Fifty-Two Years of Research, Observation and Publication 1877-1929. A Life Adventure in Breadth and Depth

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930. First edition.

BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LEADING AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGIST INSCRIBED TO PITTSBURGH COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.

9 inches tall hardcover, maroon cloth binding, gilt title to cover and spine, bookplate of Pennsylvania College for Women to front paste-down, inscribed "To Louise C. Bahl/ Hall of Science -/ Henry Fairfield Osborn/ August 8th 1931/ the Author's 73rd Birthday". Frontispiece portrait of Osborn; library pocket to rear paste-down. Spine faded, residue from sticker bottom of spine, dust jacket lighlty soiled with edgewear, overall very good in very good jacket in protective mylar sleeve. CONTENTS: Publication of Research; Ideal Methods of Research; Fellowship of Research; Research in the Universities; The Impulse to Research in Geology and Biology; Bibliography (1877-1929).

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN (1857 – 1935) was an American geologist, paleontologist, and eugenicist, and the president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years. He studied at Princeton University (1873–1877), obtaining a B.A. in geology and archaeology, where he was mentored by paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. Two years later, Osborn took a special course of study in anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Bellevue Medical School of New York under Dr. William H. Welch, and subsequently studied embryology and comparative anatomy under Thomas Huxley as well as Francis Maitland Balfour at Cambridge University, England. In 1880, Osborn obtained a Sc.D. in paleontology from Princeton, becoming a lecturer in Biology and Professor of Comparative Anatomy (1883–1890). In 1891, Osborn was hired by Columbia University as a professor of zoology; and also curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, where he served as the curator of a newly formed Department of Vertebrate Paleontology. As a curator, he assembled a remarkable team of fossil hunters and preparators, including William King Gregory; Roy Chapman Andrews, and Charles R. Knight.

PROVENANCE: LOUISE C. BUHL was the wife of HENRY BUHL, founder of a major department store in Pittsburgh in 1869. The Buhl Foundation invested in science in the region with generous grants to the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Institute of Technology, and the Louise C. Buhl Hall of Science of the Pennsylvania College for Women. The building included a natural history library, chemistry laboratory, and lecture hall.