Richard Coivan, standing, 

 examining inaterial collected 

 in South Aincrica for a plant 

 hall that never was con- 

 structed. Stooping is Regin- 

 ald J. Sayre of the exhibits 

 staff, and leaning forward is 

 Thomas Soderstrom, curator 

 of botany. This was in closed- 

 off Hall 30 — the whale hall 

 on the south side of the sec- 

 ond floor — as indicated by 

 exhibits in the case behind. 



Late 1960s. 



new ideas for research activities, and administrative 

 changes, and while most were eventually approved, it 

 took a long time for them to be argued through the 

 system. Although exhibit activity reached a crescendo 

 under Kellogg, he was far more interested in research. 

 About the only exhibit work he participated in was 

 supervising the fabrication of the great blue whale, and 

 he had a terrible time making up his mind as to what 

 he wanted and even what color the model should be 

 painted. Fenner Chace, a crustacean expert, eventually 

 decided what color to paint the eyes. 



By any measure one wants to apply, Kellogg was a 

 character. He swore. Indeed, he used profanity so con- 

 stantly that for him not to use it in a sentence was a 

 shock to the listener. One time the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution made a short movie of scientists at work, dubbing 

 in the voice of a narrator explaining what each scientist 

 was doing. The film crew came back to Kellogg very 

 apologetically and explained that they had to shoot 

 again, for a lip reader had looked at his segment of the 

 film and determined that it could not be distributed. 



Kellogg was also an eminent scientist. For most of 

 his career at the Museum he studied living and fossil 

 whales, building on the work of his Museum prede- 

 cessor in marine mammals, F. W. True. He was the 

 American representative to the International Whaling 

 Commission. Most of what we know of the early history 

 of Leviathan was described by him in excruciating os- 



teological detail, and a great deal of the recent interest 

 in marine mammals has come about as a result of his 

 studies. 



The Museum changed dramatically during the Kel- 

 logg years. To overgeneralize, about all that Wetmore 

 was able to do, without funds and for nearly three 

 decades, was to hold the Museum and the Institution 

 together with little more than strength of character. 

 Under Remington Kellogg, swearing all the way, a largely 

 new staff, fueled by new money, remade the Museum. 



Albert C. Smith 



On July 1, 1957, the United States National Museum 

 was divided into the Museum of Natural History and 

 the Museum of History and Technology, with Kellogg 

 remaining as overall director. John Graf retired at the 

 end of 1957, and Kellogg was appointed an assistant 

 secretary, while still acting as head of Natural History. 

 Because of the administrative changes made in 1957, 

 the distinction of being the first director of the Museum 

 of Natural History belongs to Albert C. Smith. He took 

 office in August 1958, under Kellogg as director of the 

 United States National Museum. 



Museum life was definitely changing, and Smith's 

 appointment was perhaps the first acknowledgement 

 by the Institution that post-World War II science was 

 quite different from science in the earlier days. Smith 

 had begun his scientific career as a botanist at the New 



Museum Administration 



131 



