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 Hitherto Unpublished Plates of Tertiary Mammalia and Permian Vertebrata. 1915.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 15 Collections and/or Records:
Series 2: Field correspondence, 1891-1969
The field correspondence was written by field workers relaying events during excavations and expeditions. The collection includes department field communications from 1891 to 1969. The years 1960, 1962-1968 are missing.
Notable names in the field correspondence include Henry Fairfield Osborn, Walter Granger, Barnum Brown, Ted Galusha, Charles Falkenbach, and G. G. Simpson.
Series 2: Professional Correspondence, 1896 - 1942
The professional correspondence includes letters between Brown and other paleontologists both within AMNH and elsewhere. It also contains correspondence regarding Brown's lecture tours and his application for copyright. There are also some letters from the public with paleontological enquiries.
Series 2: Published Papers & Unpublished Manuscripts, 1870 - 1945
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.
Tylosaurus dyspelor [art original] / [Charles R. Knight]
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192