These records are the official minutes of the Board. They are compiled at the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian, who is also secretary to the Board, after
approval by the Regents' Executive Committee and by the Regents themselves. The minutes are edited, not a verbatim account of proceedings. For reasons unknown, there are no
manuscript minutes for the period from 1857 through 1890; and researchers must rely on printed minutes published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution instead.
Minutes are transferred regularly from the Secretary's Office to the Archives. Minutes less than 15 years old are closed to researchers. Indexes exist for the period from
1907 to 1946 and can be useful.
Historical Note:
The Smithsonian Institution was created by authority of an Act of Congress approved August 10, 1846. The Act entrusted direction of the Smithsonian to a body called
the Establishment, composed of the President; the Vice President; the Chief Justice of the United States; the secretaries of State, War, Navy, Interior, and Agriculture; the
Attorney General; and the Postmaster General. In fact, however, the Establishment last met in 1877, and control of the Smithsonian has always been exercised by its Board of
Regents. The membership of the Regents consists of the Vice President and the Chief Justice of the United States; three members each of the Senate and House of Representatives;
two citizens of the District of Columbia; and seven citizens of the several states, no two from the same state. (Prior to 1970 the category of Citizen Regents not residents
of Washington consisted of four members). By custom the Chief Justice is Chancellor. The office was at first held by the Vice President. However, when Millard Fillmore succeeded
to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in 1851, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was chosen in his stead. The office has always been filled by the Chief Justice
since that time.
The Regents of the Smithsonian have included distinguished Americans from many walks of life. Ex officio members (Vice President) have been: Spiro T. Agnew, Chester A.
Arthur, Allen W. Barkley, John C. Breckenridge, George Bush, Schuyler Colfax, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Curtis, George M. Dallas, Charles G. Dawes, Charles W. Fairbanks, Millard
Fillmore, Gerald R. Ford, John N. Garner, Hannibal Hamlin, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret A. Hobart, Hubert H. Humphrey, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, William R. King, Thomas
R. Marshall, Walter F. Mondale, Levi P. Morton, Richard M. Nixon, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt, James S. Sherman, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Henry A.
Wallace, William A. Wheeler, Henry Wilson.
Ex officio members (Chief Justice) have been: Roger B. Taney, Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Clifford, Morrison R. Waite, Samuel F. Miller, Melville W. Fuller, Edward D. White,
William Howard Taft, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan F. Stone, Fred M. Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger.
Regents on the part of the Senate have been: Clinton P. Anderson, Newton Booth, Sidney Breese, Lewis Cass, Robert Milledge Charlton, Bennet Champ Clark, Francis M. Cockrell,
Shelby Moore Cullom, Garrett Davis, Jefferson Davis, George Franklin Edmunds, George Evans, Edwin J. Garn, Walter F. George, Barry Goldwater, George Gray, Hannibal Hamlin,
Nathaniel Peter Hill, George Frisbie Hoar, Henry French Hollis, Henry M. Jackson, William Lindsay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Medill McCormick, James Murray Mason, Samuel Bell Maxey,
Robert B. Morgan, Frank E. Moss, Claiborne Pell, George Wharton Pepper, David A. Reed, Leverett Saltonstall, Hugh Scott, Alexander H. Smith, Robert A. Taft, Lyman Trumbull,
Wallace H. White, Jr., Robert Enoch Withers.
Regents on the part of the House of Representatives have included: Edward P. Boland, Frank T. Bow, William Campbell Breckenridge, Overton Brooks, Benjamin Butterworth,
Clarence Cannon, Lucius Cartrell, Hiester Clymer, William Colcock, William P. Cole, Jr., Maurice Connolly, Silvio O. Conte, Edward E. Cox, Edward H. Crump, John Dalzell, Nathaniel
Deering, Hugh A. Dinsmore, William English, John Farnsworth, Scott Ferris, Graham Fitch, James Garfield, Charles L. Gifford, T. Alan Goldsborough, Frank L. Greene, Gerry Hazleton,
Benjamin Hill, Henry Hilliard, Ebenezer Hoar, William Hough, William M. Howard, Albert Johnson, Leroy Johnson, Joseph Johnston, Michael Kirwan, James T. Lloyd, Robert Luce,
Robert McClelland, Samuel K. McConnell, Jr., George H. Mahon, George McCrary, Edward McPherson, James R. Mann, George Perkins Marsh, Norman Y. Mineta, A. J. Monteague, R.
Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton, Robert Dale Owen, James Patterson, William Phelps, Luke Poland, John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn, B. Carroll Reece, Ernest W. Roberts, Otho Robards
Singleton, Frank Thompson, Jr., John M. Vorys, Hiram Warner, Joseph Wheeler.
Citizen Regents have been: David C. Acheson, Louis Agassiz, James B. Angell, Anne L. Armstrong, William Backhouse Astor, J. Paul Austin, Alexander Dallas Bache, George
Edmund Badger, George Bancroft, Alexander Graham Bell, James Gabriel Berrett, John McPherson Berrien, Robert W. Bingham, Sayles Jenks Bowen, William G. Bowen, Robert S. Brookings,
John Nicholas Brown, William A. M. Burden, Vannevar Bush, Charles F. Choate, Jr., Rufus Choate, Arthur H. Compton, Henry David Cooke, Henry Coppee, Samuel Sullivan Cox, Edward
H. Crump, James Dwight Dana, Harvey N. Davis, William Lewis Dayton, Everette Lee Degolyer, Richard Delafield, Frederic A. Delano, Charles Devens, Matthew Gault Emery, Cornelius
Conway Felton, Robert V. Fleming, Murray Gell-Mann, Robert F. Goheen, Asa Gray, George Gray, Crawford Hallock Greenwalt, Nancy Hanks, Caryl Parker Haskins, Gideon Hawley,
John B. Henderson, John B. Henderson, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Gardner Greene Hubbard, Charles Evans Hughes, Carlisle H. Humelsine, Jerome C. Hunsaker, William Preston
Johnston, Irwin B. Laughlin, Walter Lenox, Augustus P. Loring, John Maclean, William Beans Magruder, John Walker Maury, Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, John C. Merriam, R. Walton
Moore, Roland S. Morris, Dwight W. Morrow, Richard Olney, Peter Parker, Noah Porter, William Campbell Preston, Owen Josephus Roberts, Richard Rush, William Winston Seaton,
Alexander Roby Shepherd, William Tecumseh Sherman, Otho Robards Singleton, Joseph Gilbert Totten, John Thomas Towers, Frederic C. Walcott, Richard Wallach, Thomas J. Watson,
Jr., James E. Webb, James Clarke Welling, Andrew Dickson White, Henry White, Theodore Dwight Woolsey.
These records document the history and development of the American Society of Mammalogists from the time of its inception through the year 1994. The collection includes
a number of early documents, some in the handwriting of the originators, and correspondence, minutes, reports, financial records, audiocassettes, photographs, and other memorabilia
from the files of most of the officers and many of the committees serving during 1919-1994. A commemorative wood-cased album contains photographs of all the presidents of
the society, and another contains photos of honorary members (see Box 159).
A history of the Society, 75 Years of Mammalogy, containing chapters contributed by a number of authors and edited by James N. Layne, was published in 1994. (Papers
connected with three of the book's chapters are included in Box 150, Folders 1-3). A less formal and perhaps more personal description of the early days of the Society was
written by Hartley H. T. Jackson in 1968 and sent to Donald Hoffmeister, then Society historian. This remarkable document, in Jackson's own hand, is preserved in the collection
(see Box 143, Folder 6) along with a number of other writings by Jackson and other early members.
Historical Note:
The American Society of Mammalogists was formally established at an organizational meeting held in the new U.S. National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural
History), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 3-4, 1919. The meeting had been announced by a one-page circular mailed in February 1919 to several thousand prospective
members and by an advertisement in Science magazine. (See Box 62, Folder 1, Box 143, Folders 1 and 2, and Box 144, Folder 2 for minutes and reports of the organizational
meeting.) It was an outgrowth of the recommendations of an ad hoc committee established originally by several members of the U.S. Biological Survey, which at the time was
housed in the National Museum in Washington, D.C. The organizational committee consisted of Hartley H. T. Jackson, U.S. Biological Survey, chairman; Walter P. Taylor, U.S.
Biological Survey, secretary; Glover M. Allen, Boston Society of Natural History; Joseph A. Allen, American Museum of Natural History; Joseph Grinnell, University of California;
Ned Hollister, U.S. National Zoological Park; Arthur H. Howell, U. S. Biological Survey; Wilfred H. Osgood, Field Museum of Natural History; Edward A. Preble, U.S. Biological
Survey; and Witmer Stone, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Other staff members of the U.S. Biological Survey who contributed to the discussions of the committee
included Vernon Bailey, A. K. Fisher, William H. Cheesman, and E. W. Nelson. Sixty persons signed the Register of Attendance at the organizational meeting (see Box 143, Folder
2), but the list of charter members of the society includes approximately 400 names (see Box 62, Folder 2).
The by-laws (see Box 143, Folder 4) and rules of the new society were based on the constitutions and by-laws of the American Ornithologists Union, the American Society
of Naturalists, the Wisconsin Natural History Society, the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, and the Biological Society of Washington. The Society was incorporated in the District
of Columbia on April 29, 1920, and the purpose of the Society is spelled out as "the promotion of the study of mammalogy by the publication of a serial and other publications,
by aiding research, and by engaging in such other activities as may be deemed expedient." (See Box 143, Folder 3.) Signatories to the Articles of Incorporation were C. Hart
Merriam, E. W. Nelson, Vernon Bailey, Hartley H. T. Jackson, Clarence R. Shoemaker, Charles W. Richmond, and Victor J. Evans. The Society publishes the Journal of Mammalogy
quarterly and a number of miscellaneous publications and several series on a less regular basis.
28.5 cu. ft. (57 document boxes) (oversize materials)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Audiotapes
Scrapbooks
Date:
1890-1992
Introduction:
This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
Descriptive Entry:
These records document the history and development of the American Society of Zoologists from its inception in 1903 through 1992. The collection begins with scrapbook
entries from its predecessor organization, the American Society of Morphologists, dating back to 1890 and includes a number of early documents and correspondence, minutes,
reports, financial records, audiocassettes, photos, and other memorabilia from the files of many of the officers and committees serving through 1992.
Historical Note:
The beginnings of the American Society of Zoologists (ASZ) date from the decade of the 1880s, the period in the history of American science during which many of today's
major scientific societies were formed. Closely associated with the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), which was founded in 1883, and the American Physiological Society
(APS), which emerged in 1887, most of the early founders of ASZ belonged to one or both of these organizations. Desiring a new society that emphasized the importance of laboratory-based
research in natural history, these individuals gathered in Boston in 1890 to establish the American Morphological Society during the same December week the ASN and APS met
(always in conjunction with the leading scientific society in the United States, the American Association for the Advancement of Science). In fact, all these societies maintained
a very close relationship throughout the end of the nineteenth century; presidents of one society were often subsequently elected to the same office in another society, members
of one society were members of the other societies, and the American Naturalist served as the official journal of both the ASN and the morphologists.
During the early years of the twentieth century, American biologists struggled to provide a more precise definition for their discipline, especially as it experienced the
transformation typical of developing professions. In particular, biology became a generic category under which a number of subspecialties were clustered. As a result, the
morphologists decided to adopt a new societal name, suggested by Charles O. Whitman and C. B. Davenport, that described the actual orientation of the society's members to
the core of American biology. Accordingly, in 1903 the official name became the American Society of Zoologists, emphasizing the group's interest in whole animal biology. Organizationally,
for the next ten years ASZ was split into two regional groups that functioned independently, the eastern and central group. But in 1914, the two branches officially merged
to form the present national American Society of Zoologists. The by-laws and rules of the new society were based on the constitutions and by-laws of the American Morphological
Society, the ASN, and the APS.
At about the same time that ASZ became a truly national organization through the merger of the two regional branches, the leadership of the society began to confront the
perceived need to make ASZ a "federation" for biologists. Hence, by the second decade of the twentieth century the annual meeting featured papers divided according to distinct
specialty areas, including ecology and behavior (lumped together), comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, and genetics. The latter area, genetics, created some tension
between ASZ and ASN, largely over the issue of whether genetics belonged in a society in which all of biology was a focus, i.e., animals and plants (the position of the naturalists)
or whether the zoologists could claim a genetic specialty area. The debate was interrupted by the experience of science in World War 1, which required that such internecine
arguments be set aside in favor of greater societal cooperation directed toward the war effort. By the early 1920s, consequently, such difficulties were forgotten and ASZ
emerged from the war years as the nation's truly generalist biological society. Annual meetings featured papers collected under separate sections of genetics, ecology, comparative
anatomy, embryology, cytology, comparative physiology, protozoology, and endocrinology.
But a recurring theme in the history of the ASZ has been the relationship between the Society and areas of biology that represent new horizons in the biological sciences.
In the 1930s, the focus again was on genetics, especially as this new specialty area came to dominate the biological sciences. When the Genetics Society of America (GSA) was
formed in 1932, the ASZ was threatened with the prospect of losing animal geneticists to a new organization that emphasized this exciting area. To counter this potential loss,
the Society began to sponsor symposia at its annual meeting with topics in genetics that featured many of the prominent members from GSA. Such a cooperative strategy culminated
in a joint meeting of ASZ with GSA in 1938. Again, another World War interrupted ASZ's organizational problems, but the war did not hide the society's need to address its
role vis-a-vis new directions in American zoology.
World War II disrupted much of the normal activities of science in the United States, even leading to the cancellation of the annual ASZ meeting in 1942 and 1943. But following
the war, the leaders of the society expressed their concern with the lack of a clear organizational structure for ASZ that would enable it to serve effectively as the umbrella
organization for American biologists. Noting that the physics community in the United States emerged from the war as a unified discipline, several of these individuals gathered
with their colleagues who were members of botany, genetics, and ecology societies to form the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) in 1948. Aided in part by the
encouragement of the National Academy of Sciences, the new organization took the pressure from ASZ by serving as the national coordinating society for the many specialty biological
societies in the United States. A few years later, the new National Science Foundation awarded ASZ with a two-year grant "to study the role of the Society in present-day science,"
a study that enabled the society to focus on fulfilling the needs of the nation's animal biologists. This study resulted in the creation of the divisional organization of
ASZ, an arrangement that finally equipped the society with a mechanism to meet the diverse interests of the zoological community and to respond to changing directions and
research perspectives in zoology. By the end of the 1950s, ASZ became organized into divisions of Developmental Biology, Comparative Endocrinology, Comparative Physiology,
and Animal Behavior; Invertebrate Zoology and Vertebrate Morphology were added by 1962.
The divisional structure of ASZ was a prescient one. From the 1960s to the present time, several new divisions have been added to the Society, other divisions have modified
their name to reflect changes within zoology, and affiliate societies have been attracted to ASZ through association with its divisions. Consequently, not only did ASZ prevent
the splintering that it had experienced early in the century, but it also experienced impressive growth in membership. At about the same time it developed the divisional structure,
ASZ illustrated another characteristic of mature scientific societies: it began its own journal. The idea for ASZ's journal emerged from the same examination of the Society's
future that resulted in its divisional structure. The initial effort appeared in 1960 as a newsletter, but almost immediately Emil Witschi, ASZ's president at the time, recommended
the publication of a journal, and the American Zoologist was established at the beginning of 1961. P. Sears Crowell was the first editor and contributed substantially
to forming the journal into a prominent scientific publication. The result of all these changes was the creation of an interdisciplinary society that served as an umbrella
organization for more than just American zoologists. In fact, the additions of divisions in ecology and history and philosophy of biology and the inclusion of affiliate societies,
such as the American Microscopical Society, led many ASZ leaders in the early 1980s to consider a more overt recognition for the inclusiveness of the Society. As a result,
when the Society selected 1989 as its centennial year, its leadership also decided to officially recognize the expanding arena of ASZ's influence by adopting the official
modifier, "Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology."
At the present time, the Society has continued to expand its focus, especially to meet the needs of biologists in the twenty-first century. Part of this expansion has been
due to the natural progression of the Society's functions, many of which are carried out through ASZ's Executive Office. This office, initiated by Aubrey Gorbman, dated from
1967 when Mary Adams-Wiley assumed the role of the executive officer for ASZ. By the early 1990s, she had created an efficient bureaucratic structure to handle the Society's
day-to-day operations, especially the coordination of the Society's divisions with each other and the planning for the annual meeting. These operations are now handled by
one of the country's major organizational planning agencies, Smith Bucklin of Chicago. The new business organization of the Society is an indicator that ASZ has emerged at
the end of the twentieth century as a major society of American biology.
Rand, A. Stanley (Austin Stanley), 1932-2005, interviewee Search this
Extent:
4 audiotapes (Reference copy).
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Audiotapes
Transcripts
Place:
Barro Colorado Island (Panama)
Panama
Brazil
Date:
1986, 1989-1990
Introduction:
The Smithsonian Institution Archives began its Oral History Program in 1973. The purpose of the program is to supplement the written documentation of the Archives'
record and manuscript collections with an Oral History Collection, focusing on the history of the Institution, research by its scholars, and contributions of its staff. Program
staff conduct interviews with current and retired Smithsonian staff and others who have made significant contributions to the Institution. There are also interviews conducted
by researchers or students on topics related to the history of the Smithsonian or the holdings of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Austin Stanley Rand was interviewed for the Oral History Collection because of his distinguished scientific career, and long tenure at the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute as both researcher and administrator. Additional interviews of Rand can be found in Record Unit 9580, Barro Colorado Island Group Oral History Interview, and Record
Unit 9553, Conservation of Endangered Species Videohistory Interviews. Additional information about Rand can be found in the Records of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
and the A. Stanley Rand Papers which are also housed in Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Descriptive Entry:
The Austin Stanley Rand Interviews were conducted during three sessions from December 1986 through June 1990. The first interview was in December 1986 by Daryl Jones,
a student at the University of Maryland; the second, in April 1989 by Smithsonian Institution Archives historian, Pamela M. Henson, and Joel Bartholemew Hagen, a Smithsonian
postdoctoral fellow; and the third, in June 1990 by Pamela Henson. They consist of 3.5 hours of audiotape and audio cassette recordings and 81 pages of transcript
The Austin Stanley Rand Interviews discuss his background, education and early interest in zoology; career at STRI; recollections of colleagues and life on Barro Colorado
Island (BCI), including Martin Humphrey Moynihan, Neal Griffith Smith, and Dagmar I. Werner; discussions of his and his colleagues' major research interests; STRI's regional
role; and changes at STRI over the years.
Historical Note:
Austin Stanley Rand (1932-2005), was a herpetologist and Senior Biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). He was born on September 29, 1932,
in Seneca Falls, New York. He received his B.A. in zoology from DePauw University in 1955, served in the U.S. Army from 1955-1957, and received his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard
University in 1961. In 1961 he married Patricia Rand, and they had three children, Hugh, Margaret and Katherine.
Rand began his scientific career in 1950, when he worked three summers as an Assistant in the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles at the Field Museum of Natural History
in Chicago, Illinois. In 1957, he worked as an Assistant in the Division of Mammals at the Field Museum. Upon completing his Ph.D., Rand served as a Research Assistant in
Herpetology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) at Harvard University from 1961-1962, and as a Zoologist for the Secretary of Agriculture in Sa Paulo, Brazil from 1962-1964.
Rand first arrived at STRI in 1964 as a herpetologist. From 1973-1979, Rand also served as Coordinator of the Tropical Program of the Smithsonian's Environmental Sciences
Program, coordinating research projects on marine and terrestrial monitoring. In 1974, Rand was appointed STRI's Assistant Director, with special responsibilities for the
operation of the Barro Colorado Island field station, as well as budget and planning for STRI. In 1979, he was appointed Senior Biologist, a position which he held until his
death. In 1988, he also became responsible for coordinating scientific activities at STRI's facilities in Gamboa, Panama. At STRI, Rand supervised graduate student and postdoctoral
research, and consulted for the Panamanian government as requested.
Rand's research interests were primarily in studies of the behavior and ecology of tropical reptiles and amphibians, particularly social behavior and vocal communication
in lizards (Iguana iguana and Anolis limifrons) and Tungara frogs (Physalaemus pustulosus). His major field work included a month or more in Brazil, Costa
Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica, Haiti, Panama, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts, Santo Domingo, and Venezuela, as well as shorter visits elsewhere. He was a prolific
producer of articles, both alone and as co-author, and both organized and participated in various symposia.
Rand was a member of various professional societies, including the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Society of Ichthyologists
and Herpetologists, the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Association for Tropical Biology, Herpetologist's League, and Animal Behavior Society.
Am-Au, general. Correspondents include M.E. Young, Editor of American Malacologists, 1973; American Society of Naturalists, Pacific Coast Branch, 1915; Gilbert Archey, 1916; Bessie H. Arnold, 1954, 1959; Association of American Conchologists, 1931.
Container:
Box 1 of 15
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7335, S. Stillman Berry Papers
