Specimen collecting and the Department of Defense

By Lesley Parilla

 SIA2008-3196. Alexander Wetmore Standing Next to Jeep at Rio Las Tablas, Panama, 1948. After a number of visits, correspondence in the collection indicates that Wetmore was using the same Jeep during successive visits. Eventually they painted SM-INS in the front bumper marking it for Smithsonian Institution use (see SIA2008-3201).

While working on natural history and institution archive collections here at the Smithsonian, I have come across a lot of projects involving the collaboration between the Smithsonian and other federal agencies. Some of these relationships are short term, lasting months or years. Others extend for decades like that of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). In the case of federal agencies working with NMNH, the agencies are often involved in natural resource management. The Bureau of Fisheries (later merged to create the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) contributed material in several collections at Smithsonian Institution Archives. One relationship that surprised me was the recurring collaborations between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Smithsonian Institution.

 The structure of the work with DOD varies, and is usually based on a shared topic or geographic focus. The Department of Entomology has had an ongoing relationship with the US Army, Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit (WRBU) since 1961. WRBU coordinates with NMNH’s
Department of Entomology, to manage and develop the NMNH Mosquito collection, which has become the largest of its kind at 1.5 million specimens (http://wrbu.si.edu/WhatWeDo.html).

Usually what I find relates to specimen collecting trips in the form of expeditions or surveys. These seem to come about for two reasons—the Smithsonian Institution is, in many cases, the repository for national collections, cultural and biological. The US Military has a myriad of bases, outposts, and equipment around the world. When the US Government decides it is in the national interest to collect, circumstances have brought these two together. This has produced a string of expeditions, surveys, and informal relationships over the last two centuries. Below is an overview of just a few we’ve cataloged thus far.

• 1838-1842 Pre-dating the Institution, the United States Exploring Expedition (Wilkes Expedition) was commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the United States Navy. Specimens from this expedition compose a large portion of NMNH’s earliest specimens.

SIA2011-1233, Specimen collected during the Expedition.

• 1853- 1858 As the US territory and commercial interests extended west in the nineteenth century, military personnel and resources worked with Smithsonian staff during expeditions like the United States North Pacific Exploring Expedition (1853-1856) to study of commercial fishing grounds and the Colorado Exploring Expedition (Ives Expedition) (1857 - 1858) to develop transportation options across the southwest US.
• 1923 The Tanager Surveys during the 1920’s were conducted with the US Navy, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu (Hawaii), and USDA (with Alexander Wetmore). The Expedition was named after the Naval Minesweeper used for the series of cruises through the Hawaiian Islands. Archives materials from the 1923 collecting trip document mapping efforts by the U.S. Navy, and collecting of botanical and ornithological specimens.

SIA2011-0842 Survey Participants during the Tanager Expedition, 1923.

• 1939 When Franklin D. Roosevelt took the Presidential Cruise of 1939, he invited Smithsonian staff to come along. Waldo Schmitt, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at NMNH, collected during the voyage on the US Navy vessel. Specimen collecting was done with the assistance of naval personnel.
• 1946 -1953 Alexander Wetmore studied birds in the Panama Canal Zone, with the support of personnel and equipment at the Jaque Auxiliary Airfield and Albrook Field, Panama. His correspondence documents relationships with local US troops, use of aircraft to select possible archaeological dig sites, and vehicles to access sites for ornithological collecting.
• 1962-1963 Waldo Schmitt, Curator of the Invertebrate Zoology Department of the National Museum of Natural History, took part in survey work during the Palmer Peninsula (Antarctica) Survey, at the United States Antarctic Program, which has been an ongoing research location since 1956, supported by National Science Found and supported with DOD equipment and personnel.

SIA2012-0664a Starfish specimen collected off the coast of Palmer Peninsula, Antarctica, c. 1962.

•  1962-1973 The Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSP), started in 1962, was a cooperative effort between the Smithsonian Institution and DOD to study pelagic birds of the Pacific.

SIA2011-1366. Blue-faced boobies, November 11, 1968, location unknown. Taken during the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program.

It is exciting to find, as I catalog, that what initially appeared to be isolated projects between agencies really demonstrates an understanding of the benefits of working together.  Additionally, information on specimens and when they were collected is often in unexpected places.  Information from the vessel Tanager may be located at a DOD archive, National Archives, the Smithsonian, or the Bishop Museum. The Field Book Project works to make those connections easier to find. 

Comments

[Rick Wright]

This is really great stuff. It would be interesting to figure out whether such collaborations have been "recurring," as you put it, or continuous from the days of Spencer Baird. Has the wheel been continually re-invented, or have these cooperative ventures been part of a larger intellectual program?