27 Hidden Gems: Geological Collections and Museums in the Southeastern U.S.

Friday, 11 April 2014
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Smithfield

HERBERT H. AND DAISY W. SMITH: COLLECTORS, CURATORS, AND CHRONICLERS OF ALABAMA

Paper number: 27-10
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 10:50 AM – 11:10 AM

Authors

Abstract

Herbert Huntington Smith (1851-1919) is credited with collecting more than a quarter of a million specimens, representing fossil mollusks as well as modern plants, insects, birds, mammals, and freshwater mollusks from Latin America and the Southeastern United States. These objects included many type specimens; they were in demand among private collectors as well as public museums and are of continuing value to researchers. Unpublished notes and correspondence have also been preserved, though his field notes are lost. Smith’s travel book, Brazil: the Amazons and the Coast, is still consulted for his insights on local culture. Weekly letters posted from Alabama to two shell collectors (George Clapp and Bryant Walker) still exist, together with correspondence and other materials from Smith’s years as the Alabama Museum of Natural History’s Curator (in effective, its head). These illuminate not only Smith’s progress as a scientist, but also the environmental conditions along Alabama’s rivers before they were irrevocably altered by damming. The Smiths’ collections of now extinct freshwater mollusks and fossil mollusks from now-submerged outcrops along Alabama’s rivers are irreplaceable.

Until recently, the role of Herbert Smith’s wife, Amelia “Daisy” Woolworth Smith, in collecting and processing the collections was discounted, though Herbert privately made it clear to his employers that they were really getting two collectors for the price of one. Daisy, whose maiden name was also Smith, was born in 1858 to a family of a missionizing inclination. She accompanied him as a working partner on collecting trips in the Amazon and Alabama as well as in the museum. After Herbert Smith’s untimely death in 1919, Daisy was employed for several years as the head (Acting Curator) of the museum to see his unfinished work through to completion. Although the collections were studied and published by others such as Calvin Goodrich and Bryant Walker, the significance of Herbert and Daisy Smith’s contributions to science is becoming apparent as unpublished materials resurface.