PUBLIC RELATIONS 



A large part of the publicity given to the Museum in 1956 came 

 from two great fellows who lived some 75 million years ago — the 

 giant dinosaurs Gorgosaurus and Lambeosaurus that were installed 

 in Stanley Field Hall (see page 24). Their debut as a star attraction 

 of the Museum was repeatedly signalized in newspapers and maga- 

 zines and on television and radio through the final weeks of prepara- 

 tion until the unveiling of the exhibit to the public, and even after. 

 They also became the subjects of verse and quips by various colum- 

 nists, including one well-known radio commentator who whimsically 

 corrupted their scientific names into "Gorgeous Georges" and 

 "Lambie Pie," which was quite apt because the former was the 

 aggressive carnivore. Widespread international publicity was 

 given to the dinosaurs through publication of a story and pictures 

 in the magazine of UNESCO. 



One of the most comprehensive as well as most charmingly 

 written surveys of the Museum's exhibits, activities, and many 

 services to the public appeared in a series of six well-illustrated 

 articles published in the Chicago Tribune in April. The series is 

 the work of Chesly Manly, one of the newspaper's most noted staff 

 writers, who spent many days at the Museum collecting his data, 

 assisted by the scientific departments and the Division of Public 

 Relations. Mr. Manly's articles are so fine that the Museum plans 

 to reprint them in pamphlet form. The cover of the Museum's 

 Bulletin for April, "Fossil Man's Hall of Fame," showing Artist 

 Gustaf Dalstrom's conception of four types of prehistoric men as 

 they would appear if dressed in modern top-hats and opera capes, 

 attracted attention by its reproduction in the daily press and in 

 important magazines like the Scientific American. Unusually ex- 

 tensive space, including a full page of rotogravure in the Chicago 

 Daily News, was accorded in October to stories and pictures of 

 Cameroons King's House, a new exhibit. Publicity oddity of the 

 year was Welwitschia, a large and rare plant of strange form dis- 

 played in a habitat group showing its Mossamedes Desert (Africa) 

 environment. Although our exhibit had attracted considerable 

 attention when it was installed in 1946, interest in it was suddenly 

 revived in 1956 by publication of an article and pictures of it in 

 Natural History, magazine of New York's American Museum of 

 Natural History, and for several months the Museum was flooded 

 with urgent requests for pictures and story from magazines in 

 Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States, and Canada. 

 These are but a few instances readily recalled from the stream 



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