Who corresponded with the Smithsonian in its early years? From the 1850's to the 1870's, second Smithsonian Secretary Spencer F. Baird reached out to naturalists and collectors across the globe in pursuit of his dream to establish a national collection. Writing thousands of letters a year, Baird maintained a list of these correspondents in an atlas, identifying their names and organizing them by where they lived.
** Thank you for helping us make future research possible on this network of 19th century scientists and others who played a part in the first two decades of Smithsonian history. Would you be interested in trying your hand at the personal diary of one of Baird's correspondents, William H. Dall of the Western Union Telegraph Expedition?
Who corresponded with the Smithsonian in its early years? From the 1850's to the 1870's, second Smithsonian Secretary Spencer F. Baird reached out to naturalists and collectors across the globe in pursuit of his dream to establish a national collection. Writing thousands of letters a year, Baird maintained a list of these correspondents in an atlas, identifying their names and organizing them by where they lived.
** Thank you for helping us make future research possible on this network of 19th century scientists and others who played a part in the first two decades of Smithsonian history. Would you be interested in trying your hand at the personal diary of one of Baird's correspondents, William H. Dall of the Western Union Telegraph Expedition?
Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887), ornithologist, was the first director of the Smithsonian’s United States National Museum (USNM) and second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1878-1887). In order to achieve his dream of a national collection of specimens and a museum to house them, Baird was known to have written 5,000 to 6,000 letters a year to a network of individuals around the world who helped him by identifying specimens, donating collections, and supporting the Smithsonian’s mission to increase and diffuse knowledge. Many of these individuals’ names are included in Baird’s atlas, organized next to maps of where they lived.
