Constructing the Natural World in the Museum: The Expeditions and Wildlife Displays of the Denver Museum of Natural History, 1901 - 1981 (2017)
Karen Karen Lloyd D'Onofrio (Author)
Sutter, Paul S. (Advisor)
University of Colorado at Boulder
Sutter, Paul S.
Physical Details: 400 pp.
Language: English
This dissertation traces the twentieth-century intellectual development of the Denver Museum of Natural History within the context of establishing scientific authority in the Rocky Mountain West Region. Through an examination of the museum’s collecting practices, expeditions, and wildlife displays undertaken by two of the museum’s directors, Jesse Figgins and Alfred Bailey, I argue that the museum’s success and acceptance as a scientific authority were contingent on the cooperation and collaboration of actors in and out of the field, and further relied upon the museum’s introduction of scientific practices in the field. The arrival of Figgins represented an important epistemic shift in the collection and presentation of the natural world to a museum-going public. Figgins did not simply transfer his eastern museum training to the West and replace existing knowledge producing systems. Instead, the production of scientific knowledge emerged out of a series of negotiations, a blending of field practices, and an understanding of local knowledge and place. Alfred Bailey introduced the wildlife habitat dioramas as models to display ecological relationships observed in the field to the museum going public. The dioramas, as cultural productions involving artistic and scientific practices, displayed a particular vision of the natural world at the time of their creation. As such they offer us the opportunity to explore different approaches to and experiences with global natures, and allow us to observe transcultural interactions in the natural world. The twentieth-century global expansion of the United States permitted the Denver Museum to gain access to far off places, which resulted in an expansion of the museum’s collecting program. Through a close study of the methods involved in specimen collecting and the interrelationships between people and places, we gain a richer understanding of the assemblage of practices necessary for knowledge production in the natural history museum.
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