My first encounter with Woods Hole was not during a summer trip to Cape Cod, but instead here at the collections facility of the Nature Museum. What I thought to […]
The Importance of Digitizing the Botany Collection
For the past few months, I have been a part of the Chicago Academy of Sciences’ effort to digitize their botany collection. This consists of mounting specimens from the backlog, […]
Flora of the Frontier: Mounting Specimens from the Wheeler Survey
There’s a unique thrill in preserving historical specimens. It makes history real and gives me an affinity for the individuals who were really there at the time the specimens were […]
It’s Finally Thyme: Processing the Botany Backlog
In 1944, the Chicago Academy of Sciences’ Honorary Curator of Botany, Anna Pedersen Kummer, reflected on recent developments to the Academy’s Herbarium in The Chicago Naturalist: “Much excellent materials been […]
Collections Reveal Traces of Living Animals
What if there were a way to look back in time and observe living animals interacting directly with their environment? Natural history collections preserve the remains of organisms and the […]
The Ghosts of Prairies Past: Uncovering Yesterday’s Truths with Museum Collections
From expansive cities to agricultural fields, it may come as a surprise that Illinois was once covered in millions of acres of prairies and forests. In 1820, about 22 million […]
Women in Science: Anna Pedersen Kummer
As Women’s History Month comes to an end, we’re taking a closer look at Anna Pedersen Kummer, former honorary curator of botany and a lover of all plants! She was a […]
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871
The Great Chicago Fire started on the evening of Sunday, October 8, 1871. Rumors started almost immediately that the fire was caused by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern left in […]
Witnessing the Great Chicago Fire
It’s hard to imagine experiencing the Great Chicago Fire firsthand, but many Chicagoans left incredible accounts of those three tumultuous days. In fact, Nature Museum Interpretive Programs Coordinator Marjorie Hoffman […]
Herman Silas Pepoon
Herman Silas Pepoon (1860-1941) was a physician, teacher, botanist, and naturalist with a particular focus on the plants of Illinois and the Midwest. He was born in Warren, Illinois to […]
