Manuscript and printed textual material, photographic prints and negatives, slides, audio tapes, film, original and reproduction artwork, maps, scrapbooks, and historical and natural artifacts related to the history of African exploration and natural history, dating primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes correspondence, drafts of publications, diaries, account books, ephemera, posters, newsclippings, biographies, memoirs, portraits, and the former personal property of selected explorers, big game hunters, missionaries, pioneers, and naturalists in Africa.
Scope and Contents note:
Manuscript and printed textual material, photographic prints and negatives, slides, audio tapes, film, original and reproduction artwork, maps, scrapbooks, and historical and natural artifacts related to the history of African exploration and natural history, dating primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes correspondence, drafts of publications, diaries, account books, ephemera, posters, newsclippings, biographies, memoirs, portraits, and the former personal property of selected explorers, big game hunters, missionaries, pioneers, and naturalists in Africa. The Train Collection is particularly strong in archival materials on the following topics: the search for the source of the Nile and the progress of other exploring expeditions in Africa; the collecting of specimens of African animals, plants, and ethnological materials for zoos and museums (including a significant body of correspondence and photographs from the Smithsonian African Expedition in 1909-1910, led by President Theodore Roosevelt); and the growth of the African wildlife conservation movement. Besides Roosevelt, the major persons represented in the Collection include the journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley and members of his Emin Pasha Relief Expedition (Thomas Heazle Parke, Robert H. Nelson, James S. Jameson, John Rose Troup, William Bonny, William G. Stairs, Edmund Barttelot, and Arthur J. M. Jephson); the medical missionary Dr. David Livingstone and his father-in-law Robert Moffat; taxidermist Carl Akeley; zoologist Edmund Heller; hunter Frederick Courtenay Selous; artist and adventure writer A. Radclyffe Dugmore; explorers Samuel White Baker, Thomas Baines, Richard Francis Burton and E.J. Glave; anthropologist Paul Belloni du Chaillu; and royal traveler Edward VIII (later Duke of Windsor). Consult the finding aid for more specific information on materials relating to these persons and other people and organizations represented in the Collection.
Arrangement note:
Organized into ten series, primarily based on format or creator: I. Artifacts, 1663-1999; II. Works of Art, 1663-1999; III. Books, 1900-1986; IV. Edmund Heller personal papers, 1875-1939; V. Manuscripts, 1663-1992; VI. Maps, 1878; VII. Newspapers, 1888-1987; VIII. Robert Henry Nelson personal papers, 1795-1912; VIII. Photographs, 1874-1963; IX. Posters and broadsides, 1814-1955; X. Russell E. Train personal papers, 1956-2004.
Separated Materials note:
In addition to these archival and non-book materials, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries acquired more than 1500 printed books as part of the Russell E. Train Collection; these books are listed individually in the SIRIS (Smithsonian Institution Research Information System) online catalog.
Provenance:
Originally assembled by the Honorable Russell E. Train, a former judge, top administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and a past president of the World Wildlife Fund, this collection was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries in 2004.
Rights:
The collection is housed in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History, which is open to researchers Monday through Friday in the afternoons, from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m.; morning visits are by appointment only. Please call (202) 633-1184 or email AskaLibrarian@si.edu for an appointment.
Topic:
Zoological specimens -- Collection and preservation -- Africa Search this
Russell E. Train Africana Collection (Smithsonian. Libraries) Search this
Extent:
1 Item (Correspondence, 4.5 x 7.75 in.)
Container:
Item M040
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
circa 1890 - 1899
Scope and Contents note:
Du Chaillu thanks Mrs. Drexel for her "Xmas gift to me of a full blooded African, dressed in his native costume" (apparently a small figurine). Extends greetings to "dear John" as well.
General note:
Signed "P. B. Du Chaillu. "
Collection Rights:
The collection is housed in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History, which is open to researchers Monday through Friday in the afternoons, from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m.; morning visits are by appointment only. Please call (202) 633-1184 or email AskaLibrarian@si.edu for an appointment.
The world of the great forest : how animals, birds, reptiles, insects talk, think, work and live / by Paul du Chaillu ... with over fifty illustrations by C.R. Knight and J.M. Gleeson
Author:
Du Chaillu, Paul B (Paul Belloni) 1835-1903 Search this
Gleeson, Joseph M (Joseph Michael) 1861- Search this
Paul Du Chaillu, gorilla hunter : being the extraordinary life and adventures of Paul Du Chaillu / as recounted for the house of Harper, his ancient publishers, by his young compatriot, Michel Vaucaire, and rendered into English by Emily Pepper Watts
Explorations and adventures in equatorial Africa : with accounts of the manners and customs of the people, and of the chase of the gorilla, the crocodile, leopard, elephant, hippopotamus, and other animals / by Paul B. Du Chaillu
Title:
Adventures in equatorial Africa
Author:
Du Chaillu, Paul B (Paul Belloni) 1835-1903 Search this
Russell E. Train Africana Collection (Smithsonian Libraries) DSI Search this
Physical description:
xxii, 531 p., [23] leaves of plates : ill., front., map (folded) ; 24 cm
Catalogue of birds collected on the River Muni, western Africa, by Mr. P.B. DuChaillu in 1856 / with notes and descriptions of new species by John Cassin
Recent remarkable discoveries in Central Africa / by the celebrated African explorer M. de Challue [sic] With a full description of an extraordinary race of people supposed to be the connecting link between the animal and the human, discovered by him in the deepest recesses of that most mysterious region
Title:
De Challue's recent remarkable discoveries in Africa
Author:
Du Chaillu, Paul B (Paul Belloni) 1835-1903 Search this
Russell E. Train Africana Collection (Smithsonian Libraries) DSI Search this