Chicago Academy of Sciences Blog
Articles tagged Archives
April 15, 2025
These old herbarium labels are hard to read! Can you decipher them?
These labels include scientific names in LATIN, as well as Carl Linnaeus’ classification system using GREEK terms. The plant specimens were collected in Germany around 1900. Rather unique to these labels is the presence of the handwriting used at the time called KURRENT SCRIPT (or Kurrentschrift in GERMAN). It is challenging for us to read now, because it looks so different from our cursive handwriting. It has not been taught in German schools since 1941 so not many German-speaking people can read it either.
April 15, 2025
How Transcription Errors Stand the Test of Time As we in Collections continue to catalog our backlog of botanical specimens, we sometimes stumble on fascinating detours. One of my roles as Collections Technician is to catalog label data strictly as written, i.e., verbatim. Exact transcription is critical not only to honor the original intent of the collector, but also to provide unaltered data for future researchers. Handwritten script is often notoriously difficult to read (whether it be ornate, obscure or just plain messy) and this adds to the challenge of precise transcription. One recent batch of handwritten labels contained two-worded notation with Greek numerical prefixes (tri-, tetra-, penta-). I assumed the terms represented a system, but in the interest of efficiency, I entered the text “verbatim” without investigating the system itself. Eventually I came across the word "Teosandria (XII)" (see red box on label), which did not look Greek to me, and a Google search came up wanting. The word did exist, but only in two 19th-century botanical publications (Brazilian and British), so that's how I initially entered it into our database. As this word appeared on more labels, I wanted to verify it with a substantial reference. I looked more deeply at the first Google search result, the Brazilian Jornal Do Agricultor, (1888) and there it was in print, “Teosandria” (see red arrow).
February 20, 2025
The Importance of Herbarium Records in Environmental Science
As I was starting off my collections internship at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, I was not familiar with just how important herbarium records can be in the field of environmental science. When I think about research in the field of environmental science, my mind goes straight to observational experiments or current environmental samplings. However, after my time at the museum, I will now be thinking about how specimens from the past can help us understand our present. During this internship, I was able to be a part of this process by cataloguing, digitizing, and integrating specimens into our collections, so people could use them for research purposes. Despite just how many herbarium records there are and how useful these records are to illustrate the environment, they are an underused resource in the field. Digitizing these herbarium records have played a huge role in making them more accessible to promote this type of research. Plant specimens act as a great resource to inquire about past environments because plants cannot move. They are exposed directly to environmental changes and it shows in their composition. By studying these plants, we can learn about the environment they lived in and how it changed over time compared to other specimens.
October 7, 2021
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 recently discovered her own great-great-grandfather’s account of his experiences during the fire. Below is an excerpt from Frederick Adolphus Battey’s autobiography.
June 21, 2021
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 George and Mary (Abbey) Pepoon. Pepoon married Alma Wilcox in 1883, with whom he had three children: Rudolph Silas, Mary Lucille, and Constance Laura Buckley. After her death in 1893, he married Helen Sophia Foberg in 1900. Pepoon graduated from the University of Illinois in 1881 and received his medical degree from Hahnemann Medical College in 1883. He spent almost ten years practicing medicine in Lewistown, Illinois, during which time he also served as the Fulton County Fish Warden. Pepoon left the field of medicine and became a teacher and school physician at Lakeview High School (1892- 1930) in Chicago, Illinois and later head of the school’s Department of Botany (1912-1930). After his retirement from teaching, he worked with the Illinois Natural History Survey, helping with the collection and study of vascular plants. Pepoon was an active and well-known presence in Illinois’ scientific community. He was a Life Member of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, which named him Honorary Curator of Botany for the institution in 1930. The Academy published his best known work, the book An Annotated Flora of the Chicago Area, in 1927. In addition, he published a botanical teaching manual Studies of Plant Life: A Series of Exercises for the Study of Plants (1900) with co-authors Walter R. Mitchell and Fred B. Maxwell. Pepoon also published numerous articles on botany, forestry, and ecology in scientific journals such as “Destruction of a Farm Flora (Plant World, 1903), “Flora of Southwest Michigan (Michigan Academy of Sciences, 1906), and “Cliff Flora of Jo Daviess County, IL” (Michigan Academy of Sciences, 1909). He also served as president of the Chicago Mycological Society (1894-1900) and in a variety of offices at the Illinois State Academy of Science.
June 7, 2021
Making observations with William Dreuth
Documented bird observations are incredibly useful for understanding species migration and shifts in species populations or range as well as phenology (the timing of seasonal natural events such as plants blooming and bird migration). In the Academy’s collections, we have field journals recording Chicagoans’ observations from 100 or more years ago, allowing us to peak into our regional history. One of these naturalists was William Dreuth.
January 11, 2021
Playing Detective: Reconstructing the Beecher Manuscript Collection
In late 2019, the archive of the Chicago Academy of Sciences / Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (CAS/PNNM) received a donation of Dr. William J. Beecher’s (1914-2002) large manuscript collection. In addition to being Director of the Academy from 1958-1983, Beecher was an environmental activist, respected ornithologist, inventor of the Beecher Mirage binoculars, prolific writer, photographer, and amateur artist. His manuscript collection is an interesting array of unpublished manuscripts, original scientific illustrations, photographs, and design specifications for his inventions. As a graduate student in library and information science at the University of Illinois, I am grateful to CAS/PNNM for giving me the opportunity to process this fascinating collection, first as a volunteer, and most recently as the Archives Intern, thanks to a grant from the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board.
September 1, 2015
Behind the Scenes: Foundations of a Story
Museum collections are filled with all types of objects – fish in jars, textiles, oil paintings, mammal skins, fossilized plants, historic photographs. These tangible items, the specimens and artifacts, are very cool and I’m only a little biased. But, the really good stuff is something more intangible. The really cool stuff in museums is the data associated with those objects.
July 27, 2015
Remembering Dr. William J. Beecher – Part 1
In this post, Collections volunteer Bob Morton remembers his time with Dr. Beecher. Dr. William Beecher died on this day in 2002. In addition to being a Chicago native and ornithologist, Dr. Beecher held the position of Chicago Academy of Sciences director for 24 years! His legacy continues to live on at the Museum. The Beecher Lab, located in the Wilderness Walk, is named after him, and some of the students who studied under him as teenagers have returned to the Museum as volunteers!