tion,” and indicated a strong consensus that the 
museum had an obligation to find “a satisfac- 
tory or a better home for it” in order to avoid a 
“sross” breach of trust.®? 
Parr’s plans for the museum were dampened 
during the ensuing years of the Second World 
War as the institution adjusted to extended 
absences among curatorial and administrative 
staff who had joined the armed forces, changes 
in visitation and patronage, curtailed research 
activity, and altered demands on the museum’s 
technical and human resources.”? Following 
the war, Parr discussed the process of “recon- 
version” from the distorted wartime opera- 
tions of the museum to a post-war vision for 
its future. He made it clear that he saw this 
Jesup Collection 39 
After more than sixty years on public display, the Jesup Collection was dismantled in Forestry Hall in 1948. 
process, both inevitable and necessary, as an 
opportunity to focus the museum’s scope and 
actively integrate its research and educational 
activities across disciplines and into the wider 
landscape of public consciousness. He wanted 
to find alternatives to standard approaches to 
exhibition, where “an old-fashioned system- 
atic arrangement of specimens, unrelieved by 
an occasionally freer use of artistry, becomes 
dull and boring to the spectator.”°! Abandoning 
staid practices was the foundation for planning 
the museum’s “program of modernization” in 
the years to follow.” 
In addition to its orphan status among the 
departments of the museum, there may have 
been no single display in the museum at that 
AMNH RESEARCH LIBRARY DIGITAL SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, 2A1316 
