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--- museum_of_natural_history [2023/10/31 15:44] – [Collections] bant05
+++ museum_of_natural_history [2025/04/04 20:02] (current) – [Ethics] bant07
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 ====== Museum of Natural History ======
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 ===== Seabury Hall =====
-In 1878, the Cabinet's collections moved to the "lower floor" ((Hartford Courant, 05/21/1880)) of [[seabury_hall|Seabury Hall]] as it and [[jarvis_hall|Jarvis Hall]] were the only constructed buildings on the new Summit campus, though a "natural history museum" was listed as a desired feature in the campus plan designed by [[burges_william|William Burges]]. The [[board_of_fellows|Board of Fellows]] encouraged its construction during the 1880s, among other buildings, though it would take several decades to come to fruition.
+In 1878, the Cabinet's collections moved to the "lower floor" ((The Hartford Courant, 05/21/1880)) of [[seabury_hall|Seabury Hall]] as it and [[jarvis_hall|Jarvis Hall]] were the only constructed buildings on the new Summit campus, though a "natural history museum" was listed as a desired feature in the campus plan designed by [[burges_william|William Burges]]. The [[board_of_fellows|Board of Fellows]] encouraged its construction during the 1880s, among other buildings, though it would take several decades to come to fruition.
-Henry Augustus Ward, the founder of [[https://www.wardsci.com|Ward's Natural Science,]] exhibited his extensive Cabinet at the City Hotel in [[hartford|Hartford]] for several weeks in November 1879. The collections, spanning thousands of skeletons, fossils, plaster casts, and minerals, attracted great attention in Hartford and at Trinity. As a result, President Pynchon and Professor of Geology H. Carrington Bolton decided that "an effort be made to procure the collection." ((Hartford Courant, 05/21/1880)) Trinity alumni and trustees, along with members of the Hartford community, raised money to purchase the specimens for Trinity, valued at $6000, which came to be called the Ward Collection. On January 28, 1880, the new Ward Collection was opened "to students and the public" for the first time. Bolton appointed Mr. Louis C. Washburn, Class of 1881, as curator. Bolton also decided that moving forward, the collections would be open to the public on Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m.
+Henry Augustus Ward, the founder of [[https://www.wardsci.com|Ward's Natural Science,]] exhibited his extensive Cabinet at the City Hotel in [[hartford|Hartford]] for several weeks in November 1879. The collections, spanning thousands of skeletons, fossils, plaster casts, and minerals, attracted great attention in Hartford and at Trinity. As a result, President [[pynchon_thomas_ruggles|Thomas Ruggles Pynchon]] and Professor of Geology H. Carrington Bolton decided that "an effort be made to procure the collection." ((The Hartford Courant, 05/21/1880)) Trinity alumni and trustees, along with members of the Hartford community, raised money to purchase the specimens for Trinity, valued at $6,000, which came to be called the Ward Collection. On January 28, 1880, the new Ward Collection was opened "to students and the public" for the first time. Bolton appointed Mr. Louis C. Washburn, Class of 1881, as curator. Bolton also decided that moving forward, the collections would be open to the public on Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m.
 Among the collection's highlights included the oft-photographed casts of Megatherium Cuviers (giant ground sloth), Glyptodon Clavipes (great armadillo), and the Colossochelys Atlas (giant prehistoric tortoise), plesiosaurus cramptoni ([[https://plesiosauria.com/directory/genera/rhomaleosaurus/rhomaleosaurus-cramptoni/|Rhomaleosaurus]]), and thousands of other prehistoric copies created by Ward of famous originals. The collection also included "modern" animals, such as a horse, elephant, llama, and other skeletons, fossils, and taxidermized creatures.
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 The addition of several new collections in 1947, which encompassed thousands of items, posed a problem for the small building and staff, who neither had the resources nor time to organize and label them, on top of the existing collections. In 1949, William R. Eblin, a teacher of general science at Kingswood [Kingswood-Oxford] School in West Hartford, began designing exhibits for the Sage and other bird collections. Eblin's interest was in arranging the birds in interesting ways as to include their natural environment, nests, and eggs, as well as re-identifying the birds according to "modern nomenclature," as terms used in the collection's development were by then outdated. However, lack of time and money "foiled a noble goal."
-In 1950, a Committee on the Museum was formed to attempt to rehabilitate it. The Museum collections were moved to occupy only the first floor, as other departments continued to move into the now-outmoded building. Students wrote  in 1955 a //[[tripod|Trinity Tripod]]// article that the Natural History Museum, though well-attended by Trinity students as well as school classes and scouting troops throughout the state, suffered from "disorganized, dirty and uncatalogued displays" which rendered the museum "unattractive" to visitors, especially new students. The same article asserted that a Guidebook for the Natural History Museum was in the works, created by Professor Randolph Chapman of the Geology Department.
+In 1950, a Committee on the Museum was formed to attempt to rehabilitate it. The Museum collections were moved to occupy only the first floor, as other departments continued to move into the now-outmoded building. In 1955, students wrote in a //[[tripod|Trinity Tripod]]// article that the Natural History Museum, though well-attended by Trinity students as well as school classes and scouting troops throughout the state, suffered from "disorganized, dirty and uncatalogued displays" which rendered the museum "unattractive" to visitors, especially new students. The same article asserted that a Guidebook for the Natural History Museum was in the works, created by Professor Randolph Chapman of the Geology Department.
-By the mid-1960s, Boardman Hall accommodated departments including the Fine Arts, ROTC, and Connecticut Educational Television Channel 24. The museum collections were removed to the basement of Boardman Hall to make room for Channel 24, which took up the entire first floor. Students and faculty felt that without new accommodations built with the future in mind, Trinity's science programs would suffer, and so serious plans were put in place to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art [[albert_c._jacobs_life_sciences_center_lsc|Life Sciences Center.]] As a result, the museum collections were dismantled with the exception of "selected items of teaching value to be stored in a pre-designated room in the new building."
+By the mid-1960s, Boardman Hall accommodated departments including the Fine Arts, [[rotc|ROTC]], and Connecticut Educational Television Channel 24. The museum collections were removed to the basement of Boardman Hall to make room for Channel 24, which took up the entire first floor. Students and faculty felt that without new accommodations built with the future in mind, Trinity's science programs would suffer, and so serious plans were put in place to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art [[albert_c._jacobs_life_sciences_center_lsc|Life Sciences Center.]] As a result, the museum collections were dismantled with the exception of "selected items of teaching value to be stored in a pre-designated room in the new building."
 Between 1966 and 1968, Boardman Hall was locked up, and the museum's extensive collections quietly disappeared, an enduring Trinity mystery. According to Life Sciences Professor Dr. J. Wendell Burger, "the balance of the biological material was legally transferred to the [[https://www.thechildrensmuseumct.org/about-us/our-history/|Children's Museum]] and more especially to the [[https://csmnh.uconn.edu/about/|University of Connecticut]]. They were stunned by the volume of their inheritance."
-Today, a small number of human and animal skeletons remain in room 308 of the Life Sciences Building; many of them appear to be from the Ward collection. They are used as teaching implements, in very much the same way that students would have studied them over the past 200 years.
+Today, a small number of human and animal skeletons remain in room 308 of the Life Sciences Building; many of them appear to be from the Ward collection, including the elephant, horse, and llama. They are used as teaching implements, in very much the same way that students would have studied them over the past 200 years.
 ==== Collections ====
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   * **1913:** The Museum contains the plaster cast of a mastodon skull (the original of which resides in the Ward Collection in Boston), the plaster cast of a deinotherium jawbone, and original mastodon tusk. These likely originated from the Ward Collection acquired in 1879.
   * **1917:** A collection of aedes aegypti, boll weevils, elm leaf beetles, and other "insects of medical and economic interest" as well as "ferns of New England" are donated by W.A. Lorenz of Hartford; an edible and poisonous mushroom chart is donated by Dr. W. A. Murrill of New York, and a mounted moose head is gifted from Leonard A. Ellis '98 of San Diego, California.
-  * **1921** Dr. Robert Mosely Yergason, Class of 1908, gifts the Biology Department "a collection of embryological and anatomical specimens to be used for demonstration purposes in premedical courses." They are a series of 17 preserved human embryos and placentas, ranging from very early pregnancy to pre-to-mid gestation. C.E. Hadley, a graduate student and a teacher of biology at Hartford High School, gifts the museum "some specimens of aquatic insects."
+  * **1921:** Dr. Robert Mosely Yergason, Class of 1908, gifts the Biology Department "a collection of embryological and anatomical specimens to be used for demonstration purposes in premedical courses." They are a series of 17 preserved human embryos and placentas, ranging from very early pregnancy to pre-to-mid gestation. C.E. Hadley, a graduate student and a teacher of biology at Hartford High School, gifts the museum "some specimens of aquatic insects."
   * **1947:** The Natural History Museum gains several prominent collections, primarily of birds, on loan from the Wadsworth Atheneum; these collections originated in the now-defunct Hartford Scientific Society and included the Dr. William Wood Collection of Connecticut Native and Migratory Birds, the John H. Sage Collection of Birds, birdskins, and other ornithological material, Trowbridge Collection of Eggs, and the Neff Collection of bird nests.
-  * **1966-1968:** The museum is dismantled. The Sage Collection of Birds is transferred to the University of Connecticut's State Museum of Natural History, and other materials, per Wendell Burger, may have been sent to the Children's Museum of Hartford (today, West Hartford). Trinity retains a small sample of its teaching skeletons.
+  * **1966-1968:** The museum is dismantled. The Sage Collection of Birds is transferred to the University of Connecticut's State Museum of Natural History, and other materials, per Wendell Burger, may have been sent to the Children's Museum of Hartford (today, West Hartford) and Yale Peabody Museum. Trinity retains a small sample of its teaching skeletons which include horse, elephant, llama, .
   * **1971:** Boardman Hall is demolished.
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 //
 Repatriation is appropriate where objects still confer a spiritual and/or cultural significance, or where they can be irrefutably demonstrated as being stolen. All material being considered for repatriation, even unprovenanced material, must be properly documented with respect to the repatriation process. Any repatriation that does take place must be undertaken with the full knowledge and agreement of all interested parties and comply with the legislative and institutional requirements of all parties involved.// ((ICOM Code of Ethics for Natural History Museums, p. 1))
+The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), enacted in 1990, is a federal law that protects and returns Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to lineal descendants, culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. Federal agencies and museums, universities, state agencies, local governments, or any institution that receives Federal funds must comply with NAGPRA.
 ===== Sources =====
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 [[https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/nathcode_ethics_en.pdf|ICOM Code of Ethics for Natural History Museums]]
-[[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1970&context=reporter|Trinity Reporter]], October 1971.
+[[https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.31571856|Trinity Reporter]], October 1971.
 [[https://www.proquest.com/hnphartfordcourant/docview/550894946/D614F1C57172433FPQ/2?accountid=14405|The Hartford Courant]], 08/23/1971.
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 [[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/w_books/4|The History of Trinity College]] (1967) by Glenn Weaver, pp. 36, 75-76, 171.
-[[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1694&context=tripod|Trinity Tripod]], 09/20/1966.
+[[https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.29848658|Trinity Tripod]], 09/20/1966.
 [[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/tripod/668/|The Trinity Tripod]], 10/13/1964.
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 [[http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/tablets/489|The Trinity Tablet]], 04/02/1901.
+[[https://archive.org/details/wardquotsnatura1venn/mode/2up|Ward's Natural Science Bulletin]] (Vols. 1-3), 1881-1886.
 [[https://www.proquest.com/hnphartfordcourant/docview/554098603/FBA5284310C147AFPQ/3?accountid=14405|Trinity College Cabinet]], //The Hartford Courant//, 10/25/1880.
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 [[https://www.proquest.com/hnphartfordcourant/docview/554081659/BD9009ED99DC4443PQ/3?accountid=14405|CURIOSITIES OF SCIENCE: Trinity's Nucleus for a Fine Collection]], //The Hartford Courant//, 05/21/1880.
-[[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=tablets|The Trinity Tablet]], 01/31/1880.
+[[https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.32643156|The Trinity Tablet]], 01/31/1880.
 [[http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/tablets/125|The Trinity Tablet]], 11/29/1879.