The mice were moved to a new jar and recaptured. But they're here. I have been following in Jencks's footsteps for several years, and suddenly, strangely, I feel right in front of him.
1On September 26th, 894, the naturalist, taxidermist, popular science writer and beloved Professor John whipple Porter Jencks died on the steps of Brown University Museum. He had lunch. Maybe he ate too much. One of his students wrote:
Jencks Museum provides students and local tourists with glass boxes filled with animal specimens, ethnographic articles from all over the world and other "treasures" worthy of museum collection-about 50,000 pieces. But even before his death, the museum looked very outdated.
Brown University closed the museum on 19 15, and abandoned most of its collections in the university dump on 1945. For many years, I was the curator of the Smithsonian Museum. Now, I am a professor of American studies at Brown University. This almost forgotten Jencks Museum has always attracted me. I put it in the Lost and Found Museum as a framework for my new book. Through the lens of the lost museum in Jencks, my book details the valuable work done in the museum today: collecting, preserving, displaying and studying art, handicrafts and natural history specimens.
1850, the Smithsonian Institution issued an appeal for natural history specimens, especially "small quadrupeds". As a vole, a mole, a bat, a squirrel and a weasel, Jencks is one of many naturalists who responded to this. Jencks wrote in his autobiography: "I asked my students and others to bring it to me until he cried enough." . (Jencks pays them 6 cents per mouse. )
In the Lost Museum: In this book, the past and present curator, Steven Baruch, has turned "museum" into a verb among the most thoughtful scholars and professionals in this field, showing us how to collect and display it behind the scenes. The planning is conceived and organized. His clear, straightforward and insightful narration provides a case study and a larger framework for understanding the practice, choice, historical trend, controversy and possible future of museum science. Art, scientific therapy, history museums and professional roles from curators to exhibition designers and educators make this a must-read book for everyone in the museum field.
Buy the Smithsonian Institution's annual report and thank him for his work: "One of the most important contributions of the institution's geographical collection is that it obtained a series of mammals in eastern Massachusetts from Mr. J.W.P Jencks of Middleboro.
Baird analyzed the specimen he obtained from pendium in 1857, North American mammals: mainly based on species descriptions collected by Smithsonian Institution Museum. When Baird observed and measured Jencks's bust,
"They are kept in the Smithsonian along with all other animals that Baird uses for mammals." They are also provided to other scientists for their work.
1866 Joel Asaf Allen, curator of Harvard Museum of Comparative Animals (MCZ), began to study the mammal catalogue in Massachusetts. This 1869 catalogue is mainly based on Allen's own collection in Springfield, but Allen learned about Jencks's collection in the Smithsonian Institution from Baird's book. He thought that in order to study them,
Mice in Jencks found their homes in the University of Michigan, Chicago Academy of Sciences and Baltimore Women's College (now Gucher College). 1On June 24th, 866, the Smithsonian Institution transported them to MCZ, not far from their first home in Middleboro, to work for Allen. Allen learned something new from mammals in Jencks and praised his work: "No one has done more to increase our understanding of their history than Mr. J.W.P Jencks of Middleboro."
Rats in Jencks will continue to appear in taxonomic texts, but they also have another use. 1876 In February, MCZ received a batch of rodents from the Smithsonian Institution, including some specimens of Jencks. As a national museum, the Smithsonian Institution distributed a set of such specimens to museums all over the country. Rats in Jencks have found new homes in the University of Michigan, Chicago Academy of Sciences and Baltimore Women's College (now Gucher College).
Jencks's mouse is very useful. Scientists examined and measured them, and each mouse used them to establish one or more classification systems and used them for other types of research. This is why they are collected and preserved. Many mice in Jencks are still in Smithsonian Museum, MCZ Museum and other museums in China, waiting for further use. I want to see them. Just then, I found a big jar in MCZ.
The mouse in Jencks tells a traditional story of scientific collection. They were not collected for exhibition, never exhibited, and may never be exhibited. Of the 3 billion natural history specimens in the world, 99.9% can't. The naturalist John whipple Porter Jencks established a museum in Brown University, which was filled with animal specimens and other specimens. The university gave up all its collections on 1945. (Brown University Archives)
But that doesn't mean they are useless. Look behind the scenes and you will find that they have been put into use.
In her book Anthropologists and What They Did, margaret mead, an anthropologist 1965, led a virtual visit to the American Museum of Natural History.
Here, on the curator's floor, there are tall wooden and metal cabinets in the long hall, and there is a strange smell in the air-a little stale and a little chemical-a pound of fumigant mixed with the smell of actual specimens, bones, feathers, soil and mineral samples, "she wrote. You may think that the museum is a place full of formaldehyde, moldy, out of date and dead. "
But you open a door and walk into the curator's office: "The curator's office is the studio. Here, he puts new specimens in the catalogue or puts old specimens in the study. Here, he selects exhibits and compares his notes and photos with the latest field trips or items collected half a century ago. " The researchers gave the specimen new life. "a paleontologist at the natural history museum in London
Richard Foday led us on another behind-the-scenes investigation. He showed us "the natural habitat of the curator", "Warren in the corridor, outdated galleries, offices, libraries and, most importantly, collections."
There are endless fossil drawers, arranged by category, just like MCZ's mammals. Each one is marked with Latin name, discovered rock stratum, geological age, place, collector's name and sometimes publication place. This is where Foday works. He named new species, understood systematics (the relationship between species), and summarized evolution, geology and climate change by comparing examples. Foday wrote: "Taxonomy is the basic basis for the study of reference collections in natural history museums."
The collection of natural history is the basis of george louis Lehrer's most important biological breakthrough.