Charles Marcus Breder (1897-1983) was an ichthyologist who held curatorial and directorial positions at the New York Aquarium and the American Museum of Natural History, including the Museum’s Lerner Marine Laboratory. His repute rests in part on work in fish behavior, including locomotion, and prodigious writing. Throughout his career he undertook fieldwork within the Americas. Breder died at age eighty-six on October 28, 1983, in Englewood Hospital, Florida.
William James Morden was born in Chicago, Ill. on January 3, 1886 to a
wealthy family with a railroad business. He graduated from the Sheffield
Scientific School of Yale University in 1908 with an advanced degree in
engineering, which he put to use while working for his family’s company before
serving as a lieutenant in the Army Engineers Corps in France during WWI. Morden
began his life as an explorer in 1921 when he took off on his first journey, an
AMNH expedition to the Yukon Territory. Four major expeditions followed which
were also under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History. These
included voyages to central Asia for the Morden-Clark Asiatic Expedition in 1926
and the Morden-Graves Expedition in 1929-1930, and to Africa for the Morden
African Expedition in 1922-1923 and for another expedition conducted 1947 and
again in 1953.