The Natural History Collection

Hall of Mammals exhibit. A family of polar bears in an arctic diorama with icebergs and an arctic fox. Sala de los Mamíferos

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THE ACADEMY

The Putnam Museum and Science Center was established on December 14, 1867, as the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. Barler, Eads, Tiffany and Pratt met and proceeded to organize a scientific society, adopting the form of constitution and by-laws of the Ottawa Academy and electing officers to serve for six months. The private collections of Barler, Tiffany, Eads, Sheldon, Riepe and Pratt formed the basis of the newly-minted Academy’s collection. In addition, Mrs. Alfred Sanders contributed her recently-deceased husband’s cabinet of minerals, fossils and recent shells to the endeavor, and others soon followed her lead.

Black and white historic exhibits, with rows of glass cases from the original Putnam Museum location.

In January 1868, the Academy received its first donation from outside the immediate area, a collection of crinoid fossils from Enoch May of Burlington, Iowa. That year also marked the first exchange with another institution, the Natural History Society of Portland, Maine.

In 1869, Joseph Duncan Putnam and his mother, Mary Louisa Duncan Putnam (Mrs. Charles E. Putnam), were elected to membership in the Academy. Although only a teenager, by the time J. D. Putnam joined the Academy, he had already assembled a large and significant collection of insects, minerals and geological specimens. He later participated in expeditions to Yellowstone, Colorado and Utah, and published investigations on bark lice and the Solpugidae before his death, at the age of 26, in 1881. Many of his collections remain with the museum today. 

Cicada collection from J.D. Putnam

A NEW HOME

Between 1872 and 1874, the Academy moved a number of times, finally taking up residence in a room in the Odd Fellows Building. A year later they rented an additional room there which they quickly filled as well.

Through the tireless efforts of Mrs. Putnam, the Academy acquired property at the corner of 7th and Brady streets and raised sufficient funds to build a museum. The new Academy building opened its doors in February, 1878. Mrs. Putnam was later instrumental in the Academy’s acquiring the Presbyterian Church next door to the new museum, doubling its space. 

Black and white photo of the original location of the Putnam Museum, featuring tower on a cobblestone street with a historic car parked on the street.

THE HERBARIUM BEGINS

With C. C. Parry as one of the leading proponents of the Academy, it is not surprising that plant collections made their way almost immediately into the museum. A collection of plants from the vicinity of Buffalo, New York, received from G. W. Clinton in February 1869, was one of the earliest to arrive. In 1880, the Academy received from Francis Koch a collection containing 1500 specimens of pressed plants from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the North Atlantic Coast. Over time, the museum’s herbarium holdings would grow substantially with the acquisition of large collections from W. D. Barnes, W. W. Calkins, F. K. Reppert, Prof. Shimek, Serano Watson, E. A. Ross, Naomi Melville and Dr. L. F. Guldner, culminating in the acquisition in 2002 of the herbarium of Marycrest International University.

MOLLUSK COLLECTIONS

Marine and freshwater mollusks were of interest to several of the Academy founders. Prof. Sheldon and W. H. Pratt provided collections of local and foreign shells, and during the 1870s and 1880s, W. W. Calkins donated several large freshwater mollusk collections to the Academy, the largest of which included over 850 specimens. One of the more interesting early collections was obtained from S. S. Barr in 1880 consisting of “exceedingly small shells: the young of several species inhabiting our waters.” In December 1900, the Academy received the entire contents of Griswold College’s cabinet, including its extraordinary shell collection. 

THE PUBLIC MUSEUM

The Academy changed its name in 1927 to the Davenport Public Museum in recognition of the institution’s development as a “public museum of science, history and art.” Since that time, the Museum has focused its collecting on objects, artifacts and specimens from eastern Iowa and western Illinois. This emphasis on the collections and interests of local citizens has enabled the museum to remain relevant to changing generations while documenting the cultural heritage and environmental history of our unique region. 

RESURGENCE IN THE 60’s

From the 1960s to the early 1990s, Mr. V.O. Figge donated taxidermy mounts of big game animals, representing his travels to Africa and other continents. A number of these can be seen today in dioramas in the museum’s Hall of Mammals.

The 1960s saw a resurgence in the museum’s acquisition of natural science material. In 1964 Iowa Wesleyan College transferred its collection of mounted birds and bird eggs to the museum. The bird egg collection alone numbered approximately 2000 eggs, doubling the size of the museum’s pre-existing collection. And, from the early 1960s into the late 1970s Pete Petersen added a substantial number of local bird specimens to the zoology collections. Recent grants from the Iowa Science Foundation and the Riverboat Development Authority (now the Regional Development Authority) have supplied the funds for the museum to document and improve storage for these zoology collections.

Small white bird egg with black speckles, set against a black background from the Putnam collection.

The Shorey Mineral Collection was received as a gift from Carma Shorey in 1986. The donation included fine jewelry and over 500 mineral specimens from around the world collected by Mrs. Shorey and her husband, Wilson H. Shorey. 

Multi-colored mineral with green, orange and blue starburst formations, set against a dark gray background, from the Putnam Museum collection.

MODERN DAY

The paleontology collection saw the addition of a small collection of fossil animals from the famous Mazon Creek locality of Illinois between 2012 and 2013. While possessing a substantial collection of fossil plants from Mazon Creek that dates to the early days of the Academy, the museum lacked any animal fossils from the site. More importantly, this new collection includes a specimen of the state fossil of Illinois, the Tully Monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium).

Specimen of the state fossil of Illinois, the Tully Monster. A red-orange oblong rock with a faint lined pattern in the center.

Other recent efforts have included an emphasis on documenting the cultural diversity of the Quad Cities area. The museum has sought out both historical and modern materials from groups and communities that are/have not been well-represented in the museum’s collections. We are currently collecting oral histories and creating a digital archive of images in an effort to provide a more complete picture of the history of the region, its people and their stories. 

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