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 Hitherto Unpublished Plates of Tertiary Mammalia and Permian Vertebrata. 1915.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
Found in 4 Collections and/or Records:
Barnum Brown papers
The collection consists of Brown's correspondence, notes, images and maps relating to his field work, papers of his second wife, Lilian Brown, drafts of unfinished autobiography, notes and illustrations for his scientific articles, records of his work for the museum, including exhibition halls, records of his commercial work as well as reports from his consulting work for the goverment. The collection also contains papers of Peter Kaisen who was a long-term Brown's assistant.
Department of Vertebrate Paleontology correspondence
Series 1: Field diaries, 1891-1998
Consist of diaries, lists of specimens found, locations of finds, records of day to day activities, and step by step findings. Individual lists can be found with both the Charles H. Falkenbach and Ted Galusha Papers. The diaries are arranged by date and filed as nearly as possible in chronological order. Notable names in the field diaries include H. F. Osborn, Walter Granger, Barnum Brown, and G. G. Simpson.
Series 4: Writing, 1897 - 1968
This series consist of 2 sub-series. The first contains writing about Barnum Brown and the second contains writing by Barnum Brown.
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192