Collections & Connections: 150 Years of the Wisconsin Academy

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Andy Kraushaar

Coincident to white settlement of Wisconsin was the growth of the field of natural history, encompassing fledgling branches of science. “Cabinets of curiosities” and dime museums presented mineral samples alongside fossils, feathers, taxidermy and pinned butterflies. Our Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters recalls its founding 150 years ago by reuniting its early artifacts in Collections & Connections, free and open to the public. The Feb. 20 reception includes refreshments and a panel discussion of specimen-collecting in the 19th-century, with historians Sarah Anne Carter and Lynn Nyhart, as well as co-curators Martha Glowacki and Jody Clowes. Exhibited Feb. 14-April 5.

press release: February 14, 2020 to April 5, 2020, James Watrous Gallery • Overture Center for the Arts. Reception: 2/20/2020 5pm-7:30 pm

In celebration of its 150th anniversary, the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters hosts an exhibition that recreates the natural history and archaeological collections gathered by early Academy members such as Increase Lapham, Thomas Chamberlin, Charles E. Brown, Edward Birge, and John Wesley Hoyt. Curated by Martha Glowacki and Jody Clowes, Collections & Connections embraces a nuanced view of the Academy’s historical collections, considers the complex legacy of this small but influential organization, and looks to the Academy’s future. 

Both the exhibition and a series of related events will reflect on the Academy’s changing role over its 150 year history, address the importance of scholarly research and intellectual discourse in public life, and examine the cultural shifts that have affected the Academy’s work. 

“In a sense, we are reconstructing a lost history to uncover what the Academy’s founders were surveying and collecting. Their collections reflected a 19th-century landscape that has been radically changed—effigy mounds looted or razed, prairies plowed under, wetlands drained and ridges flattened. We are confident that this fictive recreation of the Academy’s collections—like a cabinet of Wisconsin curiosities—will blow the dust from its remarkable history, raise important questions about the ends and means of scientific investigation, and inspire a genuine sense of wonder.” - Jody Clowes

EVENTS:

Ethical Stewardship of Indigenous Collections, March 11, 2020 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm: A conversation in the gallery centered on the ethics of collecting and exhibiting artifacts from Indigenous cultures. Following a poetry reading by Kim Blaeser, Blaeser and Kendra Greendeer will share their thoughts about the cultural significance of the Native American objects in the exhibition, changing attitudes about their place in public collections, and the challenge of ethical stewardship.

March 26, 6:00 pm: Panel discussion at Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State St.: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral … and Digital. On the importance of natural history collections for contemporary research, with museum curators Craig Brabant, Ken Cameron, Carrie Eaton, and Laura Monahan.   

March 31, 6:00 pm: Gallery talk and tour: Tour the exhibit with co-curators Martha Glowacki and Jody Clowes.

The Collections & Connections exhibition includes the following objects, which represent the archeological interests of early Wisconsin Academy members Increase Lapham and Charles Brown.

• Cast-iron effigy mound models based on Increase Lapham's original papier-mache versions, from the Wisconsin Historical Museum collections. These were produced after Lapham's death for display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. 
• A gorget, stone adze and ax, copper awl, and pottery shards excavated by Charles Brown in the late 19th- or early 20th century, also from the Wisconsin Historical Museum. Based on Brown’s history, these are likely from sites associated with the Forest County Potawatomi, Menominee, or Ho Chunk Nations.
• A collection of Native American projectile points from near Valton and Baraboo, framed in the late 19th- or early 20th century and lent by Sauk County Historical Society.