Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1857-1935
Dates
- Existence: 1857-08-08 - 1935-11-06
Abstract
Henry Fairfield Osborn was a paleontologist, museum curator and administrator at the American Museum of Natural History. His 45-year career at the museum established it as a leading institution of research and scholarship in the fields of paleontology and evolution. Osborn's interest in paleontology, atypically for his time, derived as much from biology as from geology; in his undergraduate and graduate studies, he concentrated on biology, anatomy, embryology and neurology. In 1891, Osborn began his tenure at the AMNH by organizing and heading the new department of mammalian paleontology, while simultaneously accepting a similar position in biology at Columbia University. The AMNH department, which was eventually renamed vertebrate paleontology, was definitive in the museum's research and mission: the study and teaching of evolution. Osborn began his administrative work in 1899, becoming president in 1908, a position he held for twenty-five years. His strength was in leadership and education rather than empirical science; under his guidance, the museum expanded greatly in physical space and endowment, scientific staff, research and public education. Like his predecessor Albert S. Bickmore, Osborn recognized the need to combine information with entertainment. He popularized paleontology by ensuring that the museum's exhibits did not merely display the researchers' work, but also explained it in an attractive and accessible manner. Osborn, like so many of his contemporaries, was a prolific writer. His attempt to research and publish a definitive record of all the fossil mammals of North America was wildly overambitious, but by the time of his death he had completed substantial works on Equidae, titanotheres, rhinoceroses and Proboscidea, as well as on sauropod dinosaurs; his total publications number 940 (books, monographs, articles and papers), about half devoted to vertebrate paleontology.
Citation:
From biographical note for Osborn's archive collection at the AMNH Library, Mss .O835, written by Ann Herendeen.Topics
Found in 55 Collections and/or Records:
Central Asiatic Expeditions records
Conference notes during the presidential years of Henry Fairfield Osborn,
American Museum of Natural History, Department of Preparation and Installation: Diorama and Hall construction
Department of Vertebrate Paleontology correspondence
Correspondence relative to the formation and organization of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology. Correspondence between Morris K. Jesup, Henry Fairfield Osborn, C.O. Marsh, J.L. Wortman, J.B. Hatcher, O.A. Peterson, W.H. Utterback. Many letters from Volume II have been removed. Two volumes containing approximately 100 letters.
Department of Vertebrate Paleontology field work collection
The Department of Vertebrate Paleontology began sending staff into the field as early as the first year of its founding, 1891. Since then the department has organized and supported decades of seminal field work as it continues to do so today.
Department of Vertebrate Paleontology correspondence
Editorship of Division I papers, 1924
Correspondence regarding Hovey's appointment as Editor of the Publications of Division I and other editorial matters. Minutes of the Committee on Publication.
Edward Drinker Cope papers, 1846-1897
Faculty meetings, 1923-1924
Correspondence from Chester A. Reeds to museum administrators and scientific staff regarding faculty meetings.
Frick Laboratory administrative and personnel records
This collection consists of Childs Frick correspondence. The majority of the papers consern his relationship with the American Museum of Natural History while running the Frick Laboratory as well as his role as museum Trustee.
There is also Frick's correspondence with other scientists and institutions that deals with both research in paleontology and Frick's financial support of their activities.
A very small number of letters are of personal nature.
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192