Stuffing Birds, Pressing Plants, Shaping Knowledge

This catalog represents the 2003-2004 exhibition from the APS Museum. The exhibit focused on the blending of art & science in the study of natural history in North America. It explored the cultural assumptions that governed the practice of natural history on the North American continent in the 18th & early 19th centuries. Focusing on the study of living things—plants, animals, & indigenous peoples—it looked at how and why Euro-Americans of the Enlightenment & post-Enlightenment periods went about explaining the world the way they did. The exhibition featured historical specimens, manuscript materials, first-edition books, & art work.