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26 v Newport History 26 v Newport History A Natural History Society in Gilded Age Newport v 27

From Virtuous Visions to Rubbish and Rats: A Natural History Society in Gilded Age NewportBy Kathrinne Duffy

The dead bull moose debuted to great acclaim . Felled by a sportsman’s bullet, transported from Maine, and stuffed by an expert taxidermist, in 1896 the moose took its place as the largest and most spectacular specimen in the collection of the Newport Natural History Society . A crowd of people turned out to welcome the moose to the Society’s museum . They applauded a lecture on the habits of the species and hailed the moose’s hunter, a local resident who appeared in person to tell the story of his kill .1 Newspapers praised the “exceedingly handsome specimen,” noting the moose’s mighty size and fine antlers . Preserved in the museum, it would “doubtless become an object of much interest,” proclaimed the Newport Daily News .2

Within just a few years, however, the appeal of the moose and the collection overall proved ephemeral . The people of Newport had lost interest in their natural history museum . The institution had not thrived, never amounting to more than a single room crammed with stuffed birds, shells and rocks . Once the pride of the collection, the moose came to be described by its keepers as a “stumbling block,” a specimen too enormous to easily pack away as the museum met its demise .3

During an era of museum-building, as other American cities erected grand temples to natural history, the Newport Natural History Society faced local ennui and institutional collapse . Even as people of all classes thronged to Newport amid the opulence of the city’s Gilded Age, local naturalists struggled to attract visitors and support for their museum . The Newport museum failed for both material and cultural reasons . First, the naturalists lacked the money needed to develop their institution . Failing to attract major contributions, the museum could not grow as more successful institutions elsewhere did . Moreover, the naturalists remained loyal to an increasingly antiquated, producer-oriented approach to natural history collection and display . The museum’s hodgepodge of inert specimens did not meet the demand for new, consumer-oriented varieties of nature-related education and amusement . Rather than adapt, the museum’s keepers blamed the public for its neglect . They observed with dismay a trend toward commercial entertainments and away from the morally uplifting observation of nature . Committed to anachronistic mores, the Newport Natural History Society and its museum declined until they were past saving — casualties of a modern leisure culture that the naturalists had attempted to resist .

Interior of the Newport Natural History Society museum room, ca. 1900. Glass plate negative (P9769) from the Newport Daily News Glass Plate Negative Collection, newport historical society.

28 v Newport History A Natural History Society in Gilded Age Newport v 29

Unrealized Visions, 1883-1885

On a spring day in 1883, thirteen natural history enthusiasts gathered to discuss an ambitious plan: the creation of a museum, aquarium, and zoological garden in Newport .4 Calling itself the Newport Natural History Society, the group proclaimed its mission — to “promote the study of natural science,” with a particular focus on flora, fauna, and geological formations in the Newport area . By August the Society could count seventy-one members, including many drawn from Newport’s professional class of doctors, military officers, clergymen, and political dignitaries .5 The members began paying dues, collecting specimens, holding lecture meetings, and publishing their own research findings . Above all, they hoped to establish a natural history institution “for purposes of public instruction and entertainment .”6

The Newport Natural History Society emerged in a seemingly auspicious time and place . The city of Newport and its tourist trade boomed through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries . During a single six-month period in 1879, the Fall River Line alone carried nearly 400,000 passengers into town on its steamships . As Newport cottages came into fashion, real estate values soared . Land considered undesirable in

1880 was valued at ten thousand dollars or more per acre by 1900 . The Newport city budget rose in tandem with tax revenues, from $48,000 in 1859 to $289,000 in 1884 .7

While summer visitors engaged in a variety of recreations — dancing, yachting, tennis, sea bathing — the city held a special appeal for nature lovers . Guidebooks had long extolled the “wild grandeur of [Aquidneck Island’s] rocky coast,” ushering travelers to points of interest like the Purgatory rock formation, Cliff Walk, and Spouting Rock .8 The scenic shores and curious geological phenomena made the city an appealing destination for those hoping to read the Book of Nature in their spare moments .9

Seaweed collecting also became a common seaside diversion on Aquidneck Island . Algae enthusiasts filled albums with pressed specimens of the marine flora they had gathered .10

Cover of scrapbook for seaweed collection. Inscription on first page reads: “To Helen Dirstim/1924/Ma McCullip’ [s]/Book she made of Newport Sea Moss.” newport historical society collection, vault a, box a-15.

Page from photographic album entitled “Newport Views framed in Newport Algae.” This page is titled “Bathing Beach. (Ceramium fastigiatum)” in the table of contents. gift of molly leete, collection of the newport historical society.

Naturalists in many cities founded natural history museums in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This 1904 photograph is of the Boston Natural History Museum. (library of congress, prints and photographs division, lc-d4-17041).


Beyond Newport, the study of natural history had become a popular American pastime over the course of the nineteenth century . In 1865 thirty-six active scientific societies existed in the United States . By 1900, at least 255 new societies had emerged .11

Bird lovers, botanizers, insect enthusiasts, mushroom hunters, and other naturalists organized clubs to socialize and share information with like-minded enthusiasts .12

The collection of specimens served as a virtuous form of amusement, a pleasurable but work-like hobby demanding patience and discipline, resulting in self-improvement .13

The Reverend Alpheus Baker Hervey, clergyman and author of an 1881 guide to seaweed collecting, encouraged would-be marine botanists to appreciate the labor involved: “What you achieve with some cost, you will enjoy with more zest .”14 For Hervey, as for many other collectors, natural history also had a spiritual objective, to “carry the mind beyond the creature to the Creator .”15 To tramp through the outdoors, observe the wonders of divine creation, and capture specimens for later examination gave high purpose to what might otherwise be aimless ramblings .

Some naturalist groups established museums . With funding from public and private sources, small collections across the country evolved into large public institutions .16

In Milwaukee, what began as a school’s natural history collection expanded to become a city museum in the early 1880s .17 In Buffalo, specimens maintained by a group of amateur naturalists grew to become a museum housed within a library in 1887 .18 A naturalist’s private collection of Rocky Mountain specimens became the nucleus of Denver’s natural history museum in the 1890s .19 In the decades after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which had promulgated visions of an uplifting, neoclassical “White City,” many of these museums expanded yet again .20 Beaux-Arts monuments to art and science served as symbols of civic pride, embodiments of local prosperity, and a commitment to moral uplift .

In Newport the press weighed whether its city could or should support such an effort . The Providence Evening Bulletin concluded optimistically that the “proper and necessary aid will be forthcoming,” since potential patrons had already committed to the Newport Natural History Society .21 Another writer praised “the leading scientific and cultivated men of Rhode Island,” for creating the Society and expressed hope that its work would “be an ornament and honor to Newport .”22 A more jaded observer commented in the Newport Mercury, “In these days in Newport if a person wishes to keep his name up, or what is probably more to the purpose with him, get his name in the papers, he must organize a society of some kind . The last addition to the already endless list is the Newport Natural History Society…”23 Perhaps to some observers, the Society appeared a bit pompous .

A “Museum of Natural History,” consisting of bird and plant specimens was created at the Springfield (Mass.) Public Library around the time that the Newport Natural History Museum was founded. (library of congress, prints and photographs division, lc-dig-ds-06508 [digital file from original item]).

Sample pressings of seaweed, “Presented to the Marine Museum of the Newport Historical Society” by Mrs. Alfred L. Carry, April 10, 1957. Donor suggested that the “algea [sic]” (also referred to as “Sea Botany”) was “…collected around the shores of Newport in 1896 + 1897.” newport historical society collection, vault a, box a-15.


enough to “incite even sluggish minds to beneficial activity .” To create an aquarium would be to encourage “the desire for that which is superior to external objects,” partake “of that progressive spirit of the age,” and promote nothing less than “public enlightenment .”29

Given this mandate, the Society set a goal of raising ten thousand dollars for its Aquarium Fund . S . F . Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, agreed to contribute the fish .30 The naturalists took up a collection to support other expenses, quickly raising $785 .31 An 1885 horticultural exhibition served as both a benefit and a preview of attractions to come, with a few tanks of marine life temporarily displayed in the old Unitarian Church on Mill Street .32 (Here the Providence Telegram offered a gibe: “We hasten to anticipate orthodox editors, and say that it will be no new thing for a Unitarian church to contain queer fish .”33) The naturalists discussed permanently transforming the church into a combination aquarium, zoo, and plant exhibition space .34

These efforts did not suffice . By September 1885 the naturalists had raised only $2,259 for the aquarium, falling far short of their goal .35 Even the much-lauded horticultural exhibition cost the Society more money than it raised, a fact one newspaper article referred to as “an open secret .” The writer, who signed as “S .,” blamed Newport’s permanent residents for the failure, noting that they had not taken the “slightest interest” in the event . “S .” urged local people to “throw off the usual Newport apathy,” and participate in the refined activities offered by the Society rather than continuing to indulge their “disgraceful” tastes for “colored minstrels and buffoonery .”36 Already the Society’s offerings faced competition from more popular forms of amusement . Another

Newspapers characterized the Society’s early membership as “distinguished .”24

Raphael Pumpelly, the Society’s first president, was a geologist with a long, bushy beard who served the U .S . Geological Survey .25 Alexander Agassiz, a marine zoologist, joined as a vice president . Agassiz operated a research station at Castle Hill, his Newport home . He also served as curator of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, an institution founded by his father, the renowned naturalist Louis Agassiz .26 Several doctors served as officers of the Society, including Dr . Horatio R . Storer, an obstetrician who campaigned against abortion, and Dr . Samuel Ward Francis, a physician and inventor who had patented early versions of the typewriter and the spork .27 Other well-known Newport residents who accepted roles as officers included George Champlin Mason, architect of numerous Newport houses, and James Gordon Bennett publisher of the New York Herald and creator of the Newport Casino recreation complex .28

The group decided to establish an aquarium . In a rousing address before the Society, George Gordon King articulated Newport’s need for such an institution . For King, an aquarium represented an ideal form of public recreation, amusing but also uplifting . “Summer rest ought not to mean complete idleness,” he proclaimed . In his view, an aquarium would offer both entertainment and education, revealing mysteries of local

aquatic life to astonished visitors and impressing children with the wonders of the deep . Unlike other amusements, it would exert “a higher influence than that of gratifying gaping curiosity .” At the same time, it would be novel

George Champlin Mason, Sr., served as an officer of the Newport Natural History Society. Photograph, ca. 1890. newport historical society collection.

Raphael Pumpelly, a geologist, was the first president of the Newport Natural History Society. “Raphael Pumpelly at Forty-seven Years/From a photograph by Mrs. Henry Adams, 1884.” The image appears in Volume 1 of Pumpelly’s My Reminiscences (new york: henry holt & co., 1918), 210.


writer hinted that the summer cottagers were reluctant supporters, naming the aquarium project in a column about the “nuisance” of Newporters “pestering” wealthy visitors for money .37 Elite cottagers had begun to withdraw into a private summer social world and therefore had little motivation to help build a place of public recreation in Newport .38

Furthermore, as transient residents, the cottagers may have preferred to maintain more conspicuous philanthropic profiles in their home cities .39 Despite the monied reputation of Gilded Age Newport, the city turned out to be a surprisingly inopportune place to create a new natural history institution .40

After the disappointment of the aquarium venture, some of the Society’s most eminent members reduced their participation in the organization . In 1886 Raphael Pumpelly, Alexander Agassiz, James Gordon Bennett, and other officers stepped down from their leadership posts .41

A Community Collection, 1886-1903

The remaining naturalists persevered . While perhaps less affluent than their predecessors, the Society’s new leaders continued to develop the organization . Membership grew to

nearly one hundred by 1887 .42 Local collectors began making donations, including fish skulls, brain coral, a “portion of a petrified apple tree,” a mounted cormorant, and numerous other specimens .43 These the Society kept in storage . The naturalists still hoped to find a permanent home for their organization and establish a small museum . In the meantime, lecture meetings held at the Newport Historical Society served as a self-improving diversion for year-round, largely middle-class residents .44

Assuming greater influence over the Society in these years were

two pious naturalists, T . Nelson Dale and Alexander O’Driscoll Taylor . Taylor, in his mid-fifties, had recently immigrated from Ireland . A man of poetry and a friend to birds, he had

worked for the geological survey under Raphael Pumpelly .45 He became curator of the Society’s natural history collection in 1884 .46 He later became president, a position he held until his death in 1910 .47 For Taylor, the study of natural history had a spiritual dimension . He embraced natural theology, a concept of nature as a revelation of divine order .48 For instance, when describing bird migrations in a lecture before the Society, Taylor reconciled his belief in evolution with his religious views . He maintained that “an ineffable Power” guided the birds, but that their migration instinct had been honed over the course of millions of years, “in conformity with the laws of development .”49

Taylor’s colleague T . Nelson Dale also contemplated divine creation through the study of natural history . Dale wrote a memoir describing his career and the two “seemingly discordant elements” that had directed his existence — “geology as a science and a vocation, and the great truths of Christianity .”50 His life-story offers a glimpse of the motivations of devout amateur naturalists in these years as well as some of the challenges they faced . Born in 1846 in New York City, the son of a successful sailor-turned-businessman, Dale early awakened to the delights of nature . As a schoolboy he began collecting . “My locker was filled with alcoholic preserved specimens of lizards, salamanders and snakes,” he recalled . By the age of twenty-one Dale had amassed 2,600 specimens .51 Young Dale also experienced a profound religious conversion and became a Congregationalist . He planned to enter Yale, but his father barred the way, instead drawing the delicate youth into the family business of silk manufacture in Paterson, N . J .52

Dale began to see himself as a thwarted individual, blocked from the possibility of higher education and a regular scientific career . He did not thrive in the world of the mill, which he viewed as stultifying and sordid . “It is a great calamity to a youth

Naturalist T. Nelson Dale was one of the founding members of the Newport Natural History Society; he became its curator in 1886. Photograph, n.d., courtesy of williams college library.

Raphael Pumpelly mentored T. Nelson Dale who took over as head of the Newport Natural History Society in the mid-1880s.“Raphael Pumpelly with Pauline, Elise, and Pedro, Roseland, 1889.” From Pumpelly’s My Reminiscences, Vol. II (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1918), 675. Pumpelly purchased a plantation in Georgia and named it “Roseland”; Elise and Pauline are his daughters.

36 v Newport History

From Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1883-4, Document II. (Printed by Davis & Pitman for the Newport Natural History Society, July 1884.) Illustration is part of an article (“paper”) by T. Nelson Dale entitled “Remarks on Some of the Evidences of Geological Disturbance in the Vicinity of Newport.” A footnote remarks that Dale read the paper “…before the Society on October 4th, 1883.” newport historical society collection, vault a, box b17, folder 32.

to be cut off from his own ambitions,” he wrote .53 Around the year 1871 the silk business suffered a setback which drastically reduced the family’s means . In the midst of this crisis, Dale managed to temporarily extricate himself from the mill and travel to Europe . Studying privately, immersing himself in geological field work, and following the controversies surrounding Darwinian evolution, he sought to harmonize scientific findings with Biblical revelation .54 But after a year he had to abandon these elevating pursuits and return to the mill in Paterson . There he sank into depression . Desperate for escape, Dale considered becoming a minister . Instead he disappeared, turning up a month later bedraggled and starving in Nebraska . During his eleven-month recovery from this episode, he fell in love with his doctor’s daughter and married her .55

At last, in the late 1870s Dale’s father began to liquidate the mill, freeing Dale but also forcing him to make his own way .56 As a pious geologist with no college degree, Dale struggled to find a place in the secularizing, professionalizing scientific establishment . Now in his thirties, Dale could boast of few scientific accomplishments, credentials, or connections . He took a series of short-term teaching jobs, none of them very satisfying or lucrative . Then, in 1880 his mother died, leaving him one of the family’s last vestiges of wealth — a cottage in Newport, near Easton’s Beach . Dale’s brother contested the will, but while the court case played out, Dale and his growing family had a refuge, a bucolic Newport home where “nine kinds of birds frequented the trees .” In his free time Dale studied rock formations around Aquidneck Island and resumed his meditations on evolution and Genesis .57

Raphael Pumpelly offered Dale a position with the U .S . Geological Survey, a job that would segue to years of geological fieldwork .58 At last Dale could pursue his vocation . Around the same time, Dale became one of the founding members of the Newport Natural History Society .59 Dale later recalled the “exceedingly kind” treatment he received from the group . The naturalists invited him to give popular lectures on local geology, and they paid him small honoraria . Audiences as large as one hundred people came to hear Dale speak on geology, biblical creation, orchids, and other topics .60 While Dale would continue to experience personal and professional challenges, the Society offered him a valuable platform and community during his time in Newport .61

A number of local, amateur naturalists participated in the Society by giving talks at its monthly, off-season lecture meetings . Examples of lecture titles over the years include: “On Some Curious Forms of Fishes,” “Notes Written in the Course of a Journey to South America in 1894,” “Our Friends the Spiders,” and “Ancestry of the Dog and

its Varieties Mentioned in Shakespeare .” These congenial, participatory lectures held appeal as a form of virtuous amusement . One newspaper advertised a lecture as offering a charm, “quite distinct from the ordinary fashionable recreations of a September evening in Newport .”62 Speakers often illustrated their talks with diagrams or specimens of the natural phenomena under discussion . Though occasionally the Society invited special

A Natural History Society in Gilded Age Newport v 37


guests to contribute, speakers tended to be members or other local worthies .63 For instance, at a meeting in 1887, member Charles E . Hammett, Jr ., gave a talk on historical maps of Newport, after which other members chimed in with remarks on the value of topographical maps . Member Lucius D . Davis then spoke on solutions to the problem of Newport’s “insect foes,” inviting a gardener to explain how to use a poison-spraying apparatus . A committee formed to encourage the Park Commissioners to adopt the sprayer and save Newport’s elm trees .64 Through publication of select talks in loosely annual volumes of Proceedings and by enabling “corresponding members” to join from as far away as Italy, the Society communicated with other, similar groups around the world . Their talks functioned both as local public programs and as a vehicle for their own intellectual connection beyond the realm of Newport .

From Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1883-4, Document II. (Printed by Davis & Pitman for the Newport Natural History Society, July 1884). Illustration is part of an article by T. Nelson Dale entitled “The Geology of the Tract Known as ‘Paradise,’ Near Newport,” Plate 1. Footnote remarks that the article is an “Abstract of a paper read before the Society, August 2d, 1883.” Published in full in Proceedings, Boston Society, Natural History for 1883. Vol. XXII.” newport historical society collection, vault a, box b17, folder 32.

Charles E. Hammett, Jr., gave a talk on historical maps at an 1887 meeting of the Newport Natural History Society. This photograph was taken in front of Hammett’s book and stationery store at 202 Thames Street. gift of lloyd a. robson estate, newport historical society collection.

This postcard was found in a Newport Natural History Society scrapbook and meeting minute book, 1903-1914. newport historical society collection, vault a, box b8, folder 4.

A Natural History Society in Gilded Age Newport v 41 40 v Newport History

The naturalists also contributed specimens for the museum they intended to establish . They had planned to limit the collection to “local geology, flora, and fauna .” The by-laws decreed that the Society would only accept objects of “scientific value .”65 But almost immediately the collection diverged from its mission, subject to unwanted gifts . Among the earliest donations were a mounted marmoset, a Canadian fungus, a Cuban stalactite, and a live alligator .66 In 1885, Taylor, who held the position of curator at the time, begged the membership to remember the museum’s narrow collecting agenda . “This is a salutary provision, without which, natural history collections are apt to degenerate rapidly into a heterogeneous assemblage of odds and ends, devoid

of scientific value,” he stated . “So far… the extraneous or miscellaneous element seems to have predominated, and for the future, we should try to reverse this .”67 Two years later, Taylor again reminded the Society of its by-laws, making disappointed reference to the “general collection of minerals, foreign shells, and curiosities” that had accumulated .68

Despite the collection’s shortcomings, the naturalists moved it from storage to public display within the Newport Historical Society’s Seventh Day Baptist Meetinghouse in 1886 .69 In 1890 the naturalists constructed their own wing on the back of the meetinghouse, giving themselves a private entrance and more room for meetings and museum cabinets .70 They owned the brick structure itself but not the land beneath it, which they rented from the Historical Society . Around the time of the move, T . Nelson Dale assumed the role of curator . “Scientific collections tend to awaken the intellect,” he wrote, laying out a detailed scheme for the new museum’s arrangement . Dale compared natural history museums to cathedrals for the scientific age . He quoted the naturalist and creationist Louis Agassiz: “[T]he great object of

our museums should be to exhibit the whole animal kingdom as a manifestation of

The Seventh Day Baptist Meetinghouse, ca. 1900. The Newport Natural History Society addition is visible on the right. The photograph was most likely taken by George H. Chase. from newport historical society collections, p1580.

Newport Natural History Society museum room, ca. 1900. Glass plate negative (P9764) from the newport daily news glass plate negative collection, newport historical society.

Lucius Davis, one of the early members of the Newport Natural History Society, gave a talk on “insect foes” at a meeting of the Society in 1887. (Richard M. Bayles, edit., History of Newport County, Rhode Island [New York: L.E. Preston & Co., 1888], 594. Artotype by E. Bierstadt, New York. newport historical society library.


Natural history museums around the country faced some version of the same crisis . Cabinets crammed with mounted rodents, pinned moths, and jars of centipedes may have held appeal for the informed naturalist, but by the 1890s, this style of exhibition had begun to seem off-putting to the public at large . In Iowa few people cared to visit the “fearfully dull” displays of the Davenport Academy of Sciences . A visitor to the Boston Society of Natural History described seeing “horrid” cabinets of “slimy things that floated in glass vessels .” One zoologist observed terrified children “dragged in” to view “dingy,” “overcrowded,” and “revolting” natural history displays .75

Museum reformers championed new exhibition styles . In 1889 George Brown Goode, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, called upon museum leaders to reimagine their institutions . “The museum of the past must be set aside, reconstructed, transformed from a cemetery of bric-a-brac into a nursery of living thoughts,” he said . Goode believed that museums needed to become more accessible to non-specialists . “The museums of the future in this democratic land should be adapted to the needs of the mechanic, the factory operator, the day laborer, the salesman, and the clerk, as much as to those of the professional man and the man of leisure,” he urged .

“The people’s museum should be much more than a house full of specimens in glass cases .”76 An emerging network of museum professionals shared Goode’s views . Known as “museum men,” these influential directors and curators transformed natural history displays across the country .77 Habitat dioramas replaced cabinets, trained educators engaged groups of schoolchildren, and descriptive labels supplemented sparse Latin binomials .78

the Supreme Intellect .”71 Dale had exacting standards for the museum and how it should reflect the design of creation . Through proper organization and display, the naturalists might ennoble their collection . The museum could then serve a divine purpose and become an important node in the philosophical life of the community .

Yet the collection continued to grow in haphazard ways, crowding the small museum room . By 1891 the museum housed a “terra cotta Egyptian figure,” a piece of “Horseflesh Mahogany” from the Bahamas, and “lenses of the eyes of cuttle fish” found in the eye sockets of Peruvian mummies .72 The delight of gathering specimens — and the chance to have one’s donations publicized and praised — may have held more appeal for some of Newport’s naturalists than proper management of the collection .

Still, the energy of these collectors infused the museum . The arrival of a donation like the Maine moose in 1896 became an opportunity for the Newport public to gather and appreciate nature’s unending variety . So long as people enjoyed coming together in the museum to discuss the ideas, travels, and trophies of their fellow residents — and to contribute to the meetings and to the collection themselves — the Society had a reason to exist .

The Society in Decline, 1904-1912

Public interest in the Newport Natural History Society dwindled in the early twentieth century . Audiences for lectures thinned, and the museum became a drain on the society’s treasury . As early as 1904, public apathy was such that “a wind-up of the Society seemed to be the only cause left .”73 For a time the naturalists fended off financial collapse and disbandment, but they fought for a doomed cause . The Society depended on membership dues, but by 1913, it could count only forty members, almost all of whom had neglected to pay for years .74

This image (ca. 1905-1915) of the Gallery of Natural History at the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Institute of Natural Sciences shows a collection of fish species and other wildlife that were on display. (library of congress, prints and photographs division, lc-d4-71997).

Sample pressings of seaweed “Presented to the Marine Museum of the Newport Historical Society” by Mrs. Alfred L. Carry, April 10, 1957. Donor suggested that the “algea [sic]” (also referred to as “Sea Botany”) was “…collected around the shores of Newport in 1896 + 1897.” newport historical society collection, vault a, box a-15.


Museum men embraced the power of amusement, drawing inspiration from consumer culture . An earlier generation of naturalists had framed the value of their museums in terms of self-discipline .79 To gain knowledge about the natural world, museum visitors needed to work, making an effort to hone their observational skills .80 But visitors accustomed to moving pictures, department stores, carnivals, advertisements, and popular magazines seemed to demand less laborious pleasures from their museums . A newspaper article on the Reading (Pa .) Public Museum described the new mentality . “This is a hectic age, when we seek our garish joys, and intellectual pursuits seem dull and tame,” said the writer . “A dry lecture seems a good deal dryer now than it did years ago . A dull talker seems a good deal duller now than he did years ago .”81 Exhibition designers began to draw upon department store displays as an influence, incorporating

colorful pictures, dramatic lighting, and plate glass .82 They also used advertising campaigns to publicize their new, spectacular exhibitions . As scholar Victoria Cain has observed, “museum staff now routinely engaged in practices their forebears would have denounced as crassly, inappropriately commercial .”83

Professionalization led museums to adopt more top-down structures, with the public increasingly limited to a non-participatory role . For instance, museum men increasingly viewed the miscellaneous objects donated by amateur naturalists as burdensome . They began to refuse such gifts, reducing public involvement in the collections .84 Small natural history organizations changed as well, de-emphasizing original research by amateurs in favor of new public education programs .85 Producer-oriented displays — those designed by naturalists, for naturalists — gave way to more accessible exhibitions .

As the Newport Natural History Society struggled for survival, it resisted these changes . Rather than consider a transformation of their own practices, the naturalists

castigated the rising public taste for “other diversions and amusements” that made “a stronger appeal” than natural history . The naturalists observed that “Moving Pictures, and Vaudeville and Bridge Whist are the attractions of the present day .”86 They understood their uplifting lectures and museum to be in competition with frivolous parties, card games, and commercial amusements . Instead of altering the Society’s activities to make them more entertaining to new audiences, the naturalists encouraged members of the public to join the activities already on offer and to participate themselves in the project of local natural history research and collection .

When participation declined at their amateur lecture meetings, the Newport naturalists rued the public’s lack of interest in self-improving recreation . In 1904 they noted “the general indifference in this community” and the fact that “so little advantage is taken by the public of opportunities to hear good lectures,” despite the fact that the Society offered these events free of charge .87 In 1906 president Alexander O’Driscoll Taylor observed that, “attendance at all scientific meetings had of late years fallen off, lighter forms of recreation taking their place .”88 The naturalists condemned the “general apathy in the community toward instruction as compared with mere entertainment .”89 In 1908 Taylor noted: “[T]he topics which we discuss do not seem to have any special attraction for the bulk of our fellow citizens .”90 In 1909 he sounded the refrain again: “The attendance at our meetings was limited, and seemed to indicate that the professional and business men of Newport, with of course some exceptions, have slender interest in our local efforts to maintain a museum of natural history in our midst, and to supply scientific papers .”91

While sparsely attended, the amateur lectures had at least been economical to produce; by contrast, the Natural History Society’s museum became both unpopular and expensive to maintain, driving the organization into debt . To rent, heat, staff, and maintain their structure all cost a significant amount, demanding a supportive membership base that the Society no longer possessed . The naturalists considered shutting down the museum to save money . Some went further . “To the minds of several speakers it seemed useless to struggle longer against the indifference of Newport to liberalizing and educational influences, and they thought that the Society should disband .”92

The Newport Natural History Museum competed with moving pictures, singing, dancing and a troupe of trained seals at the Newport Opera House. Newport Daily News, May 9, 1907.

The seal of the Newport Natural History Society divided creation into categories of birds, beasts and fish. Taken from the cover of Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society 1891-99. No. IX. Printed for the Society by F.W. Marshall.


The members finally issued an ultimatum to all of Newport via the newspapers:

For 20 years this society has held its public meetings and has maintained a museum in which every one has had free access for study or observation . Now it is debating the question whether or not to disband because of the lack of interest in its work which is manifested by this community… Is it not an opportune time for Newporters to ask themselves seriously whether such enterprises as those named, if well supported, are not as truly indicative of real progress as race tracks, or whist parties or afternoon teas . All of these latter may have their places in the life of a city . But should there not be room for and co-operation in some other things which are generally conceded to be even higher in the scale of intelligent living?… Would it not be as advantageous to Newport as it has proved to be for other cities to have a natural history museum, for instance, and instead of ignoring the work of those who have given time and money to stimulate intelligence and cultivation here to give them cordial endorsement and support? Are we as a community naturally indifferent or just unnaturally different?93

Appeals to civic honor seemed to work in the short term . But in 1906 the naturalists were forced to close the museum in the winter due to the heavy cost of coal and janitorial services . They also stopped publishing their Proceedings .94 Their activities had begun to narrow in material ways .

With so little interest shown by adult Newporters, the naturalists increasingly pitched their work to an audience of schoolchildren — an effort with disappointing results . The naturalists had made note of Nature Study, a movement to incorporate natural history education into children’s schoolwork .95 They believed that they could contribute to this effort and stimulate “the growth of intelligence among our youth .”96

Though now seeking to appeal to an audience of boys and girls, the naturalists made no significant effort to adapt their museum displays to the interests of this age group . Instead, they simply opened the museum during hours more convenient for children, on Saturdays during the summer .97 The naturalists hired a young woman to staff the room, investing some of their meager funds in the venture . But crowds of eager, youthful proto-naturalists never materialized . “It was believed that [young people] would be gratified and benefitted by having this weekly opportunity of inspecting the collections in the Museum,” members of the Society later reflected . “But the result was not brilliant . Neither our school children, nor the general public attended in any considerable

numbers .” Only ten to twenty visitors appeared each week, half scholars, half short-term “excursionists” — not the audience of Newport children they had hoped to reach .98 The Society also held natural history collecting contests for local youth, but these did not generate much enthusiasm . For several years the naturalists publicized a series of these competitions, encouraging school students to gather, identify, and preserve as many local specimens as they could find within a certain branch of natural history — for instance, botany, conchology, or entomology . They believed the contests would furnish “a recreation pleasurable and improving for some of the young people’s leisure hours .” The prizes included natural history books or sometimes small sums of cash .99 But these lures proved unattractive to all but a tiny minority of students . In 1903 the botanical collecting contest yielded just a few contestants, and only one student entered the entomology contest . Though the judges appeared impressed by the ability and painstaking effort shown by these contenders, the low turnout disappointed them . The naturalists then held another contest, this one for leaves and ferns, but the same handful of girls submitted collections for review . The judge regretted “that in Newport so very few scholars competed for the prizes .”100 Next, the naturalists offered prizes for conchology . Only two students entered — two of the same girls as before . By this point, even these loyal girls’ dedication seemed to have waned . “Shells do not seem to be a favorite study with the young folks,” commented one observer . Taylor, the president, seemed crestfallen: “Not one in a thousand of the pupils of the public and parochial schools had competed for the prizes . Neither did the collections submitted show

The Natural History Society gave prizes for students’ collections of various specimens. This handbill is for one such contest. The announcement was found in a Newport Natural History Society scrapbook and meeting minute book, 1903-1914. newport historical society collection, vault a, box b8, folder 4.


be abandoned,” they wrote .111 Howe felt that “the times had changed, and that people today, as a rule, cared very little about attending lectures unless they were accompanied by moving pictures .”112 Rather than offer free talks delivered by themselves and other amateur naturalists within their own range of social contacts, the naturalists now desired to attract a larger audience by inviting professional, high-profile speakers to Newport . Names batted about included Hiram Bingham, the Yale University professor best known for exploring Machu Picchu, and Frank Chapman, a well-known ornithologist employed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York .113 Howe reviewed a brochure from Ernest Harold Baynes, a natty naturalist-lecturer pictured “entertaining a friendly chickadee” on his teacup, and another from Roy Chapman Andrews, whose repertoire included talks on whales, Japan, and North Korea, all illustrated with “motion pictures and colored lantern slides .”114 To compensate special guests of this caliber, the naturalists would need to consider selling tickets . The homey, open-door tone of their meetings would give way to a more commercial, celebrity atmosphere . They anticipated that this change would bring the Society up-to-date: “Now-a-days, there are more general means of diffusing knowledge than those afforded by local Natural History Societies, and the reading of papers of local interest .” They would turn to “authorities of national repute” — educators who could entertain a crowd .115

These plans stalled when the Newport Historical Society evicted the naturalists from the land beneath their museum . The naturalists had been negligent tenants for many years, failing to pay rent and allowing their wing of the building to decay . The librarian of the Historical Society had complained to Howe of pests and maintenance problems caused

a more than ordinary degree of research . This seemed extraordinary in view of the fact that the neighboring shores are well-supplied with specimens .” Despite the naturalists’ disappointment in the lackluster, careless nature of the shell collections submitted, the judges handed over four dollars in cash to each contestant .101 The ethos of self-improving recreation seemed to have little appeal for younger Newporters . The dispirited naturalists abandoned the contests .102

The death of president Alexander O’Driscoll Taylor in April 1910 crippled the Society . Taylor had kept the group together through hard times before succumbing to pneumonia in his seventy-ninth year . The naturalists paid tribute to “to the Executive, the Naturalist, and above all to the Man .”103 Gathering to eulogize him, they praised Taylor’s qualities as a leader: “His labors on behalf of the Society had been unremitting .” The society “could hardly have existed” without his efforts . The group associated his identity as a naturalist with his good works and generous personality: “Bird-lover that he was, he has gone where his kindness to even the sparrows that had fallen will bring to him his deserved reward .” To honor his memory, they assigned the museum’s collection of birds a new name, the A . O’D . Taylor Ornithological Cabinet .104

With Taylor gone, the affairs of the Society and its museum unraveled . Bereft of leadership, the naturalists recorded almost no activity in their minute book for two years . One of Taylor’s sons, Alexander O’Driscoll Taylor, Jr ., had assumed the role of treasurer, but despite the Society’s importance to his father, he let its finances fall into a state of disarray, with dues uncollected and rent unpaid .105 The younger Taylor viewed the museum as “cluttered and uninviting, if not depressing .”106 Without a committed caretaker, it continued to deteriorate .

Belated Transformations, 1912-1915

The Newport Natural History Society rallied a final time . On the condition that he be permitted to make major changes to the organization, Ernest Howe assumed the presidency for one year beginning in 1912 .107 A geologist in his late thirties with a Ph .D . from Harvard, Howe brought professionalism and a sense of dynamism to his work .108

He found the Society in a sorry state — in debt, with a moribund membership, and the museum “in a condition of chaos difficult to describe .”109 Howe filled his notes with energetic ideas for improvement: “Pay Bills! Repair Roof! Appoint 2 or 3 curators whose duty it shall be to examine and overhaul collections and discard such material that is no longer of value .” To recruit new members, the naturalists publicized their renewed purpose and intentions to improve the museum so that it might again serve a “useful purpose in the community .”110

The naturalists also contemplated a radical shift in the format of their lecture events . “It is believed the custom of holding regular monthly meetings in the museum should

The Newport Natural History Society considered hiring Ernest Harold Baynes, a professional naturalist, educator and entertainer, to give a presentation in Newport. pamphlet dated 1913, ernest howe papers, beinicke rare book and manuscript library, yale university.


by the naturalists’ neglect: “[T]he rats, etc . are getting beyond me . We have caught six small rats, but no large ones yet… our building is really endangered by the leaks and rats .”116 Howe saw to the repairs . But when the Historical Society decided to expand its own building, it forced the naturalists to evacuate and remove their “rubbish” as soon as possible .117 The new ideas had come too late .

The naturalists now had to take quick action to ensure the survival of their collection . Working through the material, they found it difficult to separate valuable specimens from miscellaneous curios . Amid the boxes of rocks, snake skins and turtle shells, what should be kept and what should be discarded? The birds had become ridden with fleas . The butterflies appeared “moth-eaten .” The museum’s centerpiece — the Maine moose — presented a logistical challenge due to its large size . The new president, Dr . O .W . Huntington, found temporary lodging for the moose in a stable . He proposed to give it to a friend of his as a wedding gift .118 Some members of the society had personal connections to the objects in the collection . Helping to clean out the museum, Maude Lyman Stevens found a collection of butterflies she had gathered as a girl, and she appeared reluctant to dispose of it .119 These natural history objects were not merely scientific specimens . They functioned as mementos for collectors, material traces of their days in the field . The collectors had imagined these objects would be preserved for the benefit of the community, not treated as worthless .

What to do with the remnants of the museum? The Society offered its collection to the public library, but the library rejected it . In 1915 the naturalists ended up placing the collection in a room within the nearby Thayer School for the benefit of students . After some wrangling, they acquired a key to the room where their collections were stored, but they no longer had full control of the space . When Huntington visited during class time, he noted, “The teachers look as if they would take my head off .”120 Soon afterward, wreckers demolished the old natural history museum building . After all the time, energy, and money the naturalists had invested in their museum, they ended up selling it as scrap for seventy-five dollars .121

Though diminished, the collection experienced an afterlife thanks to the stewardship of Hugh Taylor, another of Alexander O’Driscoll Taylor’s sons . By 1928 Hugh Taylor had transferred the collection to Newport’s Community Center, located within the Great Friends Meeting House .122 There the surviving “minerals, rocks, Indian arrows, and a stuffed bird collection” became known as the “Children’s Museum .” By all accounts, Taylor was a gifted educator who made the museum accessible to visitors .123 Like his

father, he had a depth of ornithological knowledge . People called him the “Birdman .”124 He gave nature talks at schools, organized field trips, displayed the live snakes found by children, and offered boys and girls twenty-five cents for any local arrowheads they brought to him .125 Integrated into the space of a more vibrant organization, the collection had at last found a purpose, serving as a conduit between the youth of Newport and the

Sample pressings of seaweed “Presented to the Marine Museum of the Newport Historical Society” by Mrs. Alfred L. Carry, April 10, 1957. Donor suggested that the “algea [sic]” (also referred to as “Sea Botany”) was “…collected around the shores of Newport in 1896 + 1897.” newport historical society collection, vault a, box a-15.

Photograph of Maud Lyman Stevens (left) with Eleanor Dillenbeck [?]. Maud Lyman Stevens donated a butterfly collection to the Newport Natural History Society. newport historical society collection.


outdoor world . In 1940 Taylor stepped down from his post and officially donated the bulk of the collection to the Cranston-Calvert School .126 After this point, for all intents and purposes, the Newport Natural History Society no longer existed as an entity .

The annals of museum history swell with accounts of large and long-lived institutions: those with innovative directors, powerful patrons, and mass audiences . By contrast, a failed organization may be laid to rest without a eulogy . Its records may or may not survive, the traces of disappointment discarded, lost, or quietly tucked away . But one can learn from the histories of unsuccessful endeavors — how the grand vision of 1883 became the dead thing of 1915 . The history of the Newport Natural History Society is at once a cautionary tale, a counterpoint to notions of constant progress in the era of museum-building, and a reflection on the values of a past paradigm . Though perhaps a tattered and moth-eaten specimen, the Society deserves a place in our cabinet of museological curiosities .

ENDNOTES1 Newport Mercury, February 22, 1896. The hunter was Col. Alvin A. Barker, a native of Middletown and

veteran of the Spanish-American War. For more about Col. Barker, see “Death of Colonel Alvin A. Barker,” Newport Mercury, September 4, 1931.

2 “The Moose to Be Presented,” Newport Daily News, November 26, 1895.3 Oliver Huntington to Ernest Howe, April 1, 1915, Ernest Howe Papers, WA MSS S-1326, box 18, f. 250,

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.4 The thirteen founding members included “Hon. Francis Brinley, Dr. S.W. Francis [who held the first meeting

in his home], Dr. Horatio R. Storer, Mr. Lucius D. Davis, Professor T. Nelson Dale, Dr. Charles L. Fisher, Mrs. Clara E. Ives, Mr. Russell Forsyth, Mr. J. N. Howard, Mr. J. M. K. Southwick, Captain J. A. Judson, Rev. Edgar F. Clark and Lieutenant W. McCarty Little.” See “The Newport Natural History Society,” Newport Daily News, May 10, 1883.

5 “List of Members,” The Newport Natural History Society, 1883 (Newport: Davis and Pitman, August, 1883), 14.

6 “Constitution,” Newport Natural History Society, 1883, 5. For mention of dues, see pp. 8-9. 7 Jon Sterngass, First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport and Coney Island (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 216, 220.8 A Handbook of Newport, and Rhode Island (Newport: C. E. Hammett, Jr., 1852), 21. Hammett, the publisher

of the Handbook, would later join the Newport Natural History Society.9 Jon Sterngass, First Resorts, 61-62. Sterngass notes that some visitors paid only “lip service” to the pleasures

of nature.10 See, for example, Mrs. Alfred L. [Marion Catherine] Carry, “Sea Botany” (1896-1897), MSS Box A-15,

Newport Natural History Society; and Mrs. W.C. [Rebecca Breck] Simmons, Marine Algae of Newport, Rhode Island (1901), Special Collections, Redwood Library and Athenaeum.

11 Daniel Goldstein, “Outposts of Science: The Knowledge Trade and the Expansion of Science in Post-Civil War America,” Isis 99 (2008): 521. Most of the societies that served specific municipalities (rather than states or regions) appeared in towns with populations between ten thousand and 24,999.

12 See, for example, the Vermont Botanical Club. Nellie F. Flynn, “Meetings of the Vermont Botanical Club,” Rhodora 18 (1916): 71-72. For a list of other naturalist societies in New England, see New England Federation of Natural History Societies, “Report of the Annual Meeting of 1912,” in Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 248.

13 Elizabeth B. Keeney, The Botanizers: Amateur Scientists in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 83-98.

14 A. B. Hervey, Sea Mosses: A Collector’s Guide (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1881), 5.15 Hervey, Sea Mosses, 45.16 Many successful museum efforts combined private philanthropy with municipal funding. For example,

New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, which had long relied on its wealthy trustees for support, received $700,000 in municipal funding to expand into an ornate new structure fronting Central Park in 1877. In 1882 Milwaukee’s city council dedicated a small percentage of property tax income to the Milwaukee Public Museum, and “virtually every important person” in town contributed additional funding. In 1897 Denver’s city council agreed to contribute public land and money to the building of a new museum. Local businessmen steered this effort and collected private contributions for the institution. See “The Park Institutions,” New York Times, January 6, 1878; Nancy Oestreich Lurie, A Special Style: The Milwaukee Public Museum, 1882-1982 (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Milwaukee Public Museum, 1983), 7-10; Kristine Haglund, Denver Museum of Natural History: The First 90 Years (Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History, 1990), 2-4.

17 Lurie, A Special Style, 5-9.

Page from photographic album entitled Newport Views framed in Newport Algae. This particular page is titled “Old Mill. Callithamnion roseum” in the table of contents. Gift of Molly Leete, collection of the newport historical society.


18 George F. Goodyear, Society and Museum: A History of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences 1861-1993 and the Buffalo Museum of Science 1928-1993 (Buffalo: Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, 1994), 11-28.

19 Haglund, Denver Museum of Natural History, 2-3.20 The Milwaukee Public Museum moved into a Beaux-Arts structure in 1899; the Denver Museum did the

same in 1908; the Smithsonian’s natural history collection moved in 1910; Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History in 1921; and the Buffalo Museum of Science in 1928. See Lurie, A Special Style, 25; Haglund, Denver Museum of Natural History, 4; Ellis Leon Yochelson, The National Museum of Natural History: 75 Years in the Natural History Building (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), 6; Bruce Hatton Boyer, The Natural History of the Field Museum: Exploring the Earth and Its People (Chicago: Field Museum, 1993), 25; Goodyear, Society and Museum, 36.

21 “Newport,” Providence Evening Bulletin, May 10, 1883.22 “Natural History Society of Newport,” news clipping, Newport Natural History Society Scrapbook, MCZ

Manuscripts 583, Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 9.23 “Another New Organization: A Full-Fledged Natural History Society,” Newport Mercury, May 12, 1883.24 See, for instance, “The Natural History Society,” Newport Daily News, July 13, 1883. For a list of the early

membership, see “Officers of the Society for 1883,” and “List of Members,” The Newport Natural History Society, 1883, 3, 14. A few women were members of the Society, including Julia Ward Howe, the women’s rights activist and originator of Newport’s Town and Country Club. Howe was a member for only two years, disappearing from the list in 1885.

25 Evelyn M. Cherpak, “Gentlemen of the Gilded Age: Four Renaissance Men of Newport,” Newport History 81 (2012): 53-57. Pumpelly (1837-1923) had begun collecting in the 1840s, as a child in upstate New York. He would later publish a memoir of his adventures in the field; see Raphael Pumpelly, Travels and Adven-tures of Raphael Pumpelly: Mining Engineer, Geologist, Archaeologist, and Explorer (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1920).

26 In addition, Agassiz (1835-1910) operated copper mines in Michigan, a source of great wealth. For an account of Agassiz’s life, see G. R. Agassiz, Letters and Recollections of Alexander Agassiz, with a Sketch of His Life and Work (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913). Despite his position as an officer, Agassiz does not appear to have been particularly active in the Newport Natural History Society.

27 For information on Horatio Storer (1830-1922), see Horatio R. Storer, On Criminal Abortion in America (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1860), and “Dr. Horatio P. Storer Dies in His 93d Year,” New York Times, September 19, 1922. On Samuel Ward Francis (1835-1886), see “Obituary,” New York Times, March 26, 1886, and his patents: “Writing Machine,” US 18504 A, October 27, 1857; and “Improvement in Combined Knives, Forks, and Spoons,” US 147119 A, February 3, 1874.

28 “List of Members,” Newport Natural History Society, 1883, 3-4.29 G. G. King, “An Aquarium: Newport’s Need,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1884-5

(Newport, R. I.: Davis & Pitman, 1885), 37-46. Years later King would donate property to Newport for a public park. See “Gives Estate to People,” New York Times, December 25, 1912.

30 “Newport,” Providence Evening Bulletin, May 10, 1883, Newport Natural History Society Scrapbook, Ernst Mayr Library, 3.

31 “Jottings from Newport,” New York Times, September 27, 1884. For a partial list of aquarium contributors, see “List of Subscribers to the Aquarium Fund,” Proceedings 1884-5, 99. George Gordon King topped the list with a donation of $250.

32 “The Horticultural Exhibition,” Newport Mercury, July 4, 1885. 33 Newport Daily News, June 20, 1885, Newport Natural History Society Scrapbook, Ernst Mayr Library, 78.34 “Natural History Society,” Newport Mercury, June 6, 1885.35 “Newport Natural History Society Aquarium Fund,” Newport Daily News, September 12, 1885. Newport

Natural History Society Scrapbook, Ernst Mayr Library, 90. 36 “A Prospective Pleasure,” Newport Daily News, September 14, 1885. Newport Natural History Society

Scrapbook, Ernst Mayr Library, 90.

37 “The Cottagers as Church Goers and Givers,” Newport Daily News, June 24, 1885. Newport Natural History Society Scrapbook, Ernst Mayr Library, 75.

38 Sterngass, First Resorts, 188-221.39 For discussions of the motivations of Gilded Age museum philanthropists, see Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz,

Culture and the City: Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976) and John Michael Kennedy, “Philanthropy and Science in New York City: The American Museum of Natural History, 1868-1968” (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1968).

40 The city of Newport itself might have supported the aquarium. But in January of 1885 the city was in debt, and it announced that residents should prepare to pay high taxes. Perhaps with so little interest shown by the public at large, and with other needs to meet, the city preferred not to invest in the aquarium. See “Newport’s City Government,” Newport Mercury, January 10, 1885.

41 See “Officers and Council Since 1883,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1891-1899 (Newport, R. I.: F.W. Marshall, 1900), 134-36. In 1886 the Society decided to reduce the number of vice presidents from twelve to three, accounting for some of the turnover. But some of those who stepped down appear to have not made much effort to actively participate in the Society. Pumpelly did stay on as a Trustee until 1895, but he rarely delivered lectures, in contrast to T. Nelson Dale and Alexander O’Driscoll Taylor, who lectured on a frequent basis.

42 “List of Members,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1886-7 (Newport, R.I.: Davis and Pitman, 1887), 42-43.

43 “Donations to Museum,” Proceedings 1884-5, 94-95.44 “Newport Historical Society,” Newport Mercury, November 21, 1885.45 “Alexander O’D. Taylor Dead,” New York Times, April 11, 1910.46 “Report of the Curator,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1884-5, 90.47 “Officers and Council of the Society, 1899-1900” Proceedings, 1891-1899, 2; Minutes, May 5, 1910,

Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, Newport Historical Society, 231-37. Taylor was in straightened financial circumstances in his later years. See Theodora Taylor to Ernest Howe, January 24, 1913, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 249, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

48 “Natural History Society Annual Meeting and Election of Officers Last Evening,” news clipping, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, Newport Historical Society Collection, 88. Here Taylor defined the goals of natural history: “the endless revelations of order, beauty and design with which all nature is full, are its ultimate object and chief glory.”

49 Alexander O’Driscoll Taylor, “The Migration of Birds,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1883-4, (Newport, R. I.: Davis & Pitman, 1884), 24.

50 T. Nelson Dale, The Outcomes of the Life of a Geologist: An Autobiography (New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2009), 8.

51 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 13-14.52 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 26, 31-35.53 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 31.54 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 37.55 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 59-60.56 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 62.57 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 67. By the time Dale died, he had six children. See “Prof. T. Nelson Dale,

Geologist-Educator,” New York Times, November 17, 1937.58 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 70.59 “The Newport Natural History Society,” Newport Daily News, May 10, 1883.60 Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 81.


61 Dale did experience more misfortune: in 1884 he lost the court case and the Newport cottage along with it, and Pumpelly temporarily left the Geological Survey, forcing Dale to take a disastrous teaching job in Canada. But the tide turned back. In 1885 Pumpelly rejoined the Survey, and Dale returned to Newport to work for him once more. See Dale, The Life of a Geologist, 95-96.

62 “Natural History Society of Newport” news clipping, Newport Natural History Society Scrapbook, Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 9.

63 For lists of lectures delivered, see: “List of Lectures,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1885-6 (Newport: Davis and Pitman, 1886), 30; “List of Lectures,” Proceedings, 1886-7, 41; “List of Communications Laid Before the Society,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1887-8 (Newport, R. I.: T.T. Pitman, 1888), 25; “List of Communications Laid Before the Society,” Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society, 1888-1891 (Newport, R. I.: Daily News Job Print, 1892), 63-64; “List of Communications, 1891-1899,” Proceedings, 1891-1899, 129-133.

64 “Natural History Society,” Newport Mercury, April 3, 1897; Proceedings, 1891-1899, 132.65 “Bylaws,” Proceedings (1883), 9.66 “Donations to Museum,” Proceedings 1884-5, 94-95. The Society turned the latter item over to New York’s

Central Park menagerie.67 A. O’D. Taylor, “Report of the Curator,” Proceedings, 1884-5, 91-92.68 A. O’D. Taylor, “Curator’s Report,” Proceedings, 1886-7, 38-39.69 Mention of storage on the Travers Block on Bellevue Avenue is in Taylor, “Report of the Curator,”

Proceedings 1885-6 (1886), 26. Mention of the move to the Newport Historical Society is in John Hare Powel, “Report of the President,” Proceedings 1886-7, 36-37.

70 Newport Mercury, March 1, 1890.71 T. Nelson Dale, “The Object and Arrangement of Scientific Collections,” Proceedings, 1888-1891, 59.72 All donations recorded in 1891 by T. Nelson Dale, “Newport Natural History Society Catalog II,” Newport

Historical Society Collection.73 Council Meeting Notes, July 14, 1904, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, Newport

Historical Society Collection, 49-55.74 A. O’D. Taylor, Jr. to Ernest Howe, January 2, 1913. Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 249.75 Quoted in Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain, Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of

Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 8. 76 G. Brown Goode, The Museums of the Future (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1991) 427,

432-433.77 Rader and Cain, Life on Display, 17-1878 Rader and Cain, Life on Display, 25, 34-46.79 Pertaining to this shift in the tone of natural history museums, historian Warren Susman traced a transition

from a “culture of character” to a “culture of personality” in America from about the years 1880 to 1920. According to Susman, the old culture of character suited a producer-oriented society that valued the ideals of hard work, sacrifice, obedience, and “duty, honor, integrity.” By contrast, the new culture of personality stressed “self-fulfillment, self-expression, self-gratification,” as well as a performance of sociability that would lead to being “well-liked.” See Warren Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 280. Drawing on Susman’s ideas, historian William Leach has noted how museums changed as they adapted to consumer culture in this period. See William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 164-173.

80 Victoria Cain, “‘Attraction, Attention, and Desire’: Consumer Culture as Pedagogical Paradigm in Museums in the United States, 1900-1930,” Paedagogica Historica 48 (October 2012): 748-750.

81 Quoted in Cain, “Attraction, Attention, and Desire,” 754.82 Cain, “Attraction, Attention, and Desire,” 760-764.

83 Cain, “Attraction, Attention, and Desire,” 766.84 Rader and Cain, Life on Display, 26, 30-34. “Annual reports listed frequent gifts of dog fleas, old shoes, and

dried leaves. Sometimes people sent along their dead pets.” 85 See Victoria E.M. Cain, “From Specimens to Stereopticons: The Persistence of the Davenport Academy of

Natural Sciences and the Emergence of Scientific Education, 1868–1910,” Annals of Iowa 68 (Winter 2009): 15. The Davenport Academy’s history was extremely similar to that of the Newport Natural History Society, but it managed to adapt and survive. The Worcester Natural History Society, another similar organization, also enhanced its educational programs for teachers and schools in the 1890s. It continues to exist today. See Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, “Collectors, Cabinets, and Summer Camp: Natural History in the Public Life of Nineteenth-Century Worcester,” Museum Studies Journal 2 (Fall 1985): 19.

86 “Natural History Society,” Newport Mercury, May 15, 1909. Found taped in “Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook,” 222.

87 “Reviewing the Year,” news clipping, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 46.88 “Annual Meeting and Election of Officers Last Night,” news clipping, “Newport Natural History Society

Minutes and Scrapbook,” 126.89 Minutes, April 25, 1906, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 117-121.90 “The Natural History Society,” Newport Daily News, May 8, 1908. Found taped in Newport Natural History

Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 193-194.91 “Natural History Society,” Newport Mercury, May 15, 1909. Found taped in Newport Natural History Society

Minutes and Scrapbook, 222. Taylor offered a generous interpretation: perhaps amateur naturalists now preferred to stay at home and read about science in books and periodicals. Others in the organization accepted the competing recreation hypothesis.

92 Annual Meeting Minutes, May 5, 1904, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 39-45.93 “A Few Questions” news clipping, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 48. The initials

“JGP” are penciled in — likely an attribution to Joseph G. Parmenter, the Society’s secretary.94 “To Extend Its Work. Natural History Collections to be Re-Arranged,” news clipping, Newport Natural

History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 124.95 For a detailed history of Nature Study, see Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Teaching Children Science: Hands-On

Nature Study in North America, 1890-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).96 For Newport Natural History Society mentions of Nature Study, see: “The Natural History Society’s

Conversational Meeting” and “Asks for Support: Statement of the Natural History Society in Regard to Its Financial Outlook” news clippings, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 16, 56. “The great interest in nature study, which is manifest in the public schools throughout the country, and the stimulus which this has given to the powers of observation and the growth of intelligence among our youth, causes the society to believe that Newport will not allow itself to be deprived of the advantages which are offered…”

97 “In Flourishing Condition. Indicated by Reports to the Natural History Society,” news clipping, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 164. The Society would occasionally revive itself in the short term — hence the optimistic tone of this article’s title — but they were on a downward trajectory overall.

98 “The Natural History Society. Annual Reports Show Steady Growth of Organization,” Newport Daily News, May 8, 1908. Found in Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 193-194.

99 “Prizes for Collections of Leaves” circular, June 1904, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 58. The Society encouraged winners to spend their cash prizes on natural history books or collecting equipment.

100 “Exhibition of Leaves of Ferns,” news clipping, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 62.

101 “Natural History Society: Interesting Papers Presented at Opening of Winter Session,” news clipping in Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 70.

A Natural History Society in Gilded Age Newport v 59 58 v Newport History

102 Minutes, May 15, 1913, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 259. The naturalists diverted the William Watts Sherman Prize Fund to museum roof repairs.

103 Minutes, May 5, 1910, Newport Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 231-237. 104 “A. Taylor Memorial: Natural History Society Pays Tribute to Its Late President,” news clipping in Newport

Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 230. 105 Ernest Howe, “Newport Natural History Society” meeting notes, May 27, 1912, 3. Ernest Howe Papers, box

18, f. 249. “It was shown that the treasurer A. O’D. Taylor, Jr., had made no report for 3 years, that no dues had been collected, and that the society was in arrears in rent ($10 per an.). Certain repairs were needed. It was moved and seconded that the office of Tres. be declared vacant.”

106 A.O’D. Taylor, Jr. to Ernest Howe, January 23, 1913. Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 249.107 Ernest Howe, “Newport Natural History Society” meeting notes, May 27, 1912, 3. Ernest Howe Papers, box

18, f. 249.108 “Ernest Howe, Geologist,” New York Times, December 19, 1932.109 “Natural History Society,” April 1913, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 249.110 “Natural History Society,” April 1913, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 249. To make the organization viable,

they needed to raise the number of members from 40 to 150. Without this level of support, they would at last allow the matter of the Natural History Society “to drop.”

111 “Natural History Society,” April 1913, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 249.112 Minutes, Jan. 24, 1913, Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 253-57.

113 Edmund Otis Hovey to Ernest Howe, January 23, 1915, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 250.114 “Ernest Harold Baynes in Illustrated Lectures on American Natural History,” and “Lectures by Roy

Chapman Andrews,” Ernest Howe Papers, box 18, f. 249.115 Minutes, May 15, 1913, Natural History Society Minutes and Scrapbook, 259.116 Edith May Tilley to Ernest Howe, December 11, 1912. Ernest Howe Papers, box 18,, f. 248.117 Newport Historical Society secretary pro tem to Maude Lyman Stevens, November 19, 1913, Letters 960,

Newport Historical Society, 212. Oliver Huntington to Ernest Howe, February 24, 1915, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18 f. 250. The word “rubbish” in reference to the collection appears in quotation marks in Huntington’s letter — it seems he was quoting the Newport Historical Society staff, though this is unclear.

118 Oliver Huntington to Ernest Howe, April 1, 1915, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18 f. 250.119 Oliver Huntington to Ernest Howe, March 8, 1915, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18 f. 250.

120 Oliver Huntington to Ernest Howe, February 24, 1915, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18 f. 250.121 Oliver Huntington to Ernest Howe, April 1, 1915, Ernest Howe Papers, box 18 f. 250.122 “Reports Received,” Newport Journal-Weekly News, February 17, 1928.123 There were even plans to have a gong and telephone system installed in the museum so that visitors could

reach Hugh Taylor. “Reports Show Progress,” Newport Mercury, July 12, 1929.124 “The Grist Mill,” Newport Daily News, April 16, 1965.125 “Community Center Association Meets,” Newport Mercury, July 17, 1931; “Children’s Go to Taylor’s Point,”

Newport Mercury, July 26, 1929; “Local Briefs,” Newport Mercury, July 11, 1930; “The Grist Mill,” Newport Daily News, April 16, 1965.

126 “Collection Moved to Cranston-Calvert,” Newport Mercury, June 28, 1940. For more on Hugh Taylor, see “Hugh L. Taylor, 81, Dies; Authority on Birds,” Newport Daily News, March 25, 1952.

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