Campus Museums: Cabinets of Curiosities

Margaret Dahlberg, Ph.D., vice president and dean of academic affairs at Valley City State University in Valley City, ND authored an interesting short post for her President's Corner column on November 30, 2018 while she was serving as interim president, "The Normal School Museum and Lura Perrine."

 Dahlberg offers a description from a 1905 Catalog noting that the campus museum "...includes a rich collection of zoological types, an herbarium, a private collection of conchological and geological specimens, and a private collection of eggs..." Lura Perrine developed the collection during her 1892-1919 tenure as a faculty member.

Natural history collections are commonly cited in histories of colleges.  You can learn more in an article on JSTOR written by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt that appeared in ISIS, a journal of The History of Science Society in September 1988 (Vol. 79, No. 3), "Curiosities and Cabinets: Natural History Museums and Education on the Antebellum Campus."

Consider posting a comment below if you are aware of a similar blog post describing a natural history museum on a campus with which you are familiar....thanks!!