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Summary

• This short article by an unnamed author could be classified as a caption for the c. 1885 photograph that it accompanies. William Hornaday, chief taxidermist for the Smithsonian's National Museum, is pictured with two colleagues at work in his lab preparing an exhibit. Hornaday, a leader of the conservation movement, made several trips to the American West to bring buffalo specimens back to the Smithsonian, where he made vast improvements in the taxidermy process and exhibit presentation. He became interested in the care and exhibition of live animals, and started a small zoo for the Smithsonian shortly after the photograph was taken. Hornaday left the Smithsonian in 1890 and later became the New York Zoological Park's first director, but some of the buffalo he prepared remained on view at what is now the National Museum of Natural History for another 70 years.
• The author notes the opening of that museum's new Mammal Hall the weekend the article was published.

Subject

• Hornaday, William Temple 1854-1937
• United States National Museum
• American Bison Society
• National Museum of Natural History (U.S.) Kenneth E. Behring Hall of Mammals

Category

Smithsonian Institution History Bibliography

Notes

Article by an unnamed author appears in the "Planet Washington" section.

Contained within

The Washington Post Magazine (Sunday Newspaper Supplement)

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

2003 (November 16)

Topic

• Taxidermy
• Zoos
• Taxidermists
• Smithsonian Institution
• Personnel management
• Employees
• Exhibitions
• SI Buildings
• Smithsonian Institution--Employees

Physical description

Number of pages : 1 Page number : 4

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