Li'diiliaxI Slcpii'i^n, hcdd (uraloi oj zoolotry, sltindiiig by a 

 special lemporcuy exii/hit in the Castle. The illustrations to 

 the right, by a Japanese artist, were prepared before 1909, 

 but never published: the fauna is currently under study by 

 Victor (]. Springer aj the Division oj Fishes. This display 

 was prepared for the Februaiy 1927 endowment drive. 



off to the disadvantage of natural history. Half of Hall 

 26 on the second floor became the site of a lace exhibit 

 brought over from Arts and Industries. At fust the 

 Constitution Avenue side of the hall was used for lace 

 and the south side for biology; it took nearly a decade 

 to improve this to the point that the area nearest the 

 elevators was devoted to lace and the western part to 

 natm al history. Case after dreary case of lace, Malcolm 

 Watkins, recalls, gave way at the dividing line to displays 

 ot chickens on one side and wasps on the other. The 

 wasp case was strewn with crumpled newspaper in an 

 attempt to communicate the idea that a newspaper and 

 the material forming the nest of a paper wasp were 

 fundamentally the same. Each year the nest got darker 

 from dust and the newspaper got yellower. Within a 

 few more years, several exhibit alcoves on the west side 

 were converted into office space for entomologists. Not 

 all the space that had been open in 1917 was ever re- 

 covered for public displavs. 



Even if the lace were ignored, the Natural History 

 Building was still a long way from being fully devoted 

 to natiual history. In 1932, to commemorate the 200th 

 anni\ ersity of George Washington's birth — a major event 

 in the Capital — "a special exhibition . . . under the aus- 

 pices of the National Sculpture Society, was installed 

 in the National Gallery of Art, with extension into the 

 rotunda of the Natural History Building. The rotunda 

 will be kept free of ordinarv exhibits that it mav serve 

 its proper purpose as an impressive entrance into the 

 building. The greater part of the foyer was alloted for 

 a temporary exhibit of the National Capital Park and 

 Planning Commission dealing with the development 



and future plans for the city of Washington.'"" 



At the close of the bicentennial year the foyer exhibit 

 was removed, as were the twin stone lions that had 

 temporarily graced the pedestals at either side of the 

 south steps. But the rotunda received some "largesse" 

 in the form of several of the plaster figures from the 

 show. Having been presented to the National Gallery 

 of Art, they remained in place, whether the Museum's 

 curators liked it or not. 



The Great Depression 



By 1933 America was in the Roosevelt years and the 

 Great Depression. This was a grim time, but for Wash- 

 ington civil servants, not so grim as elsewhere. Most 

 Museum staff members were given a month's unsalar- 

 ied furlough, but at least they had jobs to return to. 

 Watson Perrygo, the taxidermist, like many others, con- 

 tinued to come in and work on the collections; even- 

 tually, the Smithsonian scraped up the money for back 

 pay. 



As times got worse, the Museum became the site of 

 various emergency relief work projects instituted by the 

 New Deal. A short-lived Civil Works Administration 

 placed temporary help in the building between Decem- 

 ber 15, 1933, and February 20, 1934.'ln all, 208 people 

 shelved books, typed lists, wrote labels, and repaired 

 equipment. "As our staff has been for a long time un- 

 dermanned," Wetmore wrote in Annual Report, "the 

 C.W.A. work came at an opportune time, and not only 

 provided employment btit aided materially in placing 

 our records and collections in proper condition for 

 preservation and study. The assistance, though occu- 

 pying much of the regular staff in supervision, was 

 entirely worth while and much appreciated."" 



When the CWA project ended, in February 1934, 

 the Museum applied to the District of Columbia gov- 

 ernment for similar assistance under the Federal Emer- 

 gency Relief Administration (FERA). In November "33 

 women, and 43 men were so assigned. Supplies and 

 materials required were purchased from the regular 

 appropriations. As before, the work was concerned 

 largely with . . . the handling of the national collections 

 and was limited to preserving specimens, book and rec- 

 ords, and increasing their usefulness for study and sci- 

 entific research. "'- 



WPA Project 



This project closed one year later, but in May 1936 a 

 WPA (Works Progress Administration) project to suc- 

 ceed it was initialed through the District of Columbia 

 government. For that fiscal year, about 18,000 man- 

 hours of work was under FERA and about 6,500 under 

 WPA. The Federal Art Project also allowed a bit of help 

 for the art collections. In fiscal year 1937, temporary 

 help increased to eighty-eight people, although some 

 worked only briefly. By the close of the next fiscal year, 



76 



The Exhibits 



