American Museum of Natural History, Jesup Wood Hall papers

The Jesup Collection of North American Woods was created shortly after Morris K. Jesup became president of the museum in 1881. Originally known as the Jesup Collection of North American Woods, it was curated by President Jesup until his death in 1908. After Jesup’s death, the Department of Woods and Forestry was established to curate the Jesup Collection of North American Woods. The collection was housed in the Jesup Woods Hall, which was later known as the Hall of Forestry and the Jesup Hall of North American Woods (used interchangeably from 1908-1946). The collection was curated by the Department of Woods and Forestry from 1910 until 1939, when the department was retitled the Department of Forestry and Conservation. This department underwent further transformation in 1946 and was renamed the Department of Forestry and Botany. The Collection of North American Woods was one branch of a new Economic Department (established in 1881) intended to exhibit the uses of North America’s natural resources, namely wood and minerals. From his own finances, Jesup funded the acquisition and preparation of nearly 500 species of wood native to North America. These specimens were intended to exhibit “specimens in Economic Botany of all the woods of our country, that are or may be used for architectural or building purposes, or in the manufactures-as gums, resins, and dyewoods” (Annual Report, 1880). Jesup intended to exhibit samples of each species of North American wood accompanied by illustrations of the leaf, flower, and fruit of each specimen.

Jesup employed Dr. Charles Sargent, head of the Harvard University Arnold Arboretum and recently established economic botany program, to collect and prepare 470 specimens of North American woods. Jesup also corresponded with and obtained specimens from railroad companies and logging companies. After Jesup’s death in 1908, Mary Cynthia Dickerson (1866-1923) was hired as an assistant to the Jesup Wood Hall, and in 1909 she was appointed Head of the Department of Woods and Forestry. In 1911 she became Curator of the Department of Woods and Forestry and also established and curated the Department of Herpetology (Amphibians and Reptiles). During her curatorship, the Department of Woods and Forestry continued to acquire new specimens (though at a slower rate than during Jesup’s presidency) and also to devote more resources to the displays and educational development of the collection. New acquisitions included research articles and lectures, paintings, photographs, slides, replicas, and other materials relating to the wood samples already in the museum.

Following Dickerson’s retirement in 1919, there is limited record of the collection between 1920 and 1938. During this period Dr. Frederic A. Lucas is Honorary Curator of the department, but he is not represented in the records for this department. In 1938 the department was reestablished in order to continue the development of the Jesup Hall of North American Woods. In 1939 the Department of Woods and Forestry was officially retitled the Department of Forestry and Conservation in a unanimous vote. Clarence L. Hay was appointed honorary curator, though Robert Marston, Assistant Curator, managed the daily activities and correspondence for the department.

In 1946, Henry Knute Svenson (1897-1986), formerly Curator of the Herbarium at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, was appointed Consultant in the Department of Forestry and General Botany, as the Department of Forestry and Conservation had been re-named. Svenson oversaw the planning and construction of the Landscape Hall beginning in 1949. The Landscape Hall was completed in 1953, the same year that the Department of Forestry and General Botany was transformed into the Department of Conservation and General Ecology