of Geology in 1947, supervised this section. He esti- 

 mated that in the week before the alcove was opened 

 he was summoned there at least once an hour because 

 someone had put down a model of a fish and could 

 not remember whether it should point to the right or 

 to the left when mounted. The fossil mammal hall was 

 a long way from f inished, and more Matternes murals 

 were to come; but since the first days of the "New 

 National Museum" it had been standard practice to 

 open a hall just as soon as there was something to show 

 the public, and hope that later there would be time to 

 add objects and correct mistakes. Of course this seldom 

 happens, for curators and exhibits people always have 

 more pressing concerns than revising recently opened 

 halls. 



Eugene Knez antl (iordon Gibson, both hired by the 

 Department of Anthropology in 1959, were informed 

 that they were expected to prepare halls pr(jmptly, and 

 together with Saul Reisenberg, who joined the staff in 

 19.'i7, they established an informal group to review one 

 another's ideas and exhibit scripts. Reisenberg's part of 

 the "Gultures of the Pacific and Asia" project was fin- 

 ished first; it began with an Easter Island head that had 

 been on display in the original National Museum. The 

 remaindei of Hall H was done by Knez. 



New Division, New Museum 



f^evelopment of the Museum of History and Tech- 

 nol()g\, although the building was still incomplete, led 

 to Malcolm Watkins's transfer to that staff. A new Di- 

 vision of Musical Instrinnents was formed, and pro- 

 duced a temporary exhibit in Hall 8 before the per- 

 manent installation of the f^icific exhibit. The division 

 then moved to History and fechnology, but old-timers 

 in the Museum of Natural History will never forget the 

 pianos of the priceless Worch Gollection, a real treas- 

 uic. Adjacent to the old mineral hall stood the tiny 

 piano built for the midget "Cieneral Tom Thumb," made 

 famous bv P. I . Barnum. 



Until the 196()s, unfortmiately, there was no one on 

 the staff to care for the instruments, and there was no 

 space whatever for storing them properly except for 

 one small spot on the second-floor rotunda balcony. 

 Pianos, harpsichords, clavichords, and virginals were 

 stacked three and four high in the stairwells and all 

 around the third-floor rotunda balcony. One particu- 

 larly hot summer day, the glue holding the legs of one 

 instrument gave way, and the sound of musical anguish 

 when it crashed, amplified by the dome, was a noise 

 that will not be forgotten by anyone who heard it. When 

 of fices on the third floor of the east range were vacated 

 by employees migrating to the Museum of History and 

 Technology, walls were torn down and space was used 

 for storing human skeletons in drawers. 



Herbert Friedmann Moves On 



On May 31, 1961, Herbert Eriedmann retired after 



thirty-two years at the Museum of Natural History; 

 perhaps "retired" is not quite the proper word, for he 

 left to become director of the Los Angeles County Mu- 

 seum. In a place that has housed many erudite and 

 witty people, Eriedmann stood out. Not only did he 

 study birds directly, but he wrote on such subjects as 

 the symbolism of the goldfinch in medieval art. One 

 day he passed a youngish inhabitant of the building 

 who had grown a beard over the summer. He said, "I 

 see you are down to your secondary sex characteristics," 

 and walked on.' ' 



By the time of Eriedmann's retirement, the Museum's 

 "continuous modernization program" had been in ef- 

 fect for eight and a half years. As the Annual Report 

 summed it up, "nine of the fifteen galleries on the first 

 floor and four second-floor halls had been renovated 

 and openefl to public view. Each hall has presented 

 distinct problems in exhibition because of the dif ferent 

 subject matter interpreted in each. However, each ren- 

 ovated gallery reveals marked improvements in the or- 

 ganization of to])ics, in the attractiveness of presenta- 

 tion, and in the simplicity of labelling that combine to 

 make it a much more effective educational medium 

 than was the series of exhibits that occupied the hall 

 prior to modernization."" The general supervision of 

 the exhibits prcjgram was taken over by A.C. Smith, 

 and when Smith moved up to Assistant Secretary, T. Dale 

 Stewart had the job. But the director of the Museum 

 had many pioblems to worry about, and the exhibits 

 did not receive the same attention that Herbert Fried- 

 mann IkkI given tliem. 



Three More Halls 



Eiscal year 1963 was again an important time for ex- 

 hibits; three major halls opened. Waldo Wedel com- 

 pleted his second hall of North American Ai cheology 

 in the east north range of the second floor. While both 

 these halls were far better than what had been there 

 earlier, neither Hall 21 nor Hall 22 was dramatic or 

 inspired, as Wedel, who never particularly liked ex- 

 hibits work, will be the first to say. A superb field man 

 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, 

 Wedel was hired in 1936, and like Cooper, was not 

 pi omoted for thirteen years until Neil Judd, the person 

 in front oi him, retired.'' In 1983 Hall 21 was closed 

 off to be used as a staging area for moving collections 

 f rom the building, and in 1984 Hall 22 was closed off 

 for the same purpose. 



The Dinosaur Hall was done by Nicholas Hotton III, 

 who joined the Department of Geology in 1959. This 

 hall entailed major construction; a large balcony was 

 built to increase the display area and to reduce the effect 

 of the high ceiling. A stairway led from the balcony to 

 the moon rock display in Hall 22, opened for the na- 

 tion's bicentennial. Diplodocus longus was displayed in a 

 smaller area than before because the east end of the 

 hall, below the balcony, was walled off. A popula-- 



94 



