Background

Albert Bickmore was born on March 1, 1839, in Tenant's Harbor, Maine, United States, the son of John and Jane (Seavey) Bickmore. The great event of his childhood was a voyage with his father, a sea captain and shipbuilder, to Bordeaux.

Education

Prepared for college at the New London Academy, Albert was graduated from Dartmouth in 1860. His bent toward natural history then led him to the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University to study under Agassiz. In 1864 he received his B. S. from Harvard.

Career

Soon appointed an assistant in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, in 1862 Bickmore accompanied an expedition of P. T. Barnum's to Bermuda, where he made an extensive collection of marine animals for the museum. In 1862-1863 he served with the 44th Massachusetts Volunteers, a nine-months regiment, and upon being mustered out returned to Cambridge with "a very fine collection" which he had made upon the North Carolina coast while detached from his regiment upon special hospital duty. In 1865 he embarked upon a voyage to the East. He traveled through the Malay Archipelago and the Dutch East Indies collecting shells and bird-skins, penetrated into a part of China unexplored by "foreigners, " and visited the little-known Ainus of Japan. Returning to Boston in December 1867, during the following months he published several papers: "A Description of the Banda Islands, " "Some Remarks on the Recent Geological Changes in China and Japan, " "The Ainos, or Hairy Men of Yesso" and "The Ainos, or Hairy Men of Saghalien and the Kurile Islands, " and completed his Travels in the East Indian Archipelago.

Meanwhile, for several years Bickmore had been elaborating a plan, conceived while he was a student under Agassiz, for a great natural-history museum, to be located in New York. Upon Bickmore's return from the East William E. Dodge 2nd, with whom he had been in correspondence, introduced him to Theodore Roosevelt (father of the President), who immediately took an active interest in the project. Under Roosevelt's leadership a series of informal conferences in the fall of 1868 led to a meeting of prominent citizens at the home of Benjamin H. Field in January 1869, at which the first board of trustees of what was to become the American Museum of Natural History was elected.

Bickmore contributed the title of the institution - national in scope, the definition of its relations with the municipality, the plan adopted for its financing, and not least, the enthusiastic arguments which won the support of Tweed and Tilden and secured from the legislature, without amendment, the charter as it had been drawn by Joseph Choate. Appointed superintendent in 1869, he served in that capacity till 1884, when he resigned to become curator of the Museum's Department of Public Instruction. In 1904, incapacitated for active service by chronic rheumatism which confined him to a chair, he was made curator emeritus of his department, but he continued in the office of trustee, which he had held since 1885. He died in August 1914 at his summer home in Nonquitt, Massachussets.

Achievements

• Albert Bickmore was a co-founder of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The education of the public was one of the ideals of the founders, and under Bickmore's curatorship the schools of both city and state were brought into organized relation with the Museum, and Bickmore's lectures, illustrated by stereopticon slides from collections made by himself, became an increasingly important annual institution. During his lifetime a division of the new building was named in his honor, and since his death he has been acclaimed "Father of the Museum. "

Works

More photos

• book

  • Sketch of a Journey from Canton to Hankow, through China.

    (Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary...)

  • Travels in the East Indian Archipelago

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The Ainos or Hairy Men of Yesso, Saghalien, etc.

    ( Title: The Ainos or Hairy Men of Yesso, Saghalien, etc....)

Connections

Bickmore was married in 1873 to Charlotte A. Bruce of New York.

Father:

John Bickmore

Mother:

Jane (Seavey) Bickmore

Spouse:

Charlotte A. (Bruce) Bickmore