A Web Exhibition

The American Philosophical Society Library is among the premier institutions in the nation for documenting the study of natural history. The following exhibit seeks to explore the rich holdings of manuscripts and rare books in the library relating to animals, from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. This website exhibit is running concurrently with a live exhibit in the APS Library. All references to “cases" in this website refer to the real exhibit cases in the library. The first page of this exhibit, “The Search for Animal Knowledge" (Case 1), contains materials relating to the pursuit of animal knowledge in the time of Jefferson, during the early American republic. The second page, “Of Myths and Bones" (Case 2), explores earlier European conceptions of animals, where scholars depicted real animals alongside mythical beasts, where the fantastic intermingled with the realistic. The third page, “Expanding Animal Knowledge" (Case 3), highlights images of animals at the height of the age of natural history, the nineteenth century, a great period of exploration and discovery of nature. The fourth and final page, “Promoting Animal Knowledge" (Case 4), explores the promotion of animal knowledge in the modern era and contains materials relating to animal rights, welfare, and education. Join us in an exploratory trek through the APS Library stacks as we seek to find: “No Taxonomy without Representation."