Matthew, William Diller, 1871-1930

Dates

• Existence: February 17, 1871 - September 24, 1930

Biographical Note

William Diller Matthew (1871-1930) was a vertebrate paleontologist and geologist. He was born in 1871 in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, and graduated from the University of New Brunswick in 1889. He received his MA and Ph.D in Geology from Columbia University in 1895 where he studied under Henry Fairfield Osborn, and went on expeditions to Egypt between 1891-1895. Matthew joined the American Museum of Natural History in 1895 as an assistant in the Dept. of Vertebrate Paleontology. He rose to assistant curator in 1901, associate curator in 1902, and eventually becoming curator in February 1911. His work at the American Museum of Natural History was primarily about fossil restoration. Upon the death of E.O. Hovey in 1924, Matthew was appointed acting curator of the Dept. of Geology. He was at the museum for 32 years. His more than 250 publications deal with the morphology and classification of Eocene mammals and later Cenozoic mammals. He was especially interested in horses and made them a focus in evolution. Evolution was the theme on which he frequently wrote, whether dealing with description or comparison. Matthew was recognized for his ability to write about the habits of prehistoric animals in a humorous way. In 1927 Matthew went to the University of California as professor of paleontology and curator of the Paleontological Museum. He died in 1930 in Berkeley, California. A year after his death, his daughter, Margaret Matthew Colbert, began working at the American Museum of Natural History as an artist drawing fossil bones.

Selected Bibliography

Matthew, William Diller. Climate And Evolution. 1915. Matthew, William Diller. Dinosaurs With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections. 1915. Matthew, William Diller and Edward Drinker Cope. Hitherto Unpublished Plates of Tertiary Mammalia and Permian Vertebrata. 1915. Andrews, Roy Chapman and William Diller Matthew. Central Asiatic Expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History, Under the Leadership of Roy Chapman Andrews: Preliminary Contributions in Geology, Palaeontology, and Zoology 1918-1925, Volume I. 1925. Andrews, Roy Chapman and William Diller Matthew. Central Asiatic Expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History, Under the Leadership of Roy Chapman Andrews: Preliminary Contributions in Geology, Paleontology, and Zoology 1926-1929, Volume II. 1929.

Topics

• AMNH People

Found in 3 Collections and/or Records: