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| Genre/Form: | History |
|---|---|
| Document Type: | Book |
| All Authors / Contributors: |
Robert McCracken Peck; Patricia Tyson Stroud; Rosamond Wolff Purcell |
| ISBN: | 9780812243802 0812243803 |
| OCLC Number: | 748286971 |
| Description: | xvii, 437 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 32 cm |
| Contents: | A gathering of gentlemen : the founding and early years -- The lure of the West : exploration and exodus -- A widening sphere -- The American woodsman comes calling : John James Audubon and the academy -- The American Golgotha : defining race in the early republic -- Gorillas grab the limelight : Paul Du Chaillu, John Cassin, and the professionalization of science -- The marvelous bipedal masterpiece : religion, politics, and public display -- Fossils, finders, and feuds : Leidy, Hayden, Cope, and Marsh -- "I must have fame" : Robert Peary explores the Arctic -- Early man at the academy -- Volcanoes to caverns : exploring for minerals -- Academy expeditions, 1928 to 1960 -- Dioramas defy the Great Depression -- Science and celebrity : the academy goes Hollywood -- Visions in microscopes : water quality and the environment -- Regrouping and looking forward in the postwar years -- Reaching out : festivals and friends -- The academy's "glorious enterprise" completes its second century. |
| Responsibility: | Robert McCracken Peck and Patricia Tyson Stroud ; photographs by Rosamond Purcell. |
Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
"To leaf through A Glorious Enterprise is to see history unfold. Two hundred years in the making, this beautiful book is a paean to the Western Hemisphere's oldest natural history museum-the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia-and the passionate men and women who shaped its reputation. Like a sophisticated cabinet of curiosities, the tome brims with treasures illustrating the museum's 18-million-piece collection."-Audubon "A book to remember... To wander through A Glorious Enterprise is to absorb the nineteenth century's passion for botany and zoology; the twentieth century's mania for exploration of distant, difficult or desolate places; and present-day preoccupations... All of these tales are fascinating, but the book's true fascination comes in its color photographs and illustrations, scores of them."-Cornelia Dean, New York Times "A handsome volume that should be in all serious collections on the history of the natural sciences."-Library Journal "Magnificent in both its scope and its ambitious physicality, A Glorious Enterprise is a fascinating miniature museum in and of itself, exploring the cultural history of natural history with equal parts rigor and romanticism-the hallmark of great science."-Maria Popova, Brain Pickings "A fascinating history, lavishly illustrated, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, America's earliest scientific institution. The book's eighteen chapters offer not a single narrative, but a set of panels in which are figured episodes and topics that carry us from the beginning of the nineteenth century up to the present. For those who do not already know the Academy, A Glorious Enterprise should prompt a visit to the displays and library of this extraordinary home of scientific research."-Charles Gillispie, Professor Emeritus of the History of Science, Princeton University Read more...
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Related Subjects:(8)
- Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia -- History.
- Natural history -- Research -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
- Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
- Natural history -- Research.
- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
- Academy of Natural Sciences
- Naturgeschichte.
- Forschung.
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- Athenaeum Literary Award(129 items)
by jilly@PhilaAthenaeum.org updated 2015-04-10
