In this episode of the Becoming Barnum podcast, P.T. Barnum was worried about his employees at the American Museum in New York City. He wanted museum taxidermist Emile Guillaudeu to create a pose for a pony’s skin that suggested motion with dignity and speed, but it is uncertain if he was successful. [Read more…] about Becoming Barnum: Taxidermy & The Physioscope
taxidermy
Birds of New York: Scientific Cataloging In Historical Context
In 1844 New York State published a volume on birds in Natural History of New York. Written by James E. DeKay with hand-colored lithographs by John William Hill, it was the State’s first attempt at a comprehensive scientific cataloging of New York’s birds. At the time about 301 species of birds were known to be present in the state.
Sixty years later another effort was made to bring together the State’s bird knowledge. The first of the two-volume of Birds of New York – Water Birds and Game Birds – was published to much acclaim. The book was a collaboration between wildlife artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and author Elon Howard Eaton. Birds of New York listed an additional 100 species – several of which were then “well known,” but unknown in the 1840s. The book would serve as a model for those that followed. [Read more…] about Birds of New York: Scientific Cataloging In Historical Context
Taxidermy in the Adirondacks Exhibit
Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, is set to exhibit approximately 100 pieces of extraordinary taxidermy on loan from private Adirondack collections and camps as well as mounts, photographs, and manuscript materials from its own collection, beginning May 24th. [Read more…] about Taxidermy in the Adirondacks Exhibit
Carl Akeley’s Taxidermy History in New York State
Here is a recent news item regarding the re-installation of what is believed to be “probably the world’s largest mounted fish, maybe the largest piece of taxidermy in the world” – a 73-year-old, 32-foot, mounted whale shark caught off Fire Island in 1935 and believed to have weighed about 8 tons (16,000 pounds).
It has been freshly restored was unveiled at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport, where it was damaged by water leakage that closed part of the museum in 1996. [Read more…] about Carl Akeley’s Taxidermy History in New York State