If you think that scientists are a conservative bunch, your opinion might be altered by a new exhibit at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, 2001 N. Clark St. ``Great Expeditions: Early Academy Explorers (1857-1957)`` tells the story of naturalists and collectors whose work for the academy involved nearly as much adventure as it did scholarship.
Perhaps modern science still has room for romantics, as well
as more bookish types. But back in the middle 1800s, when the academy was founded, natural scientists were generally self-educated and were drawn to the vast wilderness to study subjects like botany, zoology and other disciplines. Sometimes, too, they were considered of unpredictable moral character
--Darwin`s ``Origin of the Species`` had put many Americans on guard against scientists and atheists.
The early directors of the academy, and others who collected on its behalf, fit this serendipitous, almost jaunty mold. The exhibit looks at the personalities of the scientists as well as describing their research. In the process, it also tells the story of the first 100 years of the academy, which was once considered, along with the Smithsonian Institution, one of the great science museums of the nation.
The first and perhaps most intriguing director of the academy was Robert Kennicott, who was 29 when he assumed that post in 1865. One need only see a picture of Kennicott to get an idea of the man. The son of a Glenview physician (whose homestead is now a National Historic Landmark), he had long, dark hair and was partial to buckskin clothes. And he enjoyed a reputation that was anything but staid; while an apprentice at the Smithsonian, he was known for being present at wild egg nog and whiskey parties.
Science suited Kennicott`s carefree spirit--a naturalist and museum curator was expected first and foremost to head out to the field and collect. He led his first important expedition to Alaska in 1859 to provide the Smithsonian with a collection of hundreds of mammal, bird, fish and insect specimens.
But he died very young. At 30, on his second expedition to Alaska, he faced setbacks and died of heart failure.
Kennicott was replaced at the academy by another explorer, William Stimpson, in 1866. Stimpson`s remarkable career had its first major boost when, at the tender age of 20, he was put in charge of the North Pacific Exploring Expedition, organized by the Smithsonian, which went around the world collecting botanical and zoological specimens from Australia, New Guinea and many smaller and less hospitable islands on the way to Japan. Later, when he joined the Chicago academy, its collections grew to become the fourth largest in the nation.
Then came the Chicago Fire in 1871, which destroyed the academy building, then at Wabash Avenue and Van Buren Street, and its contents. Stimpson was 40, but the loss of everything he had built, plus his research notes, left him drained and he died six months later. It fell to others to rebuild the academy, which was done, in part, by amateur collectors.
One of these was Elizabeth Atwater, a society matron who combed the Chicago area for botanical specimens, which she would press onto sheets of paper. This work, done between 1856 and 1876, was assiduously labeled by species and location and was donated to the academy after the fire.
``Collecting was a popular pastime at the time,`` said Ron Vasile, curator of the exhibit. These specimen sheets number about 10,000, and Vasile has recently placed them in cases to enhance their preservation.
One of the interesting aspects of this exhibit, which runs through Dec. 1, is that it goes beyond the natural history contained by the museum and brings to light some of the social history related to the academy. One observation is that around the turn of the century--the present building was erected in 1894--a surge of ecological consciousness hit Chicago. The public was beginning to notice that many birds and lake creatures--freshwater mollusks, for example--were being forced out of the environment. ``People wanted to document and learn about what was here,`` Vasile said. That led to more collecting, to the extent that the academy was soon to have 320,000 specimens of all kinds in its holdings.
Things have changed at the museum. The storerooms of the building are now full, and the emphasis here, as at other museums, is to put warehoused material on display and spearhead experimental and educational projects. One such project is the peregrine falcon release program, an attempt to reintroduce the bird to urban Chicago. Another was the chimpanzee symposium last fall, which had Jane Goodall and others convening at the academy for an international meeting of minds.
The kind of people attracted to natural sciences also has changed. They are more analytical now, less overt adventurers.
The early scientists were generalists and ``were starting to imagine how everything in the ecosystem ties together,`` Vasile said. Today`s scientists are far more specialized, but they are cut from the same cloth as the early ones. ``Scientists are into discoveries,`` he added, ``and they are excited by that sense of discovering something that no one else has ever seen.``