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 52 Collections and/or Records:
Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) / Subject's left shoulder "Chester Beach 1917"
Henry Fairfield Osborn dinosaur hunting in Montana photographs
Field photographs of dinosaur hunting in Montana. Taken from a Montana expedition led by Barnum Brown, includes photos of extraction of bones from the ground.
Henry Fairfield Osborn Hale lectures; trip around the world; Titanothere and Proboscidea monograph
Hale Lectures; Trip Around the World; Titanothere and Proboscidea Monograph, taken from old albums.
Henry Fairfield Osborn photographs of Tyrannosaurus, restoration and model of skeleton
Three different poses of a tyrannosaurus rex mount with a photocopy of the title page from Osborn's article written on the subject.
American Museum of Natural History, Jesup Wood Hall papers
Joseph Asaph Allen correspondence, 1870-1919
Library Tools and Materials
William J. Morden papers
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192