and appearing as additional support for holding the fossil, while the university’s buildings frame the sides of the image. The fossil is clearly the focal point. For the photo including Reed, the only member seated and not looking at the camera, the museum workers are of greater importance. This atmosphere is repeated in the 1903 photograph of the Carnegie Museum’s fossil preparation lab in Figure 4. Here, a couple massive fossil matrices rest on large tables, with the camera overlooking one of the matrices. Eight workers are spread throughout the room, with five standing and three seated. One man looks directly at the camera while only one or two of the others appearing to be involved in work. The fossil preparation room features both large windows and electric lightbulbs suspended from the ceiling for good lighting. A few tools lay neatly arranged on one of the tables with no messiness of work surrounding them; like Figure 3, the area has been deliberately staged. The lack of any fossils separate from the jumbled remains, coupled with the detached air of the photograph—the men are sitting and looking about but for the most part neither engaging with the fossils nor the viewer—functions to elevate the museum professionals above the museum object.

122 “A Famous Scientist Here,” Laramie Boomerang , July 15, 1904, 1.

48 The presence of Reed’s assistants, coupled with several other photographs of bone storage rooms, indicate that the University Museum faced several of the same practical challenges as the other museums. Large amounts of new fossil material had necessitated the expansion of both storage and preparation areas in the American Museum, Carnegie Museum, and Field Museum, as well as the hiring of new preparators. Knight and Reed also hired new assistants; one student reported that when “work[ing] in the museum after school… The work is very slow and tedious.” 123 While the university museum likely did not have the same access to equipment as the other, larger museums due to funding, Figures 5-8 portray the storage and possible work space of the university’s “Bone Room”. These photographs occur across a three- year period, and depict an organized yet crowded room that offers no drastic changes between the images: Figures 5 and 7 have the same mounted limb (possibly the Megalonsaur paddle) on the table in the right corner. This may reflect the crowding that would eventually spur the creation of the Science Hall to better house the fossils and museum. Reed’s presence in Figure

8—and the inclusion of the same image in the Cosmopolitan article—suggest that the Bone

Room functioned as a work space as well.124 The Bone Room’s setup, meanwhile, parallels

Riggs’ fossil preparation room at the Field Museum before its expansion: the photograph from

1900 in Figure 9 illustrates an orderly room hard pressed to maintain balance between storage and work space, especially of the larger fossils. Yet acquiring extra space was costly in both finances and time. The Carnegie Museum expanded its space for fossil preparation and storage in

1899 and again 1900 but still needed more room, especially while waiting for the new museum building to be completed a few years later. The Field Museum relocated its entire Geology

123 “Local Brevities,” Laramie Boomerang, August 31, 1906, 4; James Roddy, “Self- Explanatory,” Kemmerer Camera , November 3, 1906, 1. 124 Bell, “Fossil Hunting in Wyoming,” 274.

49 Department library between 1898-1899 before entirely switching the room used for fossil work in 1902. In the case of the University of Wyoming, it was not until 1913 that the Science Hall was finished. Before then, an article in the Daily Boomerang called for a “sufficiently rich resident of the state who felt great enough interest in the matter to erect a $25,000 museum it would make a handsome and lasting monument to his name and memory, and it could be filled with the choicest and most valuable specimens of every kind.”125 In 1904, the university also intended to sell or exchange its duplicate specimens to “be made partially self supporting,” a practice that had already been initiated in the Herbarium. 126

Like the larger natural history museums, public outreach constituted a key element of the

University of Wyoming Museum. The Fossil Fields Expedition emphasized the university’s role in paleontology, while the state’s pride in the museum as a local attraction kept the latter and its fossil collection efforts in the Wyoming newspapers. Reed also offered local lectures related to paleontology and fossil collecting, such as to the Laramie Literary Club where a cover page headline proclaimed “Woggilywoos Were Discussed,” as well as interacting directly with the news as well, as when a journalist accompanied an excavation. 127 In another instance, Reed took two public officials to his excavation site. Fossils, the article joked, would have to be “very near the surface and buried in loose dry sand to get much fossil hunting out of the senator and principal.” 128 Local newspapers generally praised Reed’s accomplishments, but could occasionally tease him as well: “They’re having a week of prayer in Laramie. It might be well for the ministers to try to convert the curator at the university museum. He’s telling some awfully

125 “A Museum is Needed,” Daily Boomerang , July 31, 1896, 3. 126 “The University Trustees Meet,” Laramie Boomerang , December 15, 1904, 1. 127 “‘Woggilywoos’ Were Discussed,” Laramie Boomerang, May 29, 1908, 1; “The Wyoming Fossils,” Semi-Weekly Boomerang, July 28, 1902, 6. 128 “Took Some Visitors To Fossil Camp,” Laramie Republican, August 27, 1909, 4.

50 big stories about those bones he has hung up there.” 129 Even teasing, however, indicated Reed’s prominence as a local figure, and local papers noted when he or Knight were heading to or finishing excavations both as passing references and more detailed with reports of their findings.

The findings themselves were often in characterized in terms emphasizing their extreme size or value in various headlines and articles, such as “University of Wyoming Museum Enriched By

Most Colossal Fossil Ever Dug From the Ground,” “Rarest of Rare,” “the bones will be cleaned with as much care as if they were full of diamonds,” and “differs somewhat in anatomy to anything yet discovered and is supposed to be the connection link between animals and reptiles” in regards to a Triceratops find. 130 In other cases, articles regarding the museum were repeated in newspapers, with one piece spotlighting the museum and Reed being reprinted in at least ten different papers. Although reprinting articles from other newspapers existed as a common practice, there were a higher number of Wyoming newspapers that carried that article compared to other museum-related articles.

Education was also important for the University of Wyoming Museum, but held less explicit messages for its guests than the Eastern museums. Through the museum’s connection to the university, classes sometimes utilized the collections for study, and specimens were considered a key component of study. 131 However, unlike Osborn’s efforts in the American

Museum, the University of Wyoming Museum did not seek to include extensive context for its viewers. In the 1895 photograph of the museum in Figure 10, specimens are aligned in neat, precise rows with small labels. While the organization may reflect taxonomic or historical

129 Evelyn Corthell, “Varsity Notes,” Laramie Boomerang , January 14, 1909, 4. 130 “The Largest of Animals,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, January 19, 1905, 6; “Rarest Of The Rare,” Laramie Republican , September 28, 1905, 1; “University of Wyoming,” 10; “Hunting Fossils,” Snake River Sentinel, June 21, 1907, 1. 131 Southwell, “Early Wyoming Museums,” 31; Kohlstedt, “Academic Collections,” 238.

51 order—it is difficult to discern what is being displayed—the individual pieces are deprived of any context and instead compete for attention with their neighbors. An image of the museum from 1906-1907 in Figures 11 indicts much more space between the giant fossil specimens.

Beyond the practical considerations, this more minimalistic arrangement allows the fossils to command greater individual attention. Yet if there are display labels, they are small, and the walls appear empty. The sheer size of the fossils is the display. Similarly, Figure 12’s photo of

Reed in the museum in 1908 features him seated beside a towering fossil leg with mounting work visible in the front, while a mounted deer in the next room seems at odds with the arrangement. In Figures 13 and 14, both the American Museum and Carnegie Museum’s specimens—Brontosaurus and Diplodocus , respectively—feature more lifelike poses, as seen in the curvature of the neck and rest of the spine, with special effort having been made to keep the mounting’s visibility to a minimum. Figure 13’s mounted display also features in the exhibit a copy of Charles R. Knight’s 1897 Brontosaurus painting and a model of what Brontosaurus may have looked like while living. Similarly, Figure 15 portrays lifelike models of several titanothere species. Unlike the University of Wyoming Museum’s isolated, taxidermized deer, the titanotheres themselves communicate a clear idea to the audience: here, a sense of progressive evolution from smaller to significantly larger and powerful. In contrast, Figure 12’s shot of the

University of Wyoming Museum makes it difficult to discern the focal point of the image: the viewer’s eye is drawn to the more brightly lit left half, which emphasizes the darker fossil limb and Reed’s dark clothing, while the size of the deer and light reflecting off its dark body pulls the eye as well. It is not completely clear if the room’s purpose is for storage or display: there are no labels or sense of narrative, especially near the deer, yet the standing fossil mounts and well-lit, tiled room itself suggest a public space. The lack of documented labeling or clear narrative in the

52 images of the university’s museum, however, does not mean there was no interpretation. In addition to the photographs showing only small portions of the museum and the use of the museum’s collection for classroom study, several local newspapers indicate that Reed regularly provided tours of the collection and, given the depth of his involvement in fossil collecting, he would have had much information to offer. Finally, the University of Wyoming photographers were locals with a strong interest in photography—there was even a university photography club—compared to the outside, hired professionals of the Eastern museums. This meant that while the Eastern museums’ images conveyed deliberately-crafted museum scenes for public consumption, the university’s images appear to have focused more on subjects considered important to the university as a whole.

What separated the University of Wyoming Museum from completely echoing the trends of its Eastern counterparts beyond practical limitations such as funding, then, lay in the purposes behind their creation. True, the latter museums’ better funding enabled them to stage more elaborate, costlier mounts and exhibits, as well as print pamphlets and gallery guides. Yet they were founded by wealthy, industrial elites whereas the University of Wyoming Museum was created for the university and state. The larger museums centered around a desire for education that ultimately supported the status of the social elite, and their greater emphasis on creating displays to capture guests’ attention also served as encouragement for more donations to sustain themselves. The Wyoming museum, however, was influenced by an emphasis on state heritage, reflecting the numerous artifacts that had historical and cultural significance rather than scientific, such as a stage coach that “Was In The Indian Skirmishes.” 132 Without any local competitors, the museum served as a local attraction of pride, as an article describing the sights

132 “Old Stage Coach Was In The Indian Skirmishes,” Laramie Daily Boomerang , September 1, 1911, 1.

53 of Laramie highlighted that it was “well worth the journey to see the strange fossil creatures in the new Science hall building,” while postings related to the museum’s hours on Sundays characterized it as “one of the most extensive in the United States,” having “displays of startlingly entertaining natures” and “containing one of the most remarkable collections of fossils in the world.” 133 Having educated, but not elite, curators also played a role, as Knight and Reed were not concerned with upper class agendas in their work at the university’s museum.

Additionally, both Knight and Reed, unlike Osborn and Holland, had extensive field experience and through their roles as faculty members also worked to promote field work and hands-on learning to students. Although affected by the new trends in display and museum professionalization, such as mounting more complete specimens and an emphasis on museum staff rather than solely the collection, and in communication with the major museums in the field, the University of Wyoming museum’s commitment remained to state ideals rather than upper class ones.

133 “A Jolly Excursion,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, December 5, 1901, 4; “University Museum Open On Sundays,” Laramie Republican , February 27, 1908, 8; “University Museum Open on Sunday,” Laramie Republican , March 26, 1913, 7; “University Museum Open in Afternoon,” Laramie Republican, February 16, 1907, 3.

54 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

The development of paleontology represented crucial developments in the relationship between the public and science. Paleontology’s presentation shifted from remaining insulated within the scientific community’s journals and research to becoming more public-oriented once paleontology lost its federal government funding. The growth of universities and museums offered a new outlet for paleontology, with photography shaping and chronicling the development of all three.

Museums were not a new feature in American society and continued to grow in their popularity, number, and size. Although museums had often functioned as places to collect and display curiosities, increasingly they considered education as well. Entertainment served as a tool to capture the interest of guests. To this end, museums made an effort to provide context and arrangement, as well as some interpretation. 134 Museums also “soon recognized that static exhibits and specimens that were not aesthetically appealing might fail to draw visitors.” 135 For natural history museums, the use of murals and life-sized reproductions of prehistoric creatures, reconstructed mounted specimens in life-like stances, and other visual and textual aides harnessed the allure of dinosaurs to illuminate the history of earth and evolution.

Yet museums also served broader agendas. Increasingly tied to their sponsors’

Progressive Era ideals of bettering the public, museums enforced upper class social norms and values. From their portrayal as a more wholesome place of amusement to the physical design of museums to the arrangement of the displays themselves, messages were encoded throughout the

134 Kolstedt, “Museum Perceptions and Productions,” 18. 135 Kolstedt, “‘Thoughts in Things,’” 597.

55 museum. In the case of the American Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum, such values also contributed to an emphasis on nature and preservation to combat the forces of modernization and urbanization that threatened their positions. Though not always recognized by the viewers—in the American Museum, “the vast majority of visitors had no idea of Osborn’s views on race, science, or the preservation of nature…”—these values contributed to a broader pattern of semiotic codes being communicated by similar institutions. 136

Competition played a strong role in the development of paleontology as well. Cope and

Marsh’s work spurred the discovery of numerous fossil sites in the West and, in hiring several workers to extricate fossils, created a new professional field. The race between the American

Museum, Carnegie Museum, and Field Museum to find a display-worthy giant dinosaur specimen resulted in numerous advances in excavation and preparation work. The American

Museum’s successful exhibits influenced the design of their rivals and other museums’ displays as well. Newspapers, photographs, and other forms of media publicized the museums’ efforts, such as reporting when they had found new fossils or printing promotional photographs of exhibits to draw visitors and donors alike. Through their efforts to attract large amounts of guests, museums popularized paleontology, especially dinosaurs, to a public comprising multiple classes. Indeed, “the status of dinosaurs soared from prehistoric relic to cultural phenomenon, from arcane scientific term to household word… [and] dinosaurs became a pop-culture marvel.” 137

The University of Wyoming also made substantial contributions to the popularization of paleontology. Its location relative to the prolific fossil site Como Bluff generated an influx of fossils for display and study for the university. Moreover, Knight’s efforts to promote the site for

136 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity , 181. 137 Brinkman, Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, 1-2.

56 all universities and museums, especially through the 1899 Fossil Fields Expedition, drew numerous fossil collectors from a variety of institutions and helped to publicize the university and Union Pacific Railroad. The university continued active paleontological work and excavations well after the Expedition, while Wyoming newspapers often reported on fossil expeditions and finds for both the University of Wyoming’s collectors and other institutions like the American Museum. Many of those articles also described the environment that the prehistoric creatures once lived in, providing greater awareness and education to its readership.

There existed similarities between the practices of the University of Wyoming Museum and its large Eastern counterparts, such as the former’s change in display style and the professionalization of its staff. Yet there were also fundamental differences as well. Although the

University Museum endeavored to collect and display complete specimens, it did not appear to follow the same exhibition style as the larger museums. Funding likely played a role, but so too did the lack of industrial elite backing and related societal pressures. Instead, the main emphasis of the museum was tied to promoting state history, heritage, and pride. Fossils thus not only constituted forms of entertainment but also testaments to Wyoming’s ancient past, one that extended well beyond the formation of the United States and the concentration of political power in the East. The recognition of Wyoming as having one of the best fossil fields in the nation, with major Eastern museums and other museums and universities across the United States flocking to the Como Bluff region, expanded the importance of fossils. Collecting historical artifacts of significance to the local population as well as anthropological artifacts that supported nationalistic and ethnocentric attitudes also cultivated Wyoming’s sense of statehood. Similar trends existed in other university paleontology programs: the funding for such at the University of Kansas, University of Nebraska, and University of California at Berkeley stemmed from a

57 belief that fossils illustrated state history. 138 Indeed, “campus museums, especially in many of the newer states, came to represent state aspirations” through their focus on education for both students and the surrounding populace—due in part to the Morrill Land Grant Acts.139 In paleontology’s increasing development and interaction with the public, then, the popularity of fossils transformed them into symbols used by museums to address political and social concerns.

138 Rainger, Agenda for Antiquity , 21. 139 Kohlstedt, Academic Collections, 238; see also page 239.

58 APPENDIX

IMAGES

Figure 1: 1899 Fossil Fields Expedition Participants

University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1899. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, box 130.

Figure 2: William Harlow Reed and Assistants Around a Titanothere Mount.

University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1899. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection. As reproduced in Rick Ewig and Tamsen Hert, The Campus History Series University of Wyoming (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2012), 31.

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Figure 3: “Megalnosaur paddle – about 1897 - Prof. B. C. Buffum.” University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1897. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 131.

Figure 4: Carnegie Museum’s Fossil Preparation Room

Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Photograph. 1903. Carnegie Museum of Natural History Section of Vertebrate Paleontology. John Bell Hatcher Papers, 1899-1908. As reproduced in Paul D. Brinkman, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush: Museums and Paleontology in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 222.

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Figure 5: “Bone Room - Mechanic Arts Bldg - 1897”

University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1897. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 131.

Figure 6: “Bone Room (Mechanic Arts Bldg) - About 1898” University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1898. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 131.

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Figure 7: “Bone Room - Mechanic Arts Bldg - 1899”

University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1899. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 131.

Figure 8: “Bone Room - In Mechanic Arts Bldg – 1897. W. H. Reed” University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1897. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 131.

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Figure 9: Elmer Riggs with Preparator in Field's Museum Fossil Preparation Room, 1900.

Field Museum. Photograph. 1900. Archives. Negative #CSGEO3251c. As reproduced in Brinkman, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 224.

Figure 10: "Museum Room - 'in Old Main' - About 1895” University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1895. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 131.

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Figure 11: "Museum Scene U. of Wyo. Winter 1906-07" University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1906-1907. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 108.

Figure 12: "Museum, 1908. W. H. Reed." University of Wyoming. Photograph. 1906-1907. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Samuel H. Knight Collection, Box 131.

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Figure 13: American Museum with First Dinosaur Mount ( Brontosaurus ) on Display, 1905.

American Museum of Natural History. Photograph. 1905. American Museum of Natural History Department of Vertebrate Paleontology Archives. As reproduced in Brinkman, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 239.

Figure 14: Carnegie Museum with Diplodocus Mount on Display, 1907.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Photograph. 1907. Carnegie Museum of Natural History Archives. As reproduced in Brinkman, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush , 242.

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Figure 15: American Museum Titanothere Models on Display, Circa 1900.

American Museum of Natural History. Photograph. Ca. 1900. American Museum of Natural History, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology Archives. Negative 313463. As reproduced in Ronald Rainger, An Agenda for Antiquity: Henry Fairfield Osborn & Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, 1890-1935 (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1991), 167.

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70 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Marlena Cameron received her Bachelor of Arts in History in 2015 from Columbus State University, and her Master of Arts in History and Philosophy of Science with a Specialized Study in Museum Theory and Practice from Florida State University in 2017. Her research interests include the history of eighteenth and nineteenth century American paleontology and relationships between museums and society.

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