American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

Plant, Philip M., 1901-1941
birth: 1901
death: 1941
Philip Manwaring Plant collected specimens for the American Museum of Natural History's Akeley Memorial Hall of African Mammals during the 1930s. Plant, son of Selden Manwaring, was adopted by his stepfather, Commodore Morton Plant, a multi-millionaire railroad and steamship magnate, who made him his heir. Plant led a playboy life in the 1920s, but through his travels became interested in big game hunting in East Africa. According to the 1936 annual report of the AMNH, Plant pledged to contribute a vulture group, a colobus monkey group and a leopard group for the completion of the Akeley Hall. He made color films of his safaris which he used in lectures, and which aided in the reproduction of the animals' natural surroundings for the museum's exhibits. During the last six years of his life, Plant spent most of his time on his estate and poultry farm, Oswegatchie, located near Waterford, Conn. There he raised pheasants and other exotic animals, along with rare breeds of chickens which won prizes at fairs and helped establish the farm as a tourist attraction. Plant died of a heart ailment at the age of 39.