The Academy is celebrating American Archives Month, an annual, month-long observance every October to raise public awareness of the value of archives and archivists. This year, we’re shining a light on some of the recent acquisitions that further the Library & Archives’ mission to preserve rare and unique materials that are representative of diverse voices and perspectives in the field of the natural and environmental sciences.
A painting of a Glossy Ibis was donated to the Academy’s Archives in January 2024 by visual artist and scientific illustrator, Jane Kim. Kim produced the painting during the summer of 2023 as part of the Avian Artist-In-Residency during the Academy’s exhibition, Illuminating Birds. The painting is a study done in preparation for a mural commissioned by the Academy in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia and the City of Philadelphia to be installed in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood. A copy of The Wall of Birds: One Planet, 243 Families, 375 Million Years: An Artistic Journey (2018) authored by Jane Kim was also recently acquired for the Academy’s Reference Library.
Photographs of botanical collecting in Mexico were donated in January 2024 to the Archives by a descendant of Ida K. Langman (1904–1991), botanist, bibliographer and Academy educator. Langman, an immigrant from the Ukraine, began collecting plants in Monroe County, Pennsylvania in the 1930s and later made two expeditions to Mexico between 1939 and 1949 to collect plants and conduct bibliographic work. The photographs show Langman, and others engaged in botanical field work in Mexico. These photographs compliment the extensive correspondence to Langman already held in the Archives from contemporary botanists, including Helia Bravo Hollis, Margery C. Carlson, Joseph Ewan, Maximino Martínez, Faustino Miranda González, Helen O’Gorman and Jerzy Rzedowski Rotter.
Zines on plastics pollution and nature observation were purchased for the Archives at the annual printPHILLY! Fair held in April 2024 at the now closed University of the Arts. Planet Plastic by Wisconsin based artist Jesse Solberg is a six-page zine with a cover made of recycled paper pulp. what i found in the forest: a poem with photographs by Philadelphia based artist and writer Abigail Guidry of Guidry Press is a 36-page mini poetry and photography inkjet-printed zine (depicted in the featured image). These are the first two zines to be included in the Archives as part of a new initiative to collect and preserve zines on topics such as biodiversity and extinction, climate change, and environmental conservation, particularly those produced by zinesters in the Greater Philadelphia region.
Letters discussing gall wasps were donated in August 2024 to the Archives by descendants of Homer Franklin Bassett (1826–1902). A librarian by trade, Bassett studied North American gall wasps, insects that cause swelling (galls) in the plants they feed on and contributed frequently to scientific journals. Bassett identified 124 type species of Cynipdae held in the Academy’s Entomology Collection. The recently acquired correspondence consists of approximately 50 letters, most of them received by Bassett from contemporary entomologists which serve as a complement to the existing collection of outgoing correspondence, writings and other materials. Together, these records provide insight into the study of cynipid wasps by Bassett and others, observations of the natural world, particularly in and around Waterbury Connecticut, as well as library practices and classification in the late nineteenth century.
Celebrate your love of archives and preservation during Archives Month with events all across the the city.
You can support the Academy’s research efforts to understand the natural world and inspire everyone to care for it by becoming a member or donating to our Library & Archives.
Tú también puedes apoyar los proyectos de investigación de la Academia, y así ayudar a entender y proteger la riqueza natural convirtiéndote en miembro o haciendo una donación a nuestras la Biblioteca.