The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Bushbaby, Otolemur crassicaudatus, an African primate collected by the Rev. Aldin Grout near his Zulu Mission in South Africa in the 1840s, ANSP Mammalogy Coll. 1267 (all photos by Greg Cowper, courtesy Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University)

Among the 18 million specimens in the oldest natural history museum in the United States are contributions from missionaries and ministers who practiced science alongside their faith. To examine this history, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia is hosting The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections.

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Rev. Henry Christopher McCook sitting near one of his beloved anthills in the mid-1870s, Altoona, Pennsylvania, ANSP Archives Coll. 478 (click to enlarge)

“It’s important to understand that the Academy’s biological collections, with added support from the library and archives, can come together to tell the story of life on Earth through the people whose passion for natural history, including religious thinkers, contributed to it,” Greg Cowper, the exhibition’s curator, told Hyperallergic. An entomologist at the Academy, Cowper has an ongoing curiosity cabinet of insects gathered at Eastern State Penitentiary; the collection, though unrelated to this exhibition, demonstrates an interest in connecting people to the natural world in unexpected ways.

With specimens like a fluffy bushbaby collected by the Rev. Aldin Grout in South Africa in the 1840s and a jar of long-billed halfbeak fish found by the Rev. Joseph Clemens in 1923 in the Philippines, as well as archival material, the exhibit visualizes the influence of “clergy naturalists” back to the institution’s founding in 1812. “There certainly would have been an Academy without the clergy, but their effort enriches and underscores the Academy’s mission to expand knowledge of nature through discovery and stewardship of the environment,” Cowper explained.

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Gorilla skull, Gorilla gorilla, collected by Presbyterian Missionary Rev. Robert H. Nassau in the 1860s in Gaboon, West Africa, ANSP Mammalogy Coll. 3145

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Eastern Hercules Beetle, Dynastes tityus, listed in Lutheran Minister Friedrich Valentin Melsheimer’s ‘A Catalogue of Insects of Pennsylvania’ (1806), the first book on insects in the New World

Installed in the museum’s Library Gallery, The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections coincided with the recent visit of Pope Francis to Philadelphia. Cowper noted that the Pope reaffirmed the link between the church and the environment with his encyclical on climate change, in which he discussed the interconnectedness of all creatures.

The exhibition similarly focuses on where science and religion intersect, rather than the tension between them (which certainly remains an issue). “The founders were explicit in their desire to keep scientific pursuit unencumbered by religion and politics,” Cowper said. “But it wasn’t religious belief, per se; rather, ‘a mind totally free from all religious and political prejudice, preventions and animosities,’ as stated in the Academy’s founding document of 1812.”

Among the 14 clergy highlighted in the show is the Rev. Henry Christopher McCook, a 19th-century Presbyterian minister and vice president of the Academy who had a fondness for spiders and was an expert on their webs; a letter in which he idly sketched some of their structures is on display. There’s also the Lutheran minister Rev. John Bachman, a naturalist who worked with John James Audubon; one of his now extinct Bachman’s warblers is on view. And then there’s Nicéforo María Antoine Rouhaire, who lived from 1888 to 1908 and was an avid collector on his missions to Colombia. His name endures through several species, like the Bolitoglossa nicefori salamander.

Many people recall that Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel researched pea plant genetics in the 19th century, but the clergy’s experimentation in natural science extends over centuries of religion. It’s not always a war between the two.

Still life from The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Aug. 31 – Oct. 23. Clockwise from top: Straight-billed Woodcreeper (Xiphorhynchus picus saturatior) collected by Brother Niceforo Maria in Colombia, 1944; the largest land snail in the Americas, Megalobulimus popelairianus, also collected by Brother Niceforo Maria in Peru in the early 1900s; Eastern Hercules Beetle, (Dynastes tityus) listed on the first page of the first book on insects written in the Americas, A Catalogue of Insects of Pennsylvania, by The Reverend Frederik Valentine Melsheimer, 1806, Minister of the Gospel; Galago (Otolemur crassicaudatus), an African primate collected by The Reverend Aldin Grout near his Zulu Mission in South Africa, ca. 1840s; and Bog Turtle (Clemmys muhlenbergii), named in honor of its discoverer, the Lutheran minister Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg in 1801. Credit: G.W. Cowper/ANS

‘The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections’ at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Bushbaby, Otolemur crassicaudatus, an African primate collected by the Rev. Aldin Grout near his Zulu Mission in South Africa in the 1840s, ANSP Mammalogy Coll. 1267

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Watercolor of anthills by Rev. Henry Christopher McCook (1876), Altoona, Pennsylvania, ANSP Archives Coll. 478

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Face of letter to Rev. H.C. McCook, D.D. from E.K. Medara (July 31, 1891), ANSP Archives Coll. 478

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Reverse of letter from Rev. Henry Christopher McCook to E.K. Medara showing “Structures Spiders Build” sketched in pencil (July 31, 1891), ANSP Archives Coll. 478

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

‘Fungorum Nieskiensium Icones, Vol. 1’ (1805), by Moravian Bishop Lewis David von Schweinitz, “Father of American Mycology,” ANSP Archives Coll. 437

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

Long Billed Half Beak, Hemiramphus georgii, collected by Rev. Joseph Clemens in the Phillipines in 1923. ANSP Ichthyology Coll. 55963

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections

St. Francis of Assisi garden statue drying after being epoxied back together by Academy paleontological preparator Fred Mullison

The Clergy and the Academy’s Collections continues at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia) through October 30. 

Allison C. Meier is a former staff writer for Hyperallergic. Originally from Oklahoma, she has been covering visual culture and overlooked history for print and online media since 2006. She moonlights...