The Complete Dinosaur

15. Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits

285 Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits Kenneth Carpenter 15 Ever since the first dinosaur skeleton was mounted for exhibition in 1868 at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, the public has been fascinated by these extinct animals. Despite that public interest, natural history museums were slow to seize on that curiosity as a way of enticing visitors. Not until steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie donated casts (replicas) of the sauropod skeleton Diplodocus carnegii to the principal museums of South America and Europe did museums come to realize the draw of dinosaurs as a means of increasing attendance and hence revenue. Dinosaurs are now such an integral part of most natural history museums that the public has come to expect the association. 15.1. Tyrannosaurus rex at the American Museum of Natural History reflects changing ideas about dinosaur posture. A, As originally mounted in 1915. B, As remounted in 1995. A, Courtesy Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History, photographed by A. E. Anderson. Kenneth Carpenter 286 Today we are in the midst of a new golden age of dinosaur studies, which began in the 1970s. With advances in communication, there has been a steady stream of popular dinosaur books, movies, and television documentaries. Many financially strapped museums have turned to dinosaurs to draw the visitors by expanding or renovating dinosaur galleries, or bringing in temporary dinosaur exhibitions. Meanwhile, museum gift shops offer stuffed dinosaurs, dinosaur erasers, wooden dinosaur skeleton kits, dinosaur cookie cutters, and anything else remotely dinosaurian to the public as souvenirs. A more serious approach by some museums has been to present to the public what dinosaur paleontologists have learned. Gone is the view that Tyrannosaurus was a lumbering giant that stood on its hind legs, tail dragging on the ground, and head high in the clouds (as another bipedal dinosaur is depicted in Fig. 15.1A). Instead, Tyrannosaurus is seen as a moderately swift predator, using its tail to counterbalance a horizontal body (Fig. 15.1B). The public has responded favorably to these new exhibits (meaning that attendance is up), and as a result, increasing numbers of museums have mounted or remounted dinosaur skeletons. For example, the American Museum of Natural History saw a 20% increase in attendance after its renovated dinosaur hall opened in 1995, and the Field Museum in Chicago at 67% increase in 1999 (Anonymous 2002). Almost as soon as fossilized vertebrate skeletons were found, attempts were made to assemble them for the public. The earliest skeletal mount was not a dinosaur but was probably that of the giant extinct ground sloth, Megatherium , mounted in 1788 at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, in Madrid, Spain (Boyd 1958). This was followed in 1806 by that of a mastodon displayed at Charles Peale’s museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Dinosaur Skeletons in the Public Eye 15.2. One of the earliest mounted skeletons, the archaeocete whale Basilosaurus, as part of a traveling exhibit. The mounting technique used wood and steel, permitting the skeleton to be dismantled and moved from location to location. From Lucas (1902). 15.3. The chaotic workshop of Waterhouse Hawkins around 1868 (A) showing the partially mounted skeletons of Hadrosaurus foulkii (a) and Dryptosaurus aquilunguis (b), mounted pelvis (backward) and femur of a cast of Hadrosaurus (c); the specimen that would become the holotype of Ornithotarsus immanis (d) used as a guide to reconstructing the ankle region of Hadrosaurus; left-side of a mold of Hadrosaurus (e), a life-size mold for the Paleozoic Museum to be built in Central Park, New York City. Reference skeletons include an ostrich (f) and emu (g). Note the use of steel pipes and rods to support the bones, the same techniques used today. Missing parts are reconstructed (light-colored parts). In 1984 a cast of the bones of Hadrosaurus was used to reconstruct a more contemporary posture (B), but this has since been dismantled. 3A, courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia Library. 8.222.125.171] Project MUSE (2024-04-20 05:17 GMT) Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits 287 Kenneth Carpenter 288 legs of the skeleton may be seen in Peale’s 1822 painting The Artist in His Museum (Alexander 1983, fig. 3). The techniques used in the mounts were unfortunately not recorded. This exhibit of a long-extinct animal skeleton had a tremendous impact on the public in the United States, and it became clear to entrepreneurs that there was money to be made with similar displays. Soon traveling...