Yesterday’s Tuesday Tweet featured an image of an albino Grackle. That is not the only image within the Bell Museum records that documents color abnormalities in animals. In the 1940s, museum taxidermist Walter Breckenridge prepared a mounted display of three…
Last month, University Libraries’ Communications Director Mark Engebretson visited University Archives to interview Exploring project staff and capture the process of digitization. He produced a video about our project that is now featured on the Libraries’ continuum website. After months…
Hunting and fishing were important to the daily lives of Minnesota’s early residents as a source of food and income. For the most part, pioneers could hunt and fish all they wanted as very little regulation existed that addressed “taking”…
For several months now I have wanted to share some unique images from the Bell Museum of Natural history negative collection. The images document the preparation and construction of the iconic Bell Museum dioramas, or what museum director Thomas Sadler…
On the cover page of each Annual Report of The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, a list of the “Officers of the Survey” is printed. The first year, the only name that appears is that of State Geologist…
University Archives underwent an office remodel last week. File cabinets were moved across the room, cubicles were deconstructed, shifted, and rebuilt. At one point during all of the commotion, one of the movers found an interesting item… – Envelope from…
In addition to preparing specimens for exhibits and giving talks to museum visitors about mammals and birds during his tenure as curator and director of the Bell Museum of Natural History (1926-1970), Walter J. Breckenridge was also involved with academic…
With Minnesota fishing licenses set to expire tomorrow, we thought we should share some of the fishy photos from the negatives in the Bell Museum of Natural History records to commemorate the close of the 2013 angling season. Cast your…
– Striped ground squirrel standing up, Anoka County, July 1, 1933 (l) Striped ground squirrel facing left, Anoka County, July 1, 1933 (r) Striped ground squirrel facing front, Anoka County, July 1, 1933 – Striped ground squirrel facing right,…
Yesterday we shared Walter J. Breckenridge’s recollection of his trip to the Superior National Forest near Winton, Minnesota to observe the courting ritual of the Spruce Grouse in the spring of 1931. In his autobiography, My Life in Natural History,…