Filling in the Gaps: A Survey of Nineteenth Century Institutions Associated with the Exploration and Natural History of the American West

SYNOPSIS. In many historical studies emphasis is placed on thescientist as an individual and little on the institutions thatsupported him or her. This article details the institutionsthat supported the explorer/naturalists of the American Westduring the nineteenth century. The institutions are arrangedin chronological order of their founding. In discussing eachinstitution I include information concerning its founding, itsstructure, the way in which it supported naturalists and theirstudies, and important naturalists associated with it.     

Race and the Concept of Progress in Nineteenth Century American Ethnology

While nineteenth century American ethnologists relied on the word "evolution" more than the word "progress" to define their theory of culture, their theory of evolution nonetheless implied a teleological projection that was no more than a paeon for Anglo-Saxon race achievement. Believing that failures in earlier stages of evolution had limited brain size and quality of the "inferior races," they suggested that, for all practical purposes, the Caucasian was the lone man in evolution. While the Caucasian maintained an active, progressive role in modifying the environment, the lower races broke into the modern world as mere "survivals" from the past, mentally and physiologically unable to shoulder the burdens of complex civilization. Ethnology became a means through which both scientists and social scientists sought to estimate the relative value of the races, delineate social categories, and help justify the dynamics of race legislation.     

History of American Marine Biology and Marine Biology Institutions Introduction: Origins of American Marine Biology

SYNOPSIS.In the 1840s and 1850s professional naturalists dredgedshallow sea-water on the eastern coast of the United Statesto obtain marine specimens for teaching and research. In 1871Spencer F. Baird, first U.S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries,organized amarine biological laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts,for basic biological research as well as for practical fisherybiology. In 1873 Louis Agassiz established his summer marinestation for teachers on Penikese Island, which stimulated others,especially some of his former students, to do likewise alongthe eastern coast in subsequent years, culminating in the renownedMarine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole (1888). On the Pacificcoast the pioneer marine laboratories were the Hopkins MarineLaboratory (1892) and the prestigious Scripps Institute of Oceanographyin California (1903), and the Puget Sound Biological Station,later known as the Friday Harbor Laboratories, in Washington(1903). Today, over 50 marine laboratories are in operationin the 21 contiguous coastal states for education and researchin marine biology     

美国自然历史博物馆之旅——见证生命起源

美国国家自然历史博物馆是世界上最大的自然历史博物馆之一,位于美国首都华盛顿第十大街和宪法大道西北。该馆隶属于世界闻名的史密森研究院,1910年正式开馆,距今已有百年历史。博物馆致力于收集、保存和展出关于自然历史和人类文化艺术的藏品,展出内容涵盖了现生物、化     

美国自然历史博物馆之旅——哺乳动物展

在美国纽约曼哈顿区有一座博物馆,它独占中央公园西侧,用22座建筑物组成了一个自然历史殿堂,这就是有口皆碑的纽约自然历史博物馆。该博物馆建立于1869年,有50多个展厅,收藏着人类有史以来的各种植物、动物和矿物标本3600万件之多,现陈列有天文、矿物、人类、古动物和现代动物5个方面12个学部。就收藏标本之富,涵盖学科面之广,都无愧为世界最大的博物馆之一。     

Charles Girard: Relationships and Representation in Nineteenth Century Systematics

Early nineteenth century systematists sought to describe what they called the Natural System or the Natural Classification. In the nineteenth century, there was no agreement about the basis of observed patterns of similarity between organisms. What did these systematists think they were doing, when they named taxa, proposed relationships between taxa, and arranged taxa into representational schemes? In this paper I explicate Charles Frederic Girard’s (1822–1895) theory and method of systematics. A student of Louis Agassiz, and subsequently (1850–1858) a collaborator with Spencer Baird, Girard claimed that natural classificatory methods do not presuppose either a special creationist or an evolutionary theory of the natural world. The natural system, in Girard’s view, comprises three distinct ways in which organisms can be related to each other. Girard analyzed these relationships, and justified his classificatory methodology, by appeal to his embryological and physiological work. Girard offers an explicit theoretical answer to the question, what characters are evidence for natural classificatory hypotheses? I show that the challenge of simultaneously depicting the three distinct types of relationship led Girard to add a third dimension to his classificatory diagrams.     

Naturalists and Natural History Institutions of the American West: A Preview

SYNOPSIS. The nineteenth century was a time of active explorationof the American West. This symposium details the individualsand institutions that initiated the natural history studiesassociated with the accumulation of the geographic informationand relates the natural history studies to the growth and developmentof science and the scientific community.     

The Ibis: Transformations in a Twentieth Century British Natural History Journal

The contents of the British Ornithologists' Union's journal, The Ibis, during the first half of the 20th century illustrates some of the transformations that have taken place in the naturalist tradition. Although later generations of ornithologists described these changes as logical and progressive, their historical narratives had more to do with legitimizing the infiltration of the priorities of evolutionary theory, ecology, and ethology than analyzing the legacy of the naturalist tradition on its own terms. Despite ornithologists' claim that the journal's increasing focus on "biology" represented a natural development after the preliminary phase of systematics and geographical ornithology, in fact a small group campaigned to bring the priorities of population ecology, behavior, and selection theory into the journal and British ornithology more generally. The problems involved in this transition highlight the importance of methodological and institutional context in determining and reinforcing appropriate research programs for ornithologists. Comparing the discipline-building rhetoric of moderns with the contents of the past illustrates how modern evaluations of 19th century research programs have been enmeshed in ornithologists' endeavors to forge new identities for traditional disciplines.