Abstract: The Orange Judd Museum of Natural History, the Wesleyan Museum, was founded in 1870 and housed a wide variety of specimens including minerals, shells, bones, fossil casts, taxidermy birds, and spirit-preserved specimens. The collections fell out of use as science classes switched their focus towards experimental study. The museum was closed in 1957, and specimens were given away, put into storage, or lost. We are now working on stabilizing the collections both physically and digitally, gathering data from original accession books kept in the Olin Library archives and creating a digital database with the program Specify7 to make the collection accessible. This summer I am using Specify7 to catalogue our collection of around 300 taxidermy birds that were placed in glass cases in Shanklin in the 1930s. I am also designing an exhibit of birds that aims to educate viewers not just about the species, but also about the practice of science at the time those specimens were collected. The exhibit will focus on the 19th-century American naturalist Charles H. Neff, a prolific donor to Wesleyan’s collections, and is called “A Year of Birding with Charles H. Neff, Connecticut 1874-1875”. The exhibit will include birds that he collected, pages from his field notebook, and images of tools and processes people at the time used to preserve biological specimens.
Video:
https://youtu.be/4pOYxJZlqls
Live Poster Session: Thursday, July 29th 1:15-2:30pm EDT