Linnaeus Tercentenary News from the American Swedish Historical Museum

Linnaeus Tercentenary News
Volume 1, Number 2
November 2004

This is an electronic newsletter about the American Swedish Historical Museum's "Linnaeus and America" project to commemorate Carl Linnaeus on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of his birth in 2007. Request a free subscription or a paper copy from the Museum at 1900 Pattison Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19145-5901; telephone 215.389.1776, fax 215.389.7701, or e-mail info@americanswedish.org. We invite your contributions to the newsletter. Read each issue at www.americanswedish.org.

In This Issue







We the People NEH initiative and ASHM's Linnaeus Project

The National Endowment singles out some projects for funding under its initiative, We the People. These are projects that "explore significant events and themes in our nation's history and culture and that advance knowledge of the principles that define America." We are very proud that the consultation grant for ASHM's Linnaeus and America project received this coveted designation! For the complete list of 2004 grants funded under this initiative: http://www.neh.gov/wtp/projects/2004grants.html.







Two great conferences at the same time!

New Sweden and Native America AND 'Curious in Our Way': The Culture of Nature in Philadelphia,1740 to 1840

On Saturday November 20, 2004, ASHM staff will be putting on and speaking at the 2004 New Sweden conference, New Sweden and Native America, at the Delaware History Museum in Wilmington DE.
http://www.americanswedish.org/events.html#newsweden

Meanwhile, from Thursday to Sunday, November 18-21, the Linnaeus Project curator and several project consultants will be attending 'Curious in Our Way': The Culture of Nature in Philadelphia,1740 to 1840, a symposium exploring the visual culture of American natural history, at the American Philosophical Society, Philadedelphia Museum of Art, Academy of Natural Sciences, and Bartram's Garden. If you can't make this one, look for the volume of papers, edited by Amy Meyers, Director, Yale Center for British Art, forthcoming from Yale University Press. For more details: http://www.philamuseum.org/education/symposia.shtml.





Linnaeus Day at the American Swedish Historical Museum


Saturday, May 21, 2005

Look forward to spring-and Linnaeus Day at ASHM. To celebrate Linnaeus's 298th birthday (May 23, 1707), we'll have a plant sale, a lively talk by Paula Robbins about Linnaeus's student, Pehr Kalm, and his adventures in the Delaware valley ca 1750, and-we hope-a natural history excursion through FDR Park like those Linnaeus led through the countryside around Uppsala. Mark your calendars!







What's that flower?


The little white flower that decorates our newsletter is Linnaea borealis, or twinflower, the plant that Linnaeus adopted as his emblem. Linnaeus joked that the genus "Linnaea was "named by the celebrated Gronovius and is a plant of Lapland, lowly, insignificant and disregarded, flowering but for a brief space-from Linnaeus who resembles it." This lovely Northern flower shows up in most portraits of Linnaeus, and it has been chosen as the official flower of the province of Småland.





Another tercentenary-Linnaeus's American correspondent, John Bartram


America's Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Appraisal of John Bartram, 1699-1777, ed. Nancy E. Hoffmann and John C. Van Horne, has just published by the American Philosophical Society, in cooperation with the Library Company of Philadelphia and John Bartram Association. It includes contributions by our consultants, Robert E. Savage, Alfred E. Schuyler, and Joel Frye. Fascinating reading for anyone interested in Bartram, Linnaeus, American natural history, colonial history, Native Americans, and cicadas-to name just a few of the topics discussed.





Gretchen Worden Memorial Linnaeus Limerick Contest


In the fall of 2003 we invited a group of Philadelphia colleagues to ASHM for an informal discussion of directions the Linnaeus Project might take. At the end, they urged us to sum up the project in a few sentences-"In a limerick!" called out Gretchen Worden. On August 2, 2004, to the great sadness of everyone who knew her, Gretchen died of complications from the radiation treatment for Hodgkins disease that had saved her life many years earlier. As director of the Mütter Museum-the extraordinary 19th century anatomical museum at Philadelphia's College of Physicians-Gretchen was known around the world both for her curatorial creativity and for her irrepressible humor.

Acting on her advice and in her spirit, we announce the Gretchen Worden Memorial Linnaeus Limerick Contest. Send in your limericks on Linnaeus and related topics, and we'll let visitors to the exhibition choose the winners!

To get you started, here's our first in-house effort:

Linnaeus, that ingenious Swede,
Satisfied the naturalists' need
For a scientific label
That always remained stable
And in Latin-which no one can read!






About the ASHM


For more than 75 years, the American Swedish Historical Museum has been preserving and presenting Swedish and Swedish-American history and culture. The Museum stands on land once owned by a 17th-century Swedish colonist. It presents the history of the New Sweden colony and the accomplishments of such important Swedes as Fredrika Bremer, John Ericsson, Jenny Lind, and John Ericsson. It keeps Swedish culture alive in the Delaware Valley with language and cooking classes, a choir (the Swedish Museum Singers), and such outstanding annual ethnic events as Julbord and Lucia Fest in December, Pea Soup and Punsch in January, Valborgsmässoafton in April, and Midsommarfest in June. (You don't need to be Swedish to enjoy them!) With other Swedish-American organizations the ASHM presents the Annual New Sweden History Conference and many programs for students, teachers, and families.

Open Tues.-Fri., 10-4, Sat.-Sun., noon-4. Admission, $6 adults, $5 students and senior citizens. For program and membership information, call 215.389.1776, or visit the Museum's website at www.americanswedish.org.

Click here to go to the American Swedish Historical Museum website.

Go to the first issue of Linnaeus Tercentenary News.