Exist Dates
1828 May 27 - 1910 April 6
Biographical or Historical Note
- abstract
- R. P. Whitfield, the first curator of the American Museum of Natural
History (AMNH), was, by the time of his death one of the most eminent
paleontologists in the world [1,2]. He was self-educated [3] and possessed
tremendous drawing skills which work to his specific advantage as a
paleontologist [1,2]. Professor Whitfield served the American Museum of Natural
History for 33 years [2] and at the time of his death was Emeritus Curator of
the Geology Department. He was succeeded by Edmund Hovey in 1909 upon his
retirement [1,2,3,4].
Robert P. Whitfield was born in New Hartford, New York to William Fenton and
Margaret (Parr) Whitfield on May 27, 1828 [3,5,6]. His father was a spindle
maker and as such his first job was working in the family business [1,2,3] for
seven years [5]. He attended the Stockport Sunday School and utilized its library
during his family’s six-year stay in England [5,6]. This formal instruction ended
when his family returned to New York in 1841. In 1847 Whitfield married Mary
Henry of Utica, together they had four children [5]. During his employment at the
Utica “philosophical” instruments he developed his “considerable skills and
drafting ability” [5,6]. Whitfield served as manager of the firm after 1849
[5].
Whitfield, through his association with the Utica Society of Naturalists and his
resultant fossil collection was sought by James Hall of the New York State
Survey [1,2,3,5,6] whom he began to assist in 1856 [1,2,3,5]. Whitfield succeeded
Fielding Meek in 1858 [5]. In 1870, Whitfield was appointed curator of the New
York State Museum. During his 20 year association with James Hall, R.P.
Whitfield prepared thousands of drawings of various fossil groups including
graptolites, crinoids and brachiopods [1,2,5,6] as part of the Paleontology of
New York project [1,5,6]. He was also involved with other projects such as the
Nevada and Utah Clarence King’s Fortieth Parallel Survey, Black Hills
Newton-Jenney Survey in 1875 [5], the Paleontology of Ohio, Canada, Iowa and
Wisconsin [1,5,6]. Although this was a productive period, it proved also to be
very controversial in that there were often conflicts in authorship between
himself and Hall [5,6,7]. During the period 1872 to 1875, Whitfield lectured
(informally as part of Hall’s commitment to the institution) at the Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, he was however formally appointed as Professor of Geology
and served in this capacity from 1876 to 1878 subsequent to Hall’s retirement
[3,5,6].
In 1876, the AMNH purchased the James Hall Collection [1,2,5,8,9] and in 1877
Robert Parr Whitfield was hired to curate and care for the collection [1,2,5,6].
Given his association with Hall, Whitfield was the most suitable candidate for
this task [1]. Whitfield was initially hired for a period of eight months for $2000
[10]. Whitfield used the Hall Collection to populate specimen cases in the
exhibition hall in the West Wing [2] and was in the process of preparing colored
maps to show the respective formations associated with the fossils [9].
Professor Whitfield began his tenure at the AMNH as Curator of Geology in 1877
[1,2,3,5,6,8,9]. By 1885 his title was changed to Curator of Geological and
Mineralogical Department as the collection grew through donations grew through
donations and purchases [11]. His title was again adjusted in 1887 to include
conchology (Curator of Geological, Mineralogical and Conchological Department)
[12]. There were three more changes to his title over the next number of years :
1891 – Curator of the Department of Geology, Mineralogy, Conchology and Marine
Invertebrates [13]; 1891 – Curator of the Department of Geology, Mineralogy and
Invertebrate Paleontology [14] and finally by the time of his death in 1910 was
Emeritus Curator of the Department of Geology, Mineralogy and Invertebrate
Paleontology [15]. Professor Whitfield during his years of service at the AMNH
was assisted by various persons, of note are Drs. Luis Gratacap [16] and Edmund
Hovey [17]. The former was Curator of Geology from 1880 to 1917 and the latter
Assistant Curator of Mineralogy from 1901 to 1909. The 12th annual report
mentions a man by the name of A. Woodward as Assistant in Geology [18] who later
became the Librarian in 1881 [19] and was responsible for the acquisition of the
Whitfield Geology and Paleontology Library which numbered 883 volumes and 912
pamphlets [20].
Whitfield himself published widely [1,2,3,5,6] and was responsible for the
establishment of the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
[1,2,5,21] where he published many of his works . The Invertebrate Paleontology
database lists Whitfield as having authored 1585 species and collected 2085
specimens. Notable items in his repertoire of works include “Fossils from the
Hall Collection” [22] (some of his fossil drawings reside in the Art Collection –
126 art originals from the Hall Collection and 70 from the Lake Champlain
fossils), “List of fossils types and figured specimens used in the
Palaeontological work of R.P. Whitfield” [23] “Catalog of the types and figured
specimens in the Palaeontological Collection of the Geology Department” [24] and
description of rudist bivalve specimens from Jamaica [25,26]. Of special note
are items from the Whitfield Library, namely his personal copy of “Fossils of
the Tertiary Formations of North America: Illustrated by figures drawn on stone”
where Whitfield removed all the plates from volume 1, number 1, reattached them
onto note leaves, added his notes and annotations and had the book rebound [27].
Within this collection, the original manuscript from Conrad appears with notes
on the printed copy from comparison [28].
Hovey in his tribute [2] to Whitfield after his death indicated that Whitfield never
went on expeditions but did most of his collecting during his vacations. The
Invertebrate Paleontology database indicates 52 recorded collections by
Whitfield from locations in New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Ohio, Bermuda and
Nassau, Bahamas [29] (each donation is recorded within the annual reports). He
studied material from the Peary Expedition and also worked on material deposited
in the Museum by Francis Child Nicholas from specimens collected in Jamaica
[30].
Whitfield was an original fellow of the AAAS, Fellow of the Geological Society of
America [3].
Robert Parr Whitfield died peacefully after a long illness on April 6, 1910
[1,2,3,5,6]. At his death he was survived by his son James Edward Whitfield who
was a Chemist [6]. He is buried in Rural Cemetary at Albany not far from the grave
of James Hall [6].
Sources
Library of Congress Name Authority File no. 2010068052
(1) Gratacap, L.P. 1910. Robert Parr Whitfield. Science, New Series,
Vol. 31, No. 803, pp. 774-775.
(2) Hovey, E.O. 1910. Robert Parr Whitfield. The American Museum
Journal. Vol. X, No. 5, pp. 118-121
(3) Allen G. Debus (dir.).1968. World Who’s Who in Science. A
Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present.
Marquis-Who’s Who (Chicago) : xvi + 1855 p.
(4) Kemp, J.F. 1924. Edmund Otis Hovey 1862-1924. The American Museum
Journal. Vol. 24, No. 6, pp. 705-709.
(5) Gillispie, C.C. 1976. (Ed.). 1976. Dictionary of Scientific
Biography. American Council of Learned Societies. Charles Schribner’s Sons NY,
Vol. 24, V-Z. pp. 312-313.
(6) Malone, D. 1936. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council
of Learned Societies. Charles Schribner’s Sons NY, Vol. 20, W-Z. pp. 134-135.
(7) AMNH Research Library Special Collections Vertical Files
(Departments - Geology)
(8) Hayden, T. 2009. Department of Geology Records 1870-1909. American
Museum of Natural History, Special Collections-Library, MS.(NOT YET
ASSIGNED).
(9) American Museum of Natural History. 1878. 8th and 9th Annual Report
of the American Museum of Natural History January 1st, 1878, pp.2 &
8.
(10) AMNH Research Library Vertical files “Whitfield, Robert Parr
(Extract from Meeting of Trustees, April 16, 1877, p.59).
(11) American Museum of Natural History. 1886. Annual Report of the
Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History: Act of Incorporation,
Constitution, By-Laws and List of Members for the years 1885-1886. pp.
28.
(12) American Museum of Natural History. 1887. Annual Report of the
Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History: Act of Incorporation,
Constitution, By-Laws and List of Members for the years 1886-1887, pp. 7, 18,
& 46.
(13) American Museum of Natural History. 1891. 22nd Annual report of
the Trustees, Act of Incorporation, Constitution, By-Laws and List of members
for the year 1890-91, pp. 6
(14) American Museum of Natural History. 1894. 26th Annual Report of
the President, Treasurer’s Report, List of Accessions, Act of Incorporation,
Constitution, By-Laws and List of members for the year 1894, pp.
6.
(15) American Museum of Natural History. 1910. 41st Annual Report of
the President, Treasurer’s Report, List of Accessions, Act of Incorporation,
Constitution, By-Laws and List of members for the year 1909, pp. 18 &
36.
(16) American Museum of Natural History. 1880. The Eleventh Annual
Report of the American Museum of Natural, pp. 2
(17) American Museum of Natural History. 1902. 33rd Annual Report of
the President, Treasurer’s Report, List of Accessions, Act of Incorporation,
Constitution, By-Laws and List of members for the year 1901, pp.
7.
(18) American Museum of Natural History. 1881. 12th Annual report of
the American Museum of Natural History, pp. 4.
(19) American Museum of Natural History. 1882. 13th Annual report of
the American Museum of Natural History, pp. 3.
(20) American Museum of Natural History. 1886. Annual report of the
trustees and list of members for the year 1886-7, pp. 47.
(21) American Museum of Natural History OPAC search for Whitfield, R.
P. (Robert Parr), 1828-1910
(22) Whitfield, R.P. 1895. Fossils from the Hall Collection. Memoirs of
the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 1, pt. 2.
(23) Whitfield, R.P. 1899. List of fossils, types and figured
specimens, used in the palaeontological work of R. P. Whitfield, showing where
they are probably to be found at the present time. Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences, Vol. 12 no. 8.
(24) Whitfield, R.P. and Hovey, E.O. 1898-1901. Catalogue of the types
and figured specimens in the paleontological collection of the Geological
Department, American Museum of Natural History.
(25) Whitfield, R.P. 1897. Descriptions of species of Rudistae from the
Cretaceous rocks of Jamaica, W.I., collected and presented by Mr. F.C. Nicholas.
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 9,
pp.185-196.
(26) Whitfield, R.P. 1897. Observations on the genus Barrettia
Woodward, with descriptions of two new species. Bulletin of the American Museum
of Natural History, vol. 9, pp. 233-246.
(27) Conrad, T. A. 1832. Fossil shells of the Tertiary formations of
North America illustrated by figures drawn on stone from nature. Vol 1, no. 1
(AMNH Call number (D-4) 56.4 (118:7) located in Rare Book
Collection.
(28) Conrad, T. A. 1838. Fossil shells of the Medial Tertiary
formations of North America illustrated by figures drawn on stone from nature.
Vol 1, no. 4 (AMNH Call number (D-4) 56.4 (118:73) located in Rare Book
Collection.
(29) American Museum of Natural History Annual Reports 1887, 1893,
1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, and 1898, 1899, 1901, 1902, and 1903 (includes other
material such as rocks and minerals collected by and donated to the AMNH by
Whitfield).
(30) American Museum of Natural History. 1897. Annual Report of the
President, Treasurer’s Report, List of Accessions, Act of Incorporation,
Contract with the department of public parks, Constitution, By-Laws and List of
members for the year 1896, pp. 13-14, 16, 26, 17, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83
(includes all material from Jamaica donated to the AMNH from Francis Child
Nicholas during 1897).
Chronology
- 1828 May 27: Birth
- 1832 - 1848: Worked for his Father as a spindle maker
- 1835 - 1841: Spent time in England with parents
- 1841: Returned to the states after ving 6 years in England with his
parents
- 1847: Married Mary Henry
- 1848 - 1856: Employment at Utica Philosophical Instruments, he worked for Samuel
Chubbuck
- 1849 - 1856: Manager at Utica Philosophical Instruments
- 1856 - 1876: Employment with Professor James Hall of the US Geological
Survey
- 1872 - 1878: Temporary Lecturer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- 1876 - 1878: Appointed Professsor Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- 1877 - 1884: Curator of Geology at AMNH
- 1885 - 1886: Curator of Geological and Mineralogical Department
- 1887 - 1890: Curator of Geological, Mineralogical and Conchological Department
- 1891 - 1900: Curator of the Departments of Geology, Mineralogy, Conchology and
Marine Invertebrate Zoology
- 1901 - 1909: Curator of the Department of Geology and Invertebrate
Palaeontology
- 1910: Curator Emeritus of Department of Geology and Invertebrate
Palaeontology
- 1910 April 6: Death after weeks of illness
Terms
- localDescription
- male