Overview Joseph Mellick Leidy (1823-1891), one of the great American scientists of the 19th century, possessed a vast knowledge of the natural world. Best known as the Father of American vertebrate paleontology, he also pioneered the fields of parasitology and protozoology, and was the preeminent anatomist of his time. He was also an influential teacher of natural history and an expert in areas as diverse as entomology, geology and pathology. The Joseph Leidy Correspondence collection contains...

Scope and Contents An amateur naturalist of Philadelphia, Willcox became a member of the Academy in 1867 and was later appointed curator of the Lea Collection of Shells. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, and Chairman of its Museum Committee for years.This collection contains 33 letters signed by Willcox, many of them discussing the Academy, the Wagner Institute and natural history; a letterpress memorial card and a bound volume of plant impressions....

Scope and Contents Historian, minister of the gospel and amateur naturalist, Chamberlain assembled a collection of Eocene fossils which he bequeathed tot he Academy in memory of Isaac Lea, his father-in-law, and Frances Lea Chamberlain, his wife. The papers here refer to both the "Isaac Lea Collection" and the fund for its maintainence which is called the "Frances Lea Chamberlain Fund." A series of ten letters written during Chamberlain's lifetime about the collection is dated, 1894-1897 and written by...