A Salute to Scrapbooks

"Argentina 1939" scrapbook - "Buenos Aires", April 26 - Record Unit 7293 - William M. Mann and Lucil

In honor of National Scrapbooking Month, the Archives would like to present the scrapbook of William and Lucile Mann from their trip to Argentina in 1939.  To see all the pages from the scrapbook, please click on the above image.  Happy scrapbooking!

William M. Mann, entomologist and zoologist, was born in Helena, Montana. Mann received his B.A. degree from Stanford University in 1911 and his Sc.D. degree from Harvard University in 1915. Mann made several entomological collecting trips: as a member of the Stanford Expedition to Brazil (1911); to Haiti (1912); to Cuba and Mexico (1913); as a member of the Philip Expedition to the Middle East (1914); and as a Sheldon Traveling Fellow in Fiji and the Solomon Islands (1915-1916). Mann was an entomologist for the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 1916-1925; and served as an assistant director of the Mulford Biological Expedition to the Amazon Basin, 1921-1922.

Mann was appointed Superintendent of the National Zoological Park (NZP) in 1925, and served as Superintendent and Director of the Park until his retirement in 1956. Mann's major accomplishments at NZP included the Park's building program and his expeditions to collect live animals in order to increase the NZP population, notably: the Smithsonian-Chrysler Expedition to East Africa (1926); to British Guiana (1931); the National Geographic Society-Smithsonian Institution Expedition to the East Indies (1937); to Brazil and Argentina (1939); and the Smithsonian-Firestone Expedition to Liberia (1940). During World War II Mann served briefly as a Technical Observer for the Quartermaster Corps, United States Army, in the Pacific.

Lucile Quarry Mann was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received her B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1918. Lucile Quarry worked briefly for Military Intelligence; as an assistant editor for the Bureau of Entomology, USDA, in Washington, D.C.; and as an editor for The Woman's Home Companion in New York City. In 1926 Lucile Quarry married William Mann. As a zookeeper's wife, she traveled with her husband on his trips abroad, and helped raise many of the animals born at NZP in the Manns' apartment. From 1951 to 1971 Lucile Mann worked in the administrative offices of the NZP, and edited Tiger Talk and Spots and Stripes. A taped interview with Lucile Mann was made in 1977 as part of the Archives' Oral History Project. The tapes and transcript can be found in Record Unit 9513.

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