The Boston Society of Natural History (1830-1948) in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, was an organization dedicated to the study and promotion of natural history. It published a scholarly journal and established a museum. In its first few decades, the society occupied several successive locations in Boston's Financial District, including Pearl Street, Tremont Street

Tremont Street

Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts.-Etymology:The name is a variation of one of the original appellations of the city, "Trimountaine," a reference to a hill that formerly had three peaks. Beacon Hill, with its single peak, is all that remains of the Trimountain...

 and Mason Street. In 1864 they moved into a newly constructed museum building in the Back Bay, designed by architect William Gibbons Preston

William G. Preston

William G. Preston was an American architect. He was active in Boston and Georgia, where he designed the De Soto Hotel and the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory...

. In 1951 the society evolved into the Museum of Science, and relocated to its current site on the Charles River.

Brief history

Founders of the society in 1830 included Amos Binney Jr.; Edward Brooks; Walter Channing; Henry Codman; George B. Emerson

George Barrell Emerson

George Barrell Emerson was an American educator and pioneer of women's education.-Biography:He was born in Kennebunk, Maine. He graduated from Harvard College in 1817, and soon after took charge of an academy in Lancaster, Massachusetts...

; Joshua B. Flint; Benjamin D. Greene; Simon E. Greene; William Grigg; George Hayward; D. Humphreys Storer; and John Ware. Several had previously been involved with the Linnaean Society of New England

Linnaean Society of New England

Linnaean Society of New England was established in Boston, Massachusetts, to promote natural history. The society organized a natural history museum, and also arranged lectures and excursions for its members. In 1817 it became involved in the Gloucester sea serpent debate...

. By 1838, the society held "regular meetings on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month." "In its collection are about 700 specimens in mineralogy and geology, besides the rich collection of Dr. C.T. Jackson, and the state collection; botany, 5,000; mammalia, 30 entire skeletons and 30 crania; birds, 200 species; reptiles, 130; insects, about 15,000; crustacea, 130; radiata, 190. Library, 600 volumes and pamphlets. The room ... gratuitously opened to the public every Wednesday from 12 to 2 o'clock."

Among the many scholars and curators affiliated with the society: Alexander Emanuel Agassiz

Alexander Emanuel Agassiz

Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz , son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, was an American scientist and engineer.-Biography:...

; T.T. Bouve; Thomas Mayo Brewer

Thomas Mayo Brewer

Thomas Mayo Brewer was an American naturalist.Mayo is best known as the joint author, with Baird and Ridgway, of A History of North American Birds , which was the first attempt since John James Audubon's to complete the study of American ornithology.Brewer was born in Boston...

; George Emerson; A.A. Gould

Augustus Addison Gould

Augustus Addison Gould was an American conchologist and malacologist.-Biography:...

; F.W.P. Greenwood

F.W.P. Greenwood

Francis William Pitt Greenwood was a Unitarian minister of King's Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts in the 19th-century.-Biography:...

; Charles Thomas Jackson

Charles Thomas Jackson

Charles Thomas Jackson was an American physician and scientist who was active in medicine, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology.- Life and work :...

; Charles Sedgwick Minot

Charles Sedgwick Minot

Charles Sedgwick Minot was an American anatomist.-Life:Charles Sedgwick Minot was born December 25, 1852 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His mother was Catharine "Kate" Maria Sedgwick and father was William Minot II...

; Albert Ordway; Samuel Hubbard Scudder

Samuel Hubbard Scudder

Samuel Hubbard Scudder was an American entomologist and palaeontologist.Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Scudder may be most widely known for his essay on the importance of first-hand, careful observation in the natural sciences...

; Charles J. Sprague; and Jeffries Wyman

Jeffries Wyman

Jeffries Wyman was an American naturalist and anatomist, born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Wyman died in Bethlehem, New Hampshire of a pulmonary hemorrhage.-Career:...

.
"After World War II, under the leadership of Bradford Washburn

Bradford Washburn

Henry Bradford Washburn, Jr. was an American explorer, mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director from 1939–1980, and from 1985 until his death served as its Honorary Director .Washburn is especially noted for exploits in four...

, the society sold the Berkeley Street building, changed its name to the Boston Museum of Science. ... The cornerstone for the new Museum was laid at Science Park [in 1949] and a temporary building was erected to house the Museum's collections and staff. In 1951, the first wing of the new Museum officially opened."

See also

• Boston Journal of Natural History
  Boston Journal of Natural History
  The Boston Journal of Natural History was a scholarly journal published by the Boston Society of Natural History in mid-19th century Massachusetts. Contributors included Charles T. Jackson, Augustus A. Gould, and others. Each volume featured lithographic illustrations, some in color,...
  
  , published by the society (1834-1863)
• Museum of Science (Boston)

Publications of the society

• Act of incorporation, constitution, and by-laws of the Boston Society of Natural History. John H. Eastburn, printer, 1832.
• Boston Journal of Natural History. v.1 (1834-1837); v.2 (1838-1839); v.4 (1843-1844); v.5 (1845-1847); v.6 (1850-1857); v.7 (1859-1863).
• Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. v.1 (1841-1844); v.34 (1907-1912)
• Memoirs Read Before the Boston Society of Natural History. (1861-1949). v.1 (1866-1869).
• Objects and claims of the Boston Society of Natural History. Printed by J. Wilson and Son, 1861.
• Annual report. (1865-1876)
• Alpheus Spring Packard. Observations on the glacial phenomena of Labrador and Maine. 1867.
• Louis Agassiz. Address delivered on the centennial anniversary of the birth of Alexander von Humboldt. 1869. (The lecture took place at Music Hall
  Boston Music Hall
  The Boston Music Hall was a concert hall located on Winter Street in Boston, Massachusetts, with an additional entrance on Hamilton Place.One of oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was the original home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The hall...
  
  , followed by a reception at Horticultural Hall).
• Anniversary memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, 1830-1880. Boston, 1880.
• Lucien Carr. Notes on the crania of New England Indians. 1880.
• William James. The feeling of effort. 1880.
• Museum and Library bulletin. 1906.
• Douglas Wilson Johnson. A geological excursion in the Grand Cañon district. 1909.
• Bulletin of the Boston Society of Natural History. 1915.
• P. Creed, ed. The Boston Society of Natural History, 1830-1930. Boston: 1930.

About the society

• Boston Society of Natural History. Boston Daily Atlas, 05-31-1847.
• Boston Society of Natural History; Daily Atlas, 03-13-1850.
• Boston Society of Natural History. Boston Daily Globe, Mar 5, 1872. p.8.
• Man's origan; Mr. F. W. Putnam's Lecture Last Night at the Miseum of the Boston Society of Natural History. Boston Daily Globe, Dec 27, 1876. p.8.
• Boston Society of Natural History, 1830-1880. Nature, Feb. 23, 1882. p.389.
• The Worcester Mastadone: the Boston Society of Natural History discusses it. New York Times, November 8, 1885.
• They won't bite; But the Big Animals in the Natural History Museum on the Back Bay Present a Pretty Ferocious Picture. Boston Daily Globe, Apr 21, 1895. p.37
• Sea monstrosity sold at auction; Some Say the Specimen is a Real Serpent. Natural History Museum Bids in Stranger of the Deep. Boston Daily Globe, Jul 22, 1910. p.9.
• Bronze moose for Roosevelt; C. Emerson Brown of Boston Society of Natural History Sends Him Statue. Boston Daily Globe, Sep 15, 1912. p.11.
• New group of bears at the Natural History Museum; Mother and Cubs Mounted in a Setting That Was Brought From Maine Woods to Make Surroundings True to Nature. Boston Daily Globe, Dec 16, 1917. p.14.
• K S Bartlett. All New England Museum now open; Boston Society of Natural History Rearranging and Completing Its Collections So That the Boylston-St Building Will Completely Show the Birds, Animals, Insects, Fishes and Minerals of the Six States. Boston Daily Globe, Feb 23, 1919. p.34.
• Boasts of its great Auk; Only 10 Specimens in the Country of This Extinct Bird --Natural History Museum Has One Found by Owne Bryant on Lonely Funk Island. Boston Daily Globe. Jul 11, 1920. p.66.
• Speaking of Pictures...Boston Museum Exhibits Candid Animal Pictures. Life Magazine, Feb 5, 1940.
• Kenneth Walter Cameron. Emerson, Thoreau, and the Society of Natural History. American Literature, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1952), pp. 21-30
• Sally Gregory Kohlsted, "The Nineteenth-Century Amateur Tradition: The Case of the Boston Society of Natural History," in Science and its Public: The Changing Relationship, ed. Herald Holton and William A. Blanpied (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976), 173-190.
• Sally Gregory Kohlsted. "From Learned Society to Public Museum: The Boston Society of Natural History," in The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860-1920, ed. Alexandra Oleson and John Voss (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 386-406.
• Richard I. Johnson. The Rise and Fall of the Boston Society of Natural History. Northeastern Naturalist, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2004), pp. 81-108.

External links

• Boston Museum of Science
• Hancock Library, University of Southern California. Acquired the library of the Boston Society of Natural History in 1944-1946.
• Google news archive. Articles related to BSNH