For many years, ornithology was the province of the wealthy gentleman hunter who shot, stuffed, and preserved his specimens, and of the museum that collected simply to document natural history, not to analyze it. Even as evolutionary theory began to make its mark on the study of birds, it remained a science heavily populated by amateurs. Daniel Lewis here explores the professionalization of ornithology through one of its key figures: Robert Ridgway, the Smithsonian Institution's first curator of birds and one of North America's most important natural scientists.

Exploring a world in which the divisions of status, rigour, and publication between amateurs and professionals were far more blurred than the worlds that appear in most histories of science, Daniel Lewis offers a vivid introduction to Ridgway and shows how his work had a larger international context that influenced the evolution of American ornithology.

Daniel Lewis is the Chief Curator of Manuscripts and Dibner Senior Curator of the History of Science and Technology at The Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.

"Lewis's account draws deeply and meticulously from a vast assortment of primary sources. As a museum curator himself, he insightfully highlights the values of objects--that is, the mortal remains of birds--as vital sources and the history and values of natural history museum. Lewis's voice is enthusiastic, straightforward, and sometimes even playful."--Julianne Lutz Warren, "Environmental History"--Julianne Lutz Warren "Environmental History "