AMNH RESEARCH LIBRARY DIGITAL SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, 322587 
40 Arnoldia 78/5-6 « October 2021 
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time that so epitomized a nineteenth-century- 
style exhibit than the Jesup Collection of North 
American Woods. Shortly after Parr became 
the museum’s director in 1942, he initiated 
discussions with botanist Bror E. Dahlgren, 
once an assistant curator in the Department 
of Invertebrate Zoology at the museum, who 
since the 1920s had been affiliated with the 
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. 
Dahlgren was asked to reconsider how the sub- 
jects of forestry and conservation would be rep- 
resented at the museum. Initially, his advice 
pertained to a rearrangement of the existing log 
specimens, “to break up the single linear, tradi- 
tional systematic arrangement,” emphasizing 
instead the geographic distributions and asso- 
Artists create detailed replicas of trees for the Olympic Forest diorama during the renovation of the Forestry Hall in 1952. 
ciations of the many species represented. He 
envisioned this new scheme as representing the 
composition and structure of regional Ameri- 
can forests, resulting in displays that were more 
like the dioramas familiar from the museum’s 
zoological exhibits.*? Even with this new think- 
ing toward repurposing the logs, however, the 
collection’s future was not secure. 
In July 1946, botanist Henry K. Svenson 
became chair and curator of the reconstituted 
Department of Forestry and General Botany, 
which counted two other museum associates, 
Clarence Hay (anthropology) and Charles Rus- 
sell (education), as its scientific staff. As a long- 
time consultant to the museum while a curator 
at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Svenson had 
