The Natural History Society of New Brunswick Library: Supporting Geological Science

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Buhay ◽  
Randall Miller
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Natural History ◽  
New Brunswick ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Natural History Society ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
The City

The Natural History Society of New Brunswick (1862-1932) based in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, produced an impressive body of research, including significant geological discoveries. Research and public education output of the Society was prolific. George Matthew, the Society's leading geologist published more than 200 scientific papers. Between 1862 and 1917 the Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick records more than 800 lectures read before the Society and public audiences. Lectures were often at the leading edge of scientific discovery, such as Matthew's 1890 report of the first authentic Precambrian fossil. This amateur society supported the research of its members by developing a significant library. The only other library in the city with scientific resources belonged to the local Mechanics' Institute, later acquired in part by the Natural History Society. It is clear from library reports and minutes that, from the beginning, the intent was to provide members access to a science library necessary to support their research activities. Both libraries were particularly important as the Great Fire of 1877 destroyed personal libraries while the Society and Institute libraries were untouched. The library was particularly strong in North American and British journals and classic works in early geology. Some of the research shortcomings of Society members may have been a result of the library's weakness in European technical literature. The library and collections of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick formed the basis for the present New Brunswick Museum.

scholarly journals Augustus Daniel Imms, 1880 - 1949

1949 ◽  
Vol 6 (18) ◽  
pp. 462-470
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
Natural History Society ◽  
Anatomy And Physiology ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Industrial Chemist ◽  
Science Classes ◽  
The City

Augustus Daniel Imms was born on 24 August 1880 at Moseley, Worcestershire, now in the city of Birmingham. He was the elder of two children, his sister dying before him. His father was Walter Imms, a member of the staff of Lloyds Bank. His mother, Mary Jane Daniel, was born at Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A., of English parents who returned to England a few years later. None of his relatives appears to have been noteworthy in science. In his boyhood, as in later life, Imms was frequently laid up with bad attacks of asthma. His interrupted schooldays were spent chiefly at St Edmunds Eligh School, Birmingham, where the headmaster, W. B. Grove, was a well-known mycologist. But it was C. F. Olney of the Northampton Natural History Society who first aroused his interest in insect life and taught him how to mount and set butterflies and moths. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship and of an unbroken zest for entomology. The boy, debarred from many of the activities of his fellows, quickly devoured and assimilated all the popular handbooks for collectors that were current at that time. And then the chance purchase of Todd’s Encyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology when he was about seventeen years old evoked a more scientific interest; for this encyclopaedia, published many years before, contained Newport’s masterly article on the ‘Insecta’. On leaving school, Imms joined the science classes at Mason University College, Birmingham, where his father wished him to become an industrial chemist. But biology proved too strong an attraction. Fie owed much to the splendid clarity of the lectures and the kindly help and interest of T. W. Bridge, then Professor of Zoology, under whose guidance he produced two scientific papers on fishes (1904, 1905). Among his contemporaries were B. Fantham, T. Goodey and R. H. Whitehouse. Imms graduated B.Sc. London with second-class honours in zoology in 1903. After spending two years under Bridge at Birmingham, the award of an 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship in 1905 decided him to go to Cambridge where he entered Christ’s College with A. E. Shipley as his tutor.

Family background and early life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry A. McGhie
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
New Brunswick ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Natural History Society ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Do So

This chapter explores Dresser’s family background, establishing the family’s wealth and prominent social position. Dresser was sent to be schooled, alone, to Germany and Sweden, as his father had business interests in Baltic timber. Dresser learnt all of the main European languages at this time. Following this, he spent several years in Finland and New Brunswick in the timber business. It was in Finland that he made his first significant ornithological discovery, finding the nest of the Waxwing, being the first English collector to do so. The chapter introduces Dresser’s collecting of birds and eggs, and how he mixed ornithology with business when in the timber and mercantile business. It introduces his early life in London-based natural history society and his meeting with Alfred Newton, the leading ornithologist in Britain, who served as his mentor throughout much of Dresser’s life. The chapter is largely based on Dresser’s unpublished diaries.

Emancipate, Enfranchise, Educate

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Myers Asch ◽  
George Derek Musgrove
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
Black Schools ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Racial Change ◽  
Public And Private Sector ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Elected Office

This chapter describes a time of tremendous upheaval and transformation in the city. During the Civil War and Reconstruction, Washington was a “Yankee City” on the leading edge of racial change in America. Thousands of former slaves migrated to D.C., joining white Radicals and educated black leaders to drive an ambitious experiment in biracial democracy. Because Congress wielded exclusive control over the city, Washington became a testing ground for Reconstruction legislation, including freedmen’s relief, black men’s suffrage, and public education. Black men won the right to vote, black leaders won elected office citywide, black workers gained access to public and private sector jobs, black schools became national models, and city officials passed sweeping antidiscrimination laws. The nation’s capital, once a Southern bastion of slavery and the slave trade, was at the forefront of racial and political change.

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