National Museum of Natural History Unearthed

Richard Rathbun: The Smithsonian's Renaissance Man (Part 2)

Rathbun spent the rest of his life at the Smithsonian, and took on a variety of challenges. He was instrumental in overseeing the design and construction of the new National Museum of Natural History, writing highly readable, detailed reports of every aspect, including collections management and exhibition. There is no doubt that his early days of exploring stone quarries stood him in good stead. No stone was left unturned by Rathbun and his  “Report of the U.S. National Museum 1911” is used today by design and project managers, exhibit staff and anyone who wants to know the rich construction history of the museum.

In addition, Rathbun was instrumental in developing the first national gallery of art in the United States. He oversaw the acceptance of the collections of Mrs. Harriet Lane Johnston, William T. Evans which were installed in the north hall of the new National Museum of Natural History. In addition, he was instrumental in the acceptance of Charles Lang Freer’s gift of his collection to the institution, and the creation of “The Children’s Room” on the first floor of the south tower of the Smithsonian Castle. It is thanks to Rathbun that the Smithsonian is open on Sundays, as he initiated the Sunday hours.

As with any administrator, Rathbun delt with a number of problems, many of which reached the local newspapers. One of these was the “Sun Dance Affair,” where Smithsonian anthropologist James Mooney responded to charges that he paid the Cheyenne tribe to perform the dance and “incited Indians to practice self-torture.” Another scandal – and another headline Rathbun dealt with was “Bad Use of Checks” by the institution’s disbursing officer (think CFO), W.W. Karr. Mr. Karr, a twenty-year employee, was charged with embezzling $46,000. Prior to Karr’s arrest, Rathbun, a friend and colleague, went to Karr’s home and asked about the missing funds. Karr threatened suicide, whereupon Rathbun left to discuss the matter with Secretary Langley. Both men notified the police who arrested Karr at his Washington D.C. home. Karr, who attempted to draw a gun, said to police he wished he had used the gun sooner.

The Rathbun family served the Smithsonian well. His sister, Dr. Mary Jane Rathbun (1860-1943), began her Smithsonian career as a copyist in the Division of Marine Invertebrates. She devised a unique record system for the collection and wrote over 158 papers on crustaceans.  She became an assistant curator in charge of the department until her resignation in 1914, a story in itself. Miss Rathbun was, for all intents and purposes, a one-woman show. When she asked for an assistant, she was denied one. A woman of principle as was her brother, she resigned from her position, used her salary to pay for the assistant (who was Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt) and volunteered at the museum for twenty-five years as an “honorary research associate.”

Little is known about Rathbun’s immediate family. He lived with his wife Lena and son Seward at 1622 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.  According to Rathbun’s granddaughter, Edith who was born after her grandfather’s death, Seward told her that his father was “a quiet, unassuming man who preferred small dinners with friends to the busy Washington social life”.

Rathbun died in Washington on 18 July 1918. His colleagues wrote of “their profound sorrow at the loss of a sincere friend, an executive officer of marked ability and one whose administration has had a wide influence upon the scientific institutions of the nation.” He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C., just a few miles from the building – and the institution – he so loved.

Amy Ballard, Senior Historic Preservation Specialist, Architectural History and Historic Preservation Division

Image caption and credit: Richard Rathbun oversees construction of the National Museum of Natural History, August 1905. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Richard Rathbun: The Smithsonian's Renaissance Man (Part 1)

Sadly, many Smithsonian staff over the years have been forgotten and relegated to the index of history. One man deserves to be resurrected for his vast contributions to the institution and that man is Richard Rathbun. Rathbun is perhaps the most important employee in the history of the National Museum of Natural History that you have never heard of. He, more than anyone, exemplifies the phrase in government job descriptions “other duties as assigned.”

Rathbun was born in 1852 in Buffalo, New York. His interest in geology and paleontology stemmed from visiting local stone quarries to detect fossils. At age 16 the young Rathbun went to work at his father’s stone quarry as a financial clerk. He read everything he could on the subject, and his favorite book was “The Old Red Sandstone: New Walks in an Old Field” published in 1841 by Scottish geologist Hugh Miller and still used as a reference book today.

Shortly before his 19^th birthday he began the collections of paleontology in the Buffalo Museum of Natural Sciences and was made its curator. He pursued his studies of paleontology at Cornell and later Harvard and during that time, worked at the Boston Society of Natural History. His predilection towards multi-tasking was becoming a life-long trait.

For a brief time, Rathbun’s interest turned away from paleontology when he volunteered as a scientific assistant with the U.S. Fish Commission (at the time a division of the Smithsonian). He traveled to Brazil several times in the 1870s and wrote papers on   coal deposits and coral reefs.  This work, as often happens with volunteers, turned into a full-time job with the Fish Commission as a scientific assistant, where he studied dredging expeditions off the eastern and southern coasts of the United States among other things.  Many of his notebooks from these expeditions are now in the Smithsonian Archives.

For a time, he was detailed to Yale University’s Zoology Department and left there in 1881 when he was appointed curator of the Department of Marine Invertebrates of the new U.S. National Museum at the Smithsonian. He prepared numerous catalogues on scientific investigations in sea and salt waters, sponges and their trade, methods of fisheries, lobster culture, and reviews of fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. He was an early advocate of  the preservation of food fish and from 1891-1896 served as the United States representative on the “Joint Commission with Great Britain Relative to the Preservation of the Fisheries in Waters Contiguous to the United States and Canada.”

Rathbun’s ease with people, his organizational skills and his knowledge of Smithsonian collections and research made him a prime candidate for the job of Assistant Secretary of the institution in charge of offices and exchanges.  His 1897 appointment led to the directorship of the U.S. National Museum in 1901. He also served as acting secretary in 1899 during which time he received an inquiry from Wilbur Wright asking for information from the Smithsonian on the possibility of aerial flight.  Rathbun quickly responded, sending Wright a package of information which Wilbur and his brother Orville used in their studies on aerodynamics ...

Stay tuned next week for part two of my post!

Amy Ballard, Senior Historic Preservation Specialist, Architectural History and Historic Preservation Division

Image caption and credit: Richard Rathbun hard at work. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Recording Our Stories

For the National Museum of Natural History’s centennial celebrations, the Museum teamed up with the Smithsonian Institution Archives to conduct an oral history program. Staff were invited to submit nominations of interview subjects, and a centennial committee made the final selections. The individuals chosen represent the many types of jobs that go into making the Museum work, as well as the wide range of scientific disciplines that the National Museum of Natural History studies. Staff members volunteered to serve as interviewers and were trained by the director of the SI Archives’ Institutional History Division, Dr. Pamela Henson. These new interviews will form part of the collection of oral histories that Dr. Henson has been conducting at the Smithsonian since the early 1970s.

Listen to the stories of those who greet visitors, travel the globe in search of new species, care for 126 million artifacts and specimens, and prepare exhibits for the public to enjoy. Explore the oceans in a submersible, scan deserts for ancient meteorites, and learn what it takes to run an insect zoo. Click here to dive in!

Text and imagery courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution

Image caption and credit: Inci Bowman, centennial volunteer interviewer, together with scientific illustrator George Venable, in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History at the conclusion of their interview, 2010. Image courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History.

Dr. David Pawson

Dr. David Pawson is an expert on echinoderms—sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and sea stars. He grew up in Napier, a city on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, where early on he developed an interest in marine life. He attended Victoria University in Wellington, which had a strong program in marine biology at that time, and stayed to pursue doctoral research under H. Barraclough Fell, an authority on sea urchins and starfish. Pawson came to the United States at the same time as his mentor. When Professor Fell was invited by Harvard University to join their faculty, he recommended Pawson to the Smithsonian Institution, which was then seeking a scientist specializing in invertebrate zoology. Dr. Pawson joined the staff of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) as Associate Curator and Supervisor of Echinoderms in 1964—an exciting time of growth at the Smithsonian.

Watch his interview below and then read the rest of his story.

Text, photo, and video courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Image caption and credit: Dr. David Pawson at the microscope in 1980, when he was curator of echinoderms. Credit: Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution.

Mary Rice and the Creation of the Smithsonian Marine Station

Dr. Mary E. Rice came to the Smithsonian in 1966, soon after the completion of her PhD in zoology at the University of Washington, to work in the Division of Worms, part of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Museum of Natural History. She was in charge of curating the sipunculan and echiuran collections. Sipunculans and echiurans are primitive, unsegmented worm-like marine animals that typically live in burrows of sand or mud, or in rock or coral crevices. They are found in all the world’s oceans from shallow waters to abyssal depths. Rice has devoted her career to the study of sipunculans, an important but little-known marine group, focusing her research on their evolution and development. Her research interests have extended further to include the larger field of life histories of marine organisms.

Rice grew up on a farm outside of Washington, D.C., in southern Maryland, where she was surrounded by nature—including cows, chickens, horses, cats, dogs, and other animals. She received her first microscope at a very young age, and even before high school she had decided she would be a biologist. She matriculated at Drew University in New Jersey in 1943, where she was part of the first class of women. During summers she received scholarships to study marine biology at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. After obtaining an M.A. degree in zoology at Oberlin College, she returned to Drew to teach for a year, followed by two years as a research associate at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. The death of her father in 1952 brought her back home to the D.C. area, where she worked at the National Institutes of Health in cancer and toxicology research. She eventually left the NIH to pursue a Ph.D. in marine biology at the University of Washington, gaining more field and research experience at the Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island.

Click here to read the rest of Dr. Rice's story and to find out how she established the Smithsonian's Marine Station!

Text and imagery courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Image caption: Dr. Mary Rice holds a sand-burrowing species of a worm-like marine animal called a sipunculan. In the background are pictures of oceanic larvae of sipunculans. Credit: Photo by Tom Smoyer; image courtesy of Smithsonian Marine Station

Recognizing Our Peers

Today the Museum held its annual Peer Recognition Awards ceremony - a time-honored tradition to recognize our colleagues for their exemplary dedication, talent, and service.  One past recipient is Officer James McGrath, who is featured on the timeline of our Centennial website.  Check out his story below and then browse the timeline for more NMNH stories and history! 

Officer James McGrath of the National Museum of Natural History, Protection Services, offers stickers to visitors who enter his No. 20 Elevator in the Constitution Avenue lobby of the Museum. He starts the day with a roll of 2,150 smiley face stickers, as well as lady bugs, fish and American flags - on an average day, he gives away 800. His record is 1,800 in one day. Children, parents, even senior citizens, have their day brightened by his smile, jokes and cheery stickers. Indeed, Museum Director Cristián Samper has two of Officer McGrath's stickers - of fish - on his Museum ID badge. Officer McGrath is a retired lawyer from Kansas City, Missouri, who was awarded a bronze star in World War II.

Text and image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution.

Recording the Voices of the Natural History Museum

As part of our celebration of the National Museum of Natural History’s 100th anniversary, we have been recording oral history interviews with the staff.  These audio and video interviews capture life at the Museum and give a behind-the-scenes look at the type of work done here.   The people interviewed represent the many different jobs that make the Museum run – guards, collections managers, curators, taxidermists, food services staff, photographer and exhibits specialist, to name a few.  The interviews were recorded by staff, volunteers and interns, bringing the Museum family even closer together.

One of our first interviewees was Chip Clark (pictured at right), an extraordinary museum photographer, who reminisced about all the things he had learned in his 35-year career at the Museum, noting, “There are no linear paths in my life.”  Clark was interviewed by American University student John Minks and Smithsonian intern Lauren Dare.  His reminiscences became even more precious when he passed away suddenly after his second interview.   

Guard Andre Bell discussed with George Washington University student Emma Lang the challenges of keeping the Museum and its visitors secure in a post-9/11 world.  He noted that “no two days are the same” in a place like the Natural History Museum, which has 126 million objects and 7.4 million visitors per year.  Daily incidents ranged from lost children, providing directions to visitors from all over the globe, to insects escaping from the Insect Zoo or a visit from President Obama’s daughters.

Exhibit specialist Paul Rhymer (pictured at left) talked with student Cigdem Pakel of American University about how his career allowed him to use his creative skills in ever changing ways, including creating a remote controlled “robo-badger” that was used to train endangered black-footed ferrets to respond to predators such as badgers.  Although he initially did more two dimensional work, his career in the Exhibits Department included taxidermy and moved him into the 3-D nature sculpture that he is noted for today via Paul Rhymer Studio.

Food services staff member Audrey Butler (pictured at right) has worked at the Museum since 1984 and seen its services and visitorship grow.  With Mark White of the Human Studies Film Archives, she fondly recalled the old days with a revolving food table, known as a carousel, where visitors picked pre-made items, and Butler herself was nicknamed “the Queen of the Carousel.”  Butler is a “people person” who has always cared about the staff and visitors.   In January of 2009, she arrived in the pre-dawn hours to be sure that food was available to the huge number of visitors to President Obama’s inauguration, just one of the many special events she has been part of.

Curator Dave Pawson shared stories of his career studying echinoderms with Museum volunteer Inci Bowman.  A native of Australia, Pawson arrived at the Museum in 1964.  His reminiscences include a trip to Palmer Base in Antarctica, snorkeling off Ascension Island with colleagues to collect specimens, and even diving in the deep-sea submersible, the Alvin.   He shares his excitement traveling along the deep ocean floor glimpsing, and then collecting, organisms never before seen by humans. 

For other Stories of the Museum, see http://www.mnh.si.edu/onehundredyears/life_in_museum_landing.html

 

Pam Henson, Historian, Smithsonian Institution Archives

 

Image captions and credits (top to bottom):  Chip Clark in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, shooting macro-photography (close-up details), 2010, Debbie Clark; Paul Rhymer with his robo-badger, 1989, by Rick Vargas, Smithsonian Institution Archives; Audrey Butler, Smithsonian Institution; (link) David Pawson, 1980, by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution Archives.     

Blast from the Past - Katherine Campbell, Museum Volunteer

Some of the advantages of working at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) are that there is always something new to see and that often, moments of childlike wonder come when you least expect it.  I began here as a volunteer in the IT Department this past Spring and my arrival happened to coincide with the unveiling of the exhibit to celebrate NMNH's first 100 years - Celebrating 100 Years at the Museum.  One day, I was knee-deep in code for the accompanying Centennial website when my supervisor offered me the chance to take a tour of the Paleobiology Department.  Along with a few lucky students from a local school, we examined fossiles and prehistoric sediment samples - just scratching the surface of the Department's vast holdings.  Our tour guide - a curator of Paleoentomology - all along rattling off scientific jargon that left my head spinning, and me wanting to find old episodes of Bill Nye, The Science Guy.  Words like frass, molt and proboscis elicited knowing nods from the students, and approving glances from their teacher.   The students craned their necks to see over one another as the curator produced fossil after fossil.

As they continued to study the fossils, I flashed back to a moment in my childhood with images from Jurassic Park filling my mind: the T-Rex’s thunderous steps causing ripples in the water, the scientists extracting dinosaur DNA from blood trapped in amber-encased mosquitoes. In 1993, I had watched that movie in complete astonishment.  Now, as an adult, I was instantly transported back to that time by seeing fossils in real life, and that’s one of the reasons why I love working at NMNH - in addition to learning and being exposed to new experiences, I am often reminded of older ones. Sightings like the stuffed animals in the museum shop and the kids the huddled in front of the Fénykövi elephant for pictures all remind me of a simpler time in my life. No matter what your age, there is moment you can take away from walking the halls of NMNH.

Katherine Campbell, Volunteer, IT

Staff Profile: Chief of Temporary Exhibitions Barbara Stauffer

As Chief of Temporary Exhibitions here at Natural History, I oversee the development and installation of five to six exhibitions a year.  While working on this year’s 100^th anniversary exhibition, it occurred to me that I had been working here for 1/5^th of the Museum’s life.  While 20 years is hardly a long time by Smithsonian standards (it’s not unusual for staff to stay here 40, 50 or even 60 years), it did give me pause.  In an institution that so values the past, is it possible to stay in one place and still grow? 

This is why I love my job.  First of all, the subject matter is always new and different, meaning I regularly get crash courses in topics that range from the social behavior of ants, colonial history as revealed in skeletons, or climate change in the Arctic.  I have the opportunity to work with a wide range of curators and collections managers, all of whom are extremely knowledgeable and wonderfully passionate about the work they do.  And you never know where you might find yourself, like the day two curators and I carried Martha, the last passenger pigeon, across the Mall (carefully wrapped and packed in a sturdy container, of course) to a meeting of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents for a show and tell about the Museum’s 100^th anniversary.

The materials, techniques and media used in exhibitions are also constantly evolving, and this helps me stay fresh.  When I started 20 years ago, exhibit design was still done by hand.  Now exhibits are not only designed digitally, but include much more digital media.  Learning to use these rapidly evolving technologies to the best advantage in exhibitions is an on-going challenge and constant learning experience.

And then there is social media and the community engagement it inspires.  I find this is one of the biggest challenges for museums these days, as it extends our thinking and planning beyond the physical space and the actual experience of the exhibition.  For example, who knew 20 years ago that I’d be a member of a Flickr group that is crocheting a reef for the Museum’s display of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef?  Or that we’d be doing on-line front-end evaluation for an upcoming exhibition about biodiversity and human health?  And, finally, who knew 20 years ago that such a thing as blogging would exist or that writing one would be part of my job?

 So, yes, the Natural History Museum has changed a lot not only in its first 100 years, but even in the past 20 years.  And I think it’s the combination of looking forward while looking back that keeps me on my toes.

Barbara Stauffer, Chief of Temporary Exhibitions, Office of Exhibits

Image credits: Barbara Stauffer (photo of Barbara Stauffer) and Smithsonian Institution Archives ("Martha," on display in the newly opened Bird Hall, c. 1956).

Staff Profile: Exhibit Writer Angela Roberts

When you work for a place like the National Museum of Natural History, you begin to realize that the halls are filled with the ghosts of memories—of eccentric staff members, momentous occasions, bizarre and intriguing specimens, along with the tales of how they were found and brought to the Museum. People work here forever, and everyone has a story.

My first project as an exhibits writer here was the 100 Years Centennial exhibition. I had worked for another Smithsonian office for the past six years and worked on a few projects for the Museum during that time. Nothing prepared me for the crash course in the Museum’s history and personality that would be my life for the next eighteen months.

How do you sift through the thousands of stories and photos, like looking through your family album? How do you figure out which are important, which are engaging, and which are only funny to those in the know? How do you balance seven scientific departments, hundreds of exhibitions and educational programs, and the continuous expansion of a building that houses 126 million specimens and artifacts? How do you condense 100 years full of so much passion, love, and life into a 2,500 sq ft hall exhibition?

I’m not sure how it all came together, but luckily, I didn’t have to do it alone. Like every exhibit at the Natural History Museum, I worked with a dedicated team of people who have worked here far longer than I have. Together, we dug through the collections, hounded our colleagues, tracked down elusive photographs and bits of information, and debated the merits of each story endlessly. Together we created an exhibit that meets many interests and needs, one that is representative of our Museum’s rich—and sometimes overwhelming—history and that hooks our visitors into the thrill of scientific discovery and the excitement of working at such a crazy and wonderful institution. 

I hope the ghosts are happy.

Angela Roberts Reeder, Writer/Editor, Office of Exhibits