On June 20, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote Charles D. Walcott, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution concerning Roosevelt's proposed trip to Africa.
Roosevelt offered to take two naturalist-taxidermists selected by the United States National Museum (USNM) for the purpose of caring for specimens that might be acquired.
The offer was accepted and eventually three naturalists were chosen to accompany the expedition. Edgar Alexander Mearns was selected as head naturalist and bird-collector,
Edmund Heller was to care for the large mammals and John Alden Loring was to have charge of the small mammal collecting.
The party left New York March 23, 1909 and sailed for British East Africa. The route took them through the Azores, Gibraltar, Naples, Messina, the Suez Canal and Ismailya,
Aden and Italian Somaliland to Mombasa in British East Africa on April 21. From there, the expedition traveled by the Uganda Railway to Kapiti Plains where their safari awaited
them. The patty followed a route that took them to Nairobi, the vicinity of Mt. Kenja, the Loita Plains, Lake Victoria, Lake Albert and up the Nile to Khartoum. The expedition
broke up there on March 14, 1910.
The official photographer for the expedition was Roosevelt's son Kermit, although other members of the party also took a number of photographs, especially Edmund Heller.
Most of the photographs in this series are unidentified as to photographer. Major exceptions are those photographs that were used in Roosevelt's articles for Scribner's Magazine
and for which a credit line is given in the article.
Heller was to write up the descriptions of the mammals taken on the expedition for the Smithsonian Institution, but after a number of delays occasioned by Heller's trips
to Africa with Paul Rainey and to Peru for the National Geographic Society and Yale University, the work was turned over to Ned Hollister who wrote the 3-volume East African
Mammals in the United States National Museum as Bulletin 99 of the United States National Museum.
Within this series there are three groups of photographs. The first is an alphabetical file of mammal photographs. Negatives for these prints are either in negative books
A-E or in Photographic Services files. In the latter case the print will bear a file number by which the negative can be located. The following is a general guide to the contents
of those negative books. A detailed list can be found in each book.
Book A: Mammal photographs and negatives including zebra (1-6); rhinoceros (7-14); wart hog, filed under pigs (15-17); gazelle (18-20, 25-27, 97); topi, filed under damaliscus
(21-22); impala (23-24); hyaena (28-36); Jackal filed under canis (37-39); hippopotamus (40-47, 64-72); civet, filed under genetta (48-52, 98); civet ichneumia, filed under
mungo (53-57); primates (58-60, 94-96); hyrax (61-63, 87, 89, 100); waterbucks filed under kobus (73-74); hystrix (75-79); leopard (80-86, 88) and duiker, dikdik, filed under
madoqua (90-93, 99).
Book B: Mammal photographs and negatives including gazelle (1, 53, 56, 63-70); redunca (2-3); cheetah (4-5); felis, lion (6-9); giraffe (10-20, 58, 82-95, 100); rhinoceros
(21-25); cephalophus (26-27, 55); buffalo, filed under bos caffer (28-40); wildebeest, filed under gorgon (41-43, 51-52); warthog, filed under pig (44-46); kobus (47-49, 57);
gazelle, antelope and hartebeest, filed under bubalis (50, 54, 69); impala (59-61); bushbuck, filed under tragelaphus (62); eland filed under taurotragus (71-81); hyaena (96,
98); zebra (97) and jackal, filed under canis (99).
Book C: Mammal photographs and negatives including rhinoceros (1-17); zebra (18-21, 43-46); cheetah (22); lion, filed under felis (23-26, 47-48); mungo (27-29); jackal,
filed under canis (30-34, 80-85); gazelle, filed under gazelle (36) and tragela hus (35, 37); steinbok, filed under raphicerus (38); duiker, filed under cephalophus (39);
reedbuck, filed under redunca (40); hartebeest filed under bubalis (41, 52-53); wildebeest, filed under gorgon (42); bushbuck, filed under tragelaphus (49-51, 99); kobus,
filed under kobus 54-57, 62, 64-74) and redunca (63); oribi (58-61); giraffe (75-79); leopard (86-89) and hyaena (90-98, 100).
Book D: Mammal photographs and negatives including elephant (1-20, 64, 69-95, 98); monkey, filed under primates (21, 51-52); jackal, filed under canis (22-24); leopard
(25-27); bush pig (28-32); steinbok, filed under raphicerus (33, 37); oryx (34-36, 38, 63); gazelle (39-41, 53); buffalo, filed under bos caffer (42-44); eland, filed under
tarotragus (45-50, 99); topi, filed under damaliscus (54-56); hyaena (57-62); bushbuck, filed under tragelaphus (65-68); lion, filed under felis (96-97) and pedates (100).
Book E: Mammal photographs and negatives including kobus (1-15); rhinoceros (16-50, 87-89, 93); leopard (51-57); bushbuck, filed under tragela hus (58-60); hartebeest,
filed under bubalis (61-64); roan, filed under kobus (65-71); hippopotamus (72-78, 85-86); giraffe (79-84); zebra (90, 100); lion, filed under felis (91, 94-96), topi, filed
under damaliscus (92); lycaon (97-98) and sewal cat (99).
Negatives and prints missing: B - 4, 23a; C - 97, 100; D - 63, 64; E - 34, 47, 73-74, 77, 91
The second group includes those photographs whose negatives are not found in any of the negative books or which have no negatives. Included in this category are prints
of mammals not in the alphabetical file, other animal life, flora, photographs taken en route from New York to Mombasa, localities, activities and African peoples along the
expedition route and some of the photographs used in the Scribner's Magazine articles. Where negatives are available, their location is noted in the folder list.
The final group of photographs is a file of prints whose negatives are found in negative books, F-G and K-M or in Matographic Services files. The prints are arranged in
the order in which the negatives are arranged in the books and a general list of the contents follows. Again, a detailed list is available in each book.
Books F-G: Photographs and negatives of various subjects including flora, bird life, reptiles and lion hunt.
Books K-M: Photographs and negatives of various subjects including animals; camps and stations; participants on the expedition including Theodore Roosevelt, Sir Alfred
Pease, Mr. and Mrs. Percival, porters, guides and gun boys; African tribes met along the way including the Kikuyu, Shilluck and Meru and localities along the expedition route
including Mombasa, Kapiti Station, Londiani, Simba, Kibweza, Nairobi, Kivaheri, Nijeri, Naivasha, Bondoni, Mount Kenia, Kenya Lake, Meru, Sotik, Hoima, Kilima Kui, Loita Plains,
Nyeri, Guas Ngishu, Entebbe, Uganda, Lado Enclave, Mongalla, Kikandwo, Kisimbiri, Kiiabe Station, Butiaba, Wadelai and the Nile River.
These papers primarily contain photographs, journals, maps, manuscripts, postcards, and related materials concerning Heller's collecting activities from 1908 to 1917.
There are also some personal photographs and material as well as photographs taken by Heller at the National Zoological Park of personnel and animals.
Historical Note:
Edmund Heller was born in Freeport, Illinois on May 21, 1875. When he was thirteen, he moved with his parents to Riverside, California, which he thereafter considered
his home. As a boy, he spent much time collecting birds and their eggs in the area near Riverside. He was joined in this collecting by Harvey M. Hall, later a noted botanist.
Heller entered Stanford University in 1896 and received his A.B. in 1901. An opportunity arose for Heller to collect on the Galapagos Islands during the Hopkins-Stanford
Expedition in 1898, and together with Robert E. Snodgrass, Heller spent 7 months on the islands. In 1900, the United States Biological Survey employed Heller as assistant
to Wilfred Hudson Osgood in his Alaskan investigations.
Following his graduation, Heller joined the Field Columbian Museum as western field collector and worked in California, Oregon, Lower California, Mexico and Guatemala.
In 1907, Heller accompanied Carl Ethan Akeley on the Field Museum's African expedition.
Upon his return, Heller was appointed curator of mammals at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) of the University of California. While with the MVZ, Heller participated
in the 1908 Alexander Alaskan expedition and made the report on the mammals collected.
Heller spent the years 1909-1912 with the Smithsonian-Roosevelt and the Rainey African Expeditions. A more detailed account of these expeditions can be found in the introduction
to Series 3 and 4.
In 1914, the United States Biological Survey conducted field investigations in Canada to secure information concerning the habits and distribution of large game mammals.
Heller accompanied the Lincoln Ellsworth expedition to the Dease River-Telegraph Creek area of British Columbia and later to Alberta.
The National Geographic Society and Yale University jointly sponsored an expedition to Peru in 1915 to explore newly discovered ruins of an Incan civilization at Machu
Picchu, northwest of Cuzco. Specialists in various fields were chosen to accompany the party. Heller, as expedition naturalist, supervised the collecting of 891 mammal specimens,
695 birds, about 200 fishes and several tanks of reptiles and amphibians.
In 1916, Heller joined Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews on the American Museum of Natural History Expedition to China. A more detailed summary of this expedition
can be found in the introduction to Series 7.
When Paul J. Rainey, with whom Heller had traveled to Africa, was appointed official photographer for the Czech army in Siberia, he invited Heller to accompany him to Russia.
From the summer of 1918 until the end of World War I, they traveled by rail across Siberia to the Ural Mountains and back to their starting point.
In 1919, Heller took charge of the Smithsonian Cape-to-Cairo Expedition. Upon his return, he worked briefly for the Roosevelt Wild Life Experiment Station making a field
study of large game animals in Yellowstone National Park. He was then appointed assistant curator of mammals at the Field Museum under Wilfred Hudson Osgood. During his six
years in that position, Heller made trips to Peru in 1922-1923 and to Africa from 1923-1926.
Heller's trip to Africa was his last collecting effort. After his return, he resigned his position at the Field Museum and became director of the Milwaukee Zoological Garden,
a position that he held from 1928 to 1935. From 1935 until his death in 1939, Heller was director of the Fleishhacker Zoo in San Francisco.
337.16 cu. ft. (672 document boxes) (116 microfilm reels)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Black-and-white photographs
Manuscripts
Date:
1877-1975
Descriptive Entry:
Records prior to 1907 consist mostly of incoming correspondence (outgoing correspondence can be found in record unit 112). After 1907 the records contain both incoming
and outgoing correspondence. Much of the material consists of routine public inquiries. In addition, these records document museum accessions and Smithsonian expeditions and
field trips. Other topics include Smithsonian participation in expositions, operation of certain museum divisions, and miscellaneous subjects. Accession records include: data
on the Herber R. Bishop jade collection; William Joseph Hammer collection of incandescent lamps, 1905; Robert Ward collection of ferns, 1905-1906; transfer of the United States
Patent Office collections to the United States National Museum, 1906-1909; Hubert G. Squires collection of Chinese porcelain; Hippisley collection of Chinese porcelain, 1909-1912;
collections from the Arizona fossil forest; E. A. Wakefield collection of Basuto pottery; James D. S. Chalmers collection of minerals; McIntire collection of historical objects;
Charles Fuller Baker collection from the Galapagos Islands; United States National Museum collection of postage stamps; Isaac Lea collection of gems and mollusks; George D.
Seymour collection of clocks; Joseph Priestley collection of scientific apparatus; Robert C. Hall ethnological collection; Dwight J. Partello bequest; John B. Bernadou bequest;
Bernard Rogan Ross ethnological collections; Mrs. James W. Pinchot collection of textiles; Richard Mansfield collection of theatrical costumes; B. F. Chandler herbarium; Morris
Loeb collection of chemical compounds; Donn collection of Lincoln relics; Frank S. Collins herbarium and library; Oldroyd collection of Lincoln relics; Thomas Jefferson writing
desk; Richard E. Byrd airplane "Josephine Ford"; Walter W. Holmes fossil bird bone collection; Brush-Swan electrical apparatus collection; collection of first ladies' gowns
in the United States National Museum; Virgil Michael Brand coin collection; Charles Russell Orcutt natural history collections; Isobel H. Lenman collection of Old World archaeology;
American period costume collection in the United States National Museum; Charles A. Lindbergh collection of personal memorabilia; Nordenskold Mesa Verde collection; Joseph
Nelson Rose collection of cacti; Osborne collection of Guatemalan textiles; United States National Museum collection of building stones; the Holt collection of birds from
South America, 1936-1940; the Annie H. Hegeman lace and textile collection; the United States National Museum's collection of Jean Leon Gerome Ferris paintings; James Townsend
Russell anthropological collection; the Harvey Harlow Nininger meteorite collection; the Hope diamond.
Records related to Smithsonian expeditions and field work include: Mexican-United States Boundary Commission; expeditions and collecting in the Philippine Islands, 1903-1905;
University of Pennsylvania expedition to Babylonia, 1887-1888; Metropolitan Museum of Art Expedition to Egypt, 1909; Arthur deC. Sowerby collecting trips to China, 1909-1936;
Owen Bryant-William Palmer expedition to Java, 1905-1910; Smithsonian-Roosevelt African expedition, 1909; Rainey African expedition, 1911; Smithsonian-Harvard expedition to
Altai Mountains, Siberia, 1912; National Geographic Society-Yale University expedition to Peru, 1915; Smithsonian-Universal Film Manufacturing Company African Expedition,
1920; David C. Graham collecting work in China, 1925-1940; Hugh McCormick Smith collecting work in Siam; Marsh-Darien expedition, 1924; Smithsonian biological survey of the
Panama Canal Zone, 1911-1912; Ellsworth Paine Killip collecting work in Europe, 1935, and Venezuela, 1943-1944; Henry Bascom Collins, Jr., field work in Mississippi and Louisiana,
1938; Herbert Girton Deignan's collecting work in Siam, 1936-1937; the Johnson-Smithsonian Deep Sea Expedition to the West Indies, 1933; Stanley John's collecting work in
the British West Indies, 1935-1938; Charles W. Gilmore and Frank H. H. Roberts collecting work in Arizona, 1937; the National Geographic Society-Smithsonian Institution Archeological
Expedition to Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1938-1939; Matthew William Stirling's field work in Mexico, 1940-1946; the National Geographic Society-University of Virginia Expedition to
the South Pacific Islands, 1939; Walter W. Taylor, Jr.'s, archeological field work in Mexico, 1940-1945; Floyd A. McClure's bamboo investigations in Mexico and Central and
South America, 1943-1944; Henri Pittier's botanical field work in Venezuela, 1944-1946; Philip Hershkovitz field work in Colombia, 1946-1950; the Finn Ronne Antarctic Research
Expedition, 1946-1948; Brina Kessel field work in Alaska, 1950; Clifford Evans, Jr., field work in Ecuador, 1954-1958; Marshall T. Newman field work in Peru, 1955-1957; James
Paul Chapin collecting work in Africa, 1957; Ralph S. Solecki field work in Iraq, 1954-1959.
Records that document Smithsonian involvement in expositions include: South Carolina and West Indian Exposition, Charleston, 1902; Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis,
1904; Jamestown (Virginia) Tercentenary Exposition, 1907; International Photographic Exposition, Dresden, 1909; World's Columbian Exposition, 1896; Panama-California Exposition,
San Diego, 1915; Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; International Silk Exposition, New York, 1921; Pageant of Progress Exposition, Chicago, 1922;
Sesquicentennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1926; Progress Exposition, New Haven, 1926; International Exposition, Seville, Spain, 1927; Century of Progress Exposition, Chicago,
1931; Great Lakes Exposition, Cleveland, 1936; New York World's Fair, 1939; Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, 1939; Texas Centennial Exposition, Dallas,
1936; Greater Texas and Pan American Exposition, 1937; Port-au-Prince Bicentennial Exposition, Haiti, 1949.
Records related to the origin or operation of subdivisions of the United States National Museum include: development of the Division of Textiles; history of the National
Herbarium, 1886-1908; development of the Division of Medicine; development of the Division of Mineral Technology, 1914; Traveling Exhibit Service; Division of Graphic Arts;
Division of Numismatics.
Miscellaneous topics covered by these records include: establishment of Bermuda Biological Station, 1900-1904; United States military operations against insurgents in the
Philippine Islands, 1904; the Lincoln Memorial Commission, 1913; proposed construction of a George Washington Memorial; National Museum involvement in search for the Port
Orford meteorite; exhibition of the "Spirit of St. Louis"; National Museum exhibition of objects from World War I; use of the National Museum Building by the Bureau of War
Risk Insurance in World War I; proposed creation of a National Museum of Engineering and Industry under Smithsonian control; Samuel P. Langley's aerodrome experiments; Smithsonian
activities during World War II, particularly the evacuation of United States National Museum collections from Washington; A. Remington Kellogg's work on the Governmental Advisory
Committee on Oceanography and the International Whaling Commission; United States National Museum correspondence with Phineas T. Barnum, 1882-1891; Washington A. Roebling's
mineral collections.
Most of the correspondence is directed to the officer in immediate charge of the United States National Museum (Richard Rathbun, 1897-1918; William deC. Ravenel, 1918-1925;
Alexander Wetmore, 1925-1948; A. Remington Kellogg, 1948-1962) with lesser amounts to John Enos Graf, who was appointed Associate Director, United States National Museum,
in 1931. Also, a smaller amount of correspondence is addressed to the Secretary of the Smithsonian (Spencer F. Baird, 1878-1887; Samuel P. Langley, 1887-1906; Charles D. Walcott,
1907-1927; Charles G. Abbot, 1928-1944; Alexander Wetmore, 1944-1952; Leonard Carmichael, 1953-1964) and to various museum curators. This correspondence was usually referred
to the chief administrator of the United States National Museum for response.
Historical Note:
In 1902 the Museum's Division of Correspondence and Documents instituted a numeric filing system for the general correspondence of the United States National Museum.
That correspondence, as found in this record unit, comprises most of the central administrative files of the Museum. Prior to 1902, museum correspondence had been filed alphabetically
by correspondent (see record unit 189). Beginning in 1862 the accession records of the National Museum had been filed using a numeric system similar to that later adopted
for correspondence. Finally in 1924 the two numbering systems were integrated.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
