Collectively its members were devoted to advancing the cause of American science in a time when American naturalists were fighting for respect from more established European science.
This group-part sober research collective, part Animal House shenanigans-called itself the Megatherium Club. Baird, by the mid-1850s the Smithsonian became the nexus for an exuberant and ever-changing gathering of brilliant, young naturalists. Under the leadership of Joseph Henry and his assistant secretary, Spencer F. The Smithsonian Institution, founded in 1846 after a bequest by British chemist and mineralogist James Smithson, was tasked with “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” But, cut off from the rest of the city by the foul-smelling Washington City Canal, its isolated grounds attracted muggers and other scoundrels looking for easy prey. The nation’s capital was still viewed as a provincial Southern town.
Philadelphia and Boston had long been the traditional centers of American science, with the founding of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1812 and the Boston Society of Natural History in 1830. In some respects, Washington, D.C., in the 1850s was an unlikely place to usher in a golden age of American natural history.
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