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Spencer Fullerton Baird, 1823-1887. The second Smithsonian Secretary, Spencer Fullerton Baird, served from 1878 to 1887. A naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, and renowned collector from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Baird dedicated his career to creating a strong US National Museum at the Smithsonian. Born in 1823 in Reading, Pennsylvania ...
- Collecting For The Smithsonian
- First Fish Commissioner
- A Multi-Faceted Legacy
His broad scientific interests and writings earned Baird respect as an ornithologist, zoologist, herpetologist, and naturalist. He corresponded with many of the great naturalists and scientists of the day in the United States and internationally. In 1850, at age 27, he was offered a position as the first assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Insti...
Baird added to his list of responsibilities and achievements in 1871, when President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him the first Commissioner of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. He received no salary at the Fish Commission given his paid position at the Smithsonian. Shortly after his appointment, he founded the Woods Hole Laboratory...
Baird is credited with initiating the fields of marine ecology, fisheries biology or fisheries science, and laying the foundation of oceanography. He was also a pioneer in biogeography, the study of biological and geographic factors that influence the distribution of life on Earth. He believed research and education went hand in hand. From the star...
bird. mammal. North America. Spencer Fullerton Baird (born Feb. 3, 1823, Reading, Pa., U.S.—died Aug. 19, 1887, Woods Hole, Mass.) was an American naturalist, vertebrate zoologist, and in his time the leading authority on North American birds and mammals.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Learn about the Smithsonian's first United States National Museum building, now called Arts and Industries, which opened in 1881, and the man who helped shape the Smithsonian’s future, Spencer Fullerton Baird. Scroll to explore this topic. Baird's Dream: Introduction.
- jenniferm
- 2013
To date there are more than twelve species of fish, over twenty-five species of mammals, birds, and mollusks, and one entire genus named for Spencer Fullerton Baird. Baird’s collecting helped transform nineteenth-century American science by documenting America’s own natural history.
SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD. Upon the death of Professor Henry, in 1878, Professor Baird succeeded him as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He effected some changes in its policy, more especially in the distribu-tion of its funds, which will be referred to hereafter, but in the main his thoughts and labor continued to be devoted to the Fish
Robert Kennicott notes, “Prof. Baird is just about the best and most wonderful man I ever did see.—I never could conceive the possibility of anyone failing in respect toward him and yet he is extremely familiar with everyone—” Portrait of Spencer Baird, second Secretary (1878-1887) of the Smithsonian Institution, as a young man.
