Celebrating Women’s History Month At The Museum

Celebrating Women’s History Month at the Museum

March is Women’s History Month, and through the month, we’ll be looking to our nearly 150-year past, exciting present, and bright future to bring you stories of women in science here at the American Museum of Natural History. Today, we’re taking a look at a few of the women who help shaped the Museum in it’s early years. 

Pictured is herpetologist Mary Cynthia Dickerson, author of Moths and Butterflies (1901) and The Frog Book (1906). In 1909, Dickerson became one of four founding curators in the Museum’s Department of Herpetology and Ichthyology. Within 10 years, she laid the foundation for a standalone herpetology department, which formed under her direction in 1920.

Delia “Mickie” Akeley, wife of explorer and taxidermist Carl Akeley who conceived the Akeley Hall of African Mammals, was herself an adventurer and artist. She assisted Carl as he perfected a novel method of taxidermy, and collected specimens on several key expeditions to Africa. And it’s a good thing she did—on a trip in 1909, Delia saved Carl’s life after he was attacked by a bull elephant.

Curator of Micropaleontology Angelina Messina found beauty and wonder in some of the Museum’s tiniest specimens. She joined the staff in the 1930s, and with the help of Assistant Curator Eleanor Salmon, prepared catalogs of foraminifera—miniscule organisms that provide important markers to geologists and hold vital records of ancient climates within their fossilized chambers. 

Another trailblazer, anthropologist Margaret Mead, joined the Museum in 1926, at the age of 25, as an assistant curator. Two years later, she published her best-selling book Coming of Age in Samoa, which introduced readers to the value of looking carefully and open-mindedly at other cultures and is still taught in anthropology classrooms.

This March, we’ll be profiling women in science across the Museum, so make sure to follow along on the Museum’s social media channels: @AMNH on Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook and tumblr.