The Legacy of the Mastodon
The Legacy of the Mastodon

Author: Keith Stewart Thomson

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0300151845

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The uncovering in the mid-1700s of fossilized mastodon bones and teeth at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, signaled the beginning of a great American adventure. The West was opening up and unexplored lands beckoned. Unimagined paleontological treasures awaited discovery: strange horned mammals, birds with teeth, flying reptiles, gigantic fish, diminutive ancestors of horses and camels, and more than a hundred different kinds of dinosaurs. This exciting book tells the story of the grandest period of fossil discovery in American history, the years from 1750 to 1890. The volume begins with Thomas Jefferson, whose keen interest in the American mastodon led him to champion the study of fossil vertebrates. The book continues with vivid descriptions of the actual work of prospecting for fossils--a pick in one hand, a rifle in the other--and enthralling portraits of Joseph Leidy, Ferdinand Hayden, Edward Cope, and Othniel Marsh among other major figures in the development of the science of paleontology. Shedding new light on these scientists feuds and rivalries, on the connections between fossil studies in Europe and America, and on paleontologys contributions to Americas developing national identity, The Legacy of the Mastodon is itself a fabulous discovery for every reader to treasure.

The Legacy
The Legacy

Author: Thomas Peter Bennett

Publisher: University Press of America

Published: 2010-12-18

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 076185262X

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The Legacy: South Florida Museum is an account of the origins, founding, and development in twentieth-century Florida of a people's museum about archeology, Spanish exploration, manatees, and space. As a museum founded in the immediate post-World War II era, with its origins in the prehistoric past, its narrative reflects Florida's changes through Spanish exploration, statehood, tourism, endangered manatees, and space development over a thousand years. The Legacy is a story of volunteerism, in the spirit of voluntary action for the common good, by dedicated individuals. It leads to today's South Florida Museum and its several facilities, including the Bishop Planetarium, Parker Manatee Aquarium, and Spanish Plaza. For more information, please see the following article from The Herald-Tribune. http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101130/ARTICLE/11301026/1238?p=1&tc=pg

How the New World Became Old
How the New World Became Old

Author: Caroline Winterer

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2024-10

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0691199671

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How the idea of deep time transformed how Americans see their country and themselves During the nineteenth century, Americans were shocked to learn that the land beneath their feet had once been stalked by terrifying beasts. T. rex and Brontosaurus ruled the continent. North America was home to saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths, great herds of camels and hippos, and sultry tropical forests now fossilized into massive coal seams. How the New World Became Old tells the extraordinary story of how Americans discovered that the New World was not just old—it was a place rooted in deep time. In this panoramic book, Caroline Winterer traces the history of an idea that today lies at the heart of the nation’s identity as a place of primordial natural beauty. Europeans called America the New World, and literal readings of the Bible suggested that Earth was only six thousand years old. Winterer takes readers from glacier-capped peaks in Yosemite to Alabama slave plantations and canal works in upstate New York, describing how naturalists, explorers, engineers, and ordinary Americans unearthed a past they never suspected, a history more ancient than anyone ever could have imagined. Drawing on archival evidence ranging from unpublished field notes and letters to early stratigraphic diagrams, How the New World Became Old reveals how the deep time revolution ushered in profound changes in science, literature, art, and religion, and how Americans came to realize that the New World might in fact be the oldest world of all.

American Dinosaur Abroad
American Dinosaur Abroad

Author: Ilja Nieuwland

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2019-05-15

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0822986663

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In early July 1899, an excavation team of paleontologists sponsored by Andrew Carnegie discovered the fossil remains in Wyoming of what was then the longest and largest dinosaur on record. Named after its benefactor, the Diplodocus carnegii—or Dippy, as it’s known today—was shipped to Pittsburgh and later mounted and unveiled at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1907. Carnegie’s pursuit of dinosaurs in the American West and the ensuing dinomania of the late nineteenth century coincided with his broader political ambitions to establish a lasting world peace and avoid further international conflict. An ardent philanthropist and patriot, Carnegie gifted his first plaster cast of Dippy to the British Museum at the behest of King Edward VII in 1902, an impulsive diplomatic gesture that would result in the donation of at least seven reproductions to museums across Europe and Latin America over the next decade, in England, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Russia, Argentina, and Spain. In this largely untold history, Ilja Nieuwland explores the influence of Andrew Carnegie’s prized skeleton on European culture through the dissemination, reception, and agency of his plaster casts, revealing much about the social, political, cultural, and scientific context of the early twentieth century.

The Sixth Extinction
The Sixth Extinction

Author: Elizabeth Kolbert

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2014-02-11

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0805099794

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ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Alexander Von Humboldt and the United States
Alexander Von Humboldt and the United States

Author: Eleanor Jones Harvey

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-04-14

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 0691200807

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The enduring influence of naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt on American art, culture, and politics Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was one of the most influential scientists and thinkers of his age. A Prussian-born geographer, naturalist, explorer, and illustrator, he was a prolific writer whose books graced the shelves of American artists, scientists, philosophers, and politicians. Humboldt visited the United States for six weeks in 1804, engaging in a lively exchange of ideas with such figures as Thomas Jefferson and the painter Charles Willson Peale. It was perhaps the most consequential visit by a European traveler in the young nation's history, one that helped to shape an emerging American identity grounded in the natural world. In this beautifully illustrated book, Eleanor Jones Harvey examines how Humboldt left a lasting impression on American visual arts, sciences, literature, and politics. She shows how he inspired a network of like-minded individuals who would go on to embrace the spirit of exploration, decry slavery, advocate for the welfare of Native Americans, and extol America's wilderness as a signature component of the nation's sense of self. Harvey traces how Humboldt's ideas influenced the transcendentalists and the landscape painters of the Hudson River School, and laid the foundations for the Smithsonian Institution, the Sierra Club, and the National Park Service. Alexander von Humboldt and the United States looks at paintings, sculptures, maps, and artifacts, and features works by leading American artists such as Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin, Frederic Church, and Samuel F. B. Morse. Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Exhibition Schedule Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC September 18, 2020–January 3, 2021

Scientific Americans
Scientific Americans

Author: Susan Branson

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2022-01-15

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1501760920

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In Scientific Americans, Susan Branson explores the place of science and technology in American efforts to achieve cultural independence from Europe and America's nation building in the early republic and antebellum eras. This engaging tour of scientific education and practices among ordinary citizens charts the development of nationalism and national identity alongside roads, rails, and machines. Scientific Americans shows how informal scientific education provided by almanacs, public lectures, and demonstrations, along with the financial encouragement of early scientific societies, generated an enthusiasm for the application of science and technology to civic, commercial, and domestic improvements. Not only that: Americans were excited, awed, and intrigued with the practicality of inventions. Bringing together scientific research and popular wonder, Branson charts how everything from mechanical clocks to steam engines informed the creation and expansion of the American nation. From the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations to the fate of the Amistad captives, Scientific Americans shows how the promotion and celebration of discoveries, inventions, and technologies articulated Americans' earliest ambitions, as well as prejudices, throughout the first American century.

Fort Bridger
Fort Bridger

Author: Ephriam D. Dickson III and Mark J. Nelson

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1467131458

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The history of Fort Bridger represents a microcosm of the development of the American West. Situated in an area initially inhabited by the Shoshone people, Fort Bridger was established during a transitional phase between the fur-trade era and the period of western migration. The fort became one of the most important supply points along the nation's western trail network. Later, the post served as a bastion of civilization as one of a number of western military posts. Soldiers at the fort protected not only the lives and property of its local citizenry but also the emerging transportation and communication advancements of a nation. Following the Army's departure, a small settlement emerged at Fort Bridger, using buildings and materials from the old military garrison. Today, the fort and town remain active, in part as a respite for travelers just as it had been more than 150 years ago.

Bitterroot
Bitterroot

Author: Patricia Tyson Stroud

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2018-02-23

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0812294718

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In America's early national period, Meriwether Lewis was a towering figure. Selected by Thomas Jefferson to lead the expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase, he was later rewarded by Jefferson with the governorship of the entire Louisiana Territory. Yet within three years, plagued by controversy over administrative expenses, Lewis found his reputation and career in tatters. En route to Washington to clear his name, he died mysteriously in a crude cabin on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Was he a suicide, felled by his own alcoholism and mental instability? Most historians have agreed. Patricia Tyson Stroud reads the evidence to posit another, even darker, ending for Lewis. Stroud uses Lewis's find, the bitterroot flower, with its nauseously pungent root, as a symbol for his reputation as a purported suicide. It was this reputation that Thomas Jefferson promulgated in the memoir he wrote prefacing the short account of Lewis's historic expedition published five years after his death. Without investigation of any kind, Jefferson, Lewis's mentor from boyhood, reiterated undocumented assertions of Lewis's serious depression and alcoholism. That Lewis was the courageous leader of the first expedition to explore the continent from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean has been overshadowed by presuppositions about the nature of his death. Stroud peels away the layers of misinformation and gossip that have obscured Lewis's rightful reputation. Through a retelling of his life, from his resourceful youth to the brilliance of his leadership and accomplishments as a man, Bitterroot shows that Jefferson's mystifying assertion about the death of his protégé is the long-held bitter root of the Meriwether Lewis story.