H.H. Smith
H.H. Smith served as the first curator of Invertebrate Zoology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. He was employed on what we would now consider a "consultant" basis, and was instrumental in acquiring the beginnings of the mollusk collection. Smith was born in Manlius, NY in 1851. He graduated from Cornell University. He became curator in 1895 and retired from that position, due to ill health, in 1903. He moved south to Alabama where he became Curator of the Alabama State Museum. He passed away in 1919.

Carnegie Museum's molluscan collection had its beginning with the 3000 species collected by Smith, in addition to other specimens purchased from F.R. Holland and donated by George Clapp. Despite being at Carnegie Museum of Natural History for only 8 years, Smith set the stage for others who were to follow.

From 1870 to 1886, Smith made several trips to Brazil and collected mollusks and other natural history specimens. Smith also took trips to the West Indies, Mexico, and Columbia, further pursuing his interests in natural history. When Smith retired to Alabama, he undertook extensive field trips throughout the state collecting freshwater and terrestrial mollusks. Despite collecting all manner of specimens, Smith's particular interests were the Unionidae and Pleuroceridae of the southeastern United States. Arnold Ortmann succeeded Smith as curator.

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Arnold E. Ortmann
Ortmann was born in 1863 in Magdeberg, Prussia. He studied at the Universities of Kiel, Strassburg, and Jena. He received his Ph.D. from the latter institution in 1885. Ortmann came to the United States in 1894 and was Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Princeton University. He left Princeton in 1903 to come to Carnegie Museum of Natural History. While still at Princeton, he worked on the Report upon the Tertiary Invertebrates of the Princeton Expedition to Patagonia.

Upon coming to Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Ortmann undertook extensive studies of the Decapoda: Crustacea. Following these studies, he began an intensive study of the unionids found in the drainage patterns on either side of the Appalachian Mountain Range. His work on the unionids resulted in several major monographs and numerous shorter papers. As early as 1909, Ortmann had commented on the effects of pollution in our waterways and its effect on the unionid populations. Ortmann's publication on the Naiads of South America was based primarily on material from the Haseman Collection. Haseman made this collection during an expedition to South America. At the time, it represented material from regions of the Amazon basin not yet explored by other scientists.

In addition to his duties at the Museum, Ortmann was on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh. He rose to the level of Professor and the University conferred the degree of Sc.D. upon him in 1911. Ortmann died suddenly in 1927 at the age of 64. Upon his death, Stanley T. Brooks was appointed to care for the collection.

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Stanley Truman Brooks
Brooks was born in Mound City, Kansas in 1902. He studied at the University of Kansas and undertook his graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh where he received his Ph.D. in 1929. He had worked under Ortmann. Upon Ortmann's death, Brooks was appointed custodian of the mollusks at the Museum. After earning his Ph.D., he was elevated to a curatorial position. Brooks wrote his thesis on the land snails of Pennsylvania. Brooks also studied the molluscan fauna of Kansas. In addition, he spent several summers studying the fauna of Newfoundland, Canada.

Stanley Brooks, with his wife Betty Watt Brooks, was the first person to publish a catalog of the type holdings of the mollusk collection. In 1931, he published a catalog of the Pelecypoda followed by one on the Amphineura and Gastropoda. Brooks left the Museum in 1945. Brooks also worked as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 1944-1945 and during his tenure at Carnegie Museum performed analyses of parasitic specimens for the Western Pennsylvania Hospital.

Upon leaving Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Brooks worked as a scientific specialist for the US Military. He left this position in 1947. Brooks worked for the United States Department of Commerce from 1946-1950 (stationed in Germany). Other positions that he held were with the US Public Health Service (1950-53), the American Tobacco Company (1953-55), and the National Institute of Health (1956-1958). Brooks passed away in 1958 at the age of 56.

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Gordon M. Kutchka MacMillan
Gordon Kutchka was born in Muehlein, Germany in 1906. He earned his MS from the University of Pittsburgh in 1937. Kutchka started as an assistant in the Section of Invertebrates in 1929, and was appointed to the permanent staff in 1939. He became a curator in 1946.

He held the position of assistant curator until 1951 when he left the Museum. In 1938, due to anti-German sentiments, Kutchka changed his last name to MacMillan. From 1944 to 1945, MacMillan served with the armed forces. After leaving the Museum, he worked for the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (Pennsylvania) until 1971. While at the Authority he held the position of chemist.

While at the Carnegie, MacMillan worked primarily on terrestrial gastropods. He published one paper on the land snails of West Virginia with Brooks and later published a comprehensive monograph on the terrestrial gastropods of West Virginia. He also studied the terrestrial gastropods of Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, and Nebraska. In all, MacMillan published over 50 papers. He died in 1981 at the age of 75. After MacMillan left CMNH, Juan Jose Parodiz was appointed to replace him as curator.

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J. Jose Parodiz
Parodiz was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received his degree from the Instituto Nacional Ciencias Naturales. Parodiz studied paleontology and malacology while in Argentina. While serving in the Argentinian Navy, he participated in several oceanographic expeditions to the South Atlantic and sub-Antarctic region.

Parodiz worked at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales for almost 20 years before moving to the United States. In 1951 Parodiz accepted a position at Carnegie Museum and shortly thereafter was appointed Curator of Invertebrate Biology, a position he held for some 30 years. Since 1982 he has been Curator Emeritus and has continued to work on the South American naiads and Neogene fossils of the southeastern United States.

Parodiz has published over 100 papers. He has collected throughout South America in addition to the eastern United States. Parodiz's activities have greatly enlarged the museum's collections in the Unionoida and freshwater and terrestrial gastropods of North and South America, both fossil and recent. He has been a member of the American Malacological Society since 1949 and served as president in 1965.

J.J. Parodiz passed away on 24 Sep. 2007 in Allentown, PA at the age of 95.

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Betty Watt Brooks
Betty Watt Brooks was born in 1898. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Wellesley College. She worked for Professor Albert Francs Blakeslee and the Carnegie Institute of Washington before coming to Pittsburgh to further her studies. She began her studies at the University of Pittsburgh in 1925 and received her Ph.D. in 1934 (taking time off to raise a family). Her research project was a study of fossil plants from the Payette Formation of Idaho.

Betty married Stanley Truman Brooks in 1927. She worked alongside her husband in the Mollusk Section from 1930 to 1945, at which time S.T. Brooks took a leave of absence from the Museum. While at the museum, Betty collaborated with Stanley on writing the type catalogs for the mollusk collection. In addition, Betty accompanied Stanley on several of his collecting expeditions in Newfoundland, Kansas, and other states in the southeastern U.S.

After leaving Carnegie Museum, Betty Brooks worked for the United States Department of Commerce from 1946-1950 (stationed in Germany), as a regional director for the Girl Scouts (1953-1955), and for the United States Public Health Service (1957-1970). She retired from the Public Health Service in 1970 and died in 1978.

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William Elliott Burnett
Mr. Burnett was born 22 May 1872 in Garland County, Pennsylvania and died 20 Aug. 1933 at Bradford, Pennsylvania.

In 1933, for the fifth time in almost as many years, the extensive collections of the Carnegie Museum Mollusk Section were augmented significantly, this time by a collection of more than 4,700 lots of marine, freshwater, and land mollusks from the estate of William Elliot Burnett of Bradford, Pennsylvania. This collection was bequeathed to this institution in 1931 and his untimely death, a result of an accident, occurred in August of 1933. Mr. Burnett had been a carpenter and cabinet-maker for 48 of his 64 years and throughout his life had made a hobby of shells, minerals, and American Indian artifacts. Although living inland, he was able to build up the collection of marine shells through exchange as well as by his own efforts. The many carefully prepared and authentically labeled specimens reflect his interest and patience as well as the high esteem that was held for him by his colleagues in shells.

Both Mr. Burnett’s father and grandfather were collectors and students of Nature so it is only natural that he also had a similar avocation. His academic training was sparse, since he entered his trade at the age of sixteen, but his collection shows a labor not dictated by the classroom but by the urge within him.

The Burnett Collection has become part of the systematic research collection in the Section of Mollusks and supplements other collections received during the 1920s and 1930s: the George Clapp Collection of North American Land Snails (15,472 lots), the Victor Sterki Collection of Sphaeriidae (12,924 lots), the Herman Wright Collection (over 1000 lots), and the S. H. Stupakoff Collection (3,400 lots).

Adapted from: Anonymous. 1933. "The Burnett Collection of Shells." Carnegie Magazine 7(7): 213. Additional information from Abbott, R.T. 1973. "American Malacologists: A national register of professional and amateur malacologists and private shell collectors and biographies of early American mollusk workers born between 1618 and 1900." American Malacologists. Falls Church, VA: 494 pp. For further information, see the obituary by Brooks, S.T. 1934. "William Elliott Burnett, 1872-1933." Nautilus, 47: 143-144.

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George H. Clapp
George Clapp was born in 1859. He was extremely involved in the educational institutions that were located in Pittsburgh. He became a trustee of the Carnegie Institute in 1896 and continued to serve in this capacity for 53 years. This service ended only with his death. He also served as a trustee for the University of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Carnegie-Mellon University). The University of Pittsburgh honored him with a Sc.D. in 1915 and named the biology department building, Clapp Hall, in his honor.

The first accession in the Section of Invertebrates was a collection of 546 specimens representing 60 species of shells from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. This donation was one of some 190 donations made by Clapp to the Museum. Clapp was appointed honorary curator of malacology in 1900. Overall, he donated more than 15,000 lots to the Section. Though his collection did contain marine, freshwater, and terrestrial mollusks from around the world, most of the material he donated represented terrestrial shells of North America north of Mexico. Clapp's service to the people of Pittsburgh ended with his death in 1949 at the age of 90.

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John D. Haseman
In 1906, Professor J.C. Branner invited Dr. C.H. Eigenmann to join him on an expedition to collect fish in Brazil. Eigenmann was a professor at Indiana University, and Curator of Fishes at Carnegie Museum. Eigenmann was unable to go on the expedition; however, a student of his, John D. Haseman, was willing to participate. With the approval of W.J. Holland, Director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Haseman was given the authority to represent the museum on the expedition.

Haseman left for South America on October 5, 1907 and reached Bahia, Brazil on the 19th of October. Unfortunately, Dr. Branner's expedition was just about to leave. Haseman was not able to leave with Branner; however, Haseman received a great deal of useful information from him. Haseman received permission from Holland to proceed with an expedition of his own. Haseman undertook this expedition — ten individual trips — with only the assistance of native laborers. These individual trips lasted from one to eight months. Haseman originally expected to be in South America for only a year, but eventually ended up staying for two and a half years. Haseman's collecting took him to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia.

While Haseman was mainly interested in collecting fish, he also collected other freshwater animals including freshwater mussels. A. E. Ortmann used this collection in the preparation of the study South American Naiads. This paper was published in 1921. In it, thirteen new taxa are described from the Haseman Collection.

Haseman never finished his academic degree under Eigenmann's tutelage. He did continue to pursue field studies in the scientific discipline of ichthyology. Of his travels through the wilds of South America, Haseman said, "After the noises of the day the hush which comes at night-fall causes even the hardened traveler at times to shudder. No man over fifty years of age should attempt to enter this region. A hard heart and cold blood are useful to him who invades it."

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Victor Sterki
Sterki was born in Solothurn, Switzerland in 1846. He studied at the University of Bern and Munich University and earned his M.D. in 1878. Sterki practiced medicine for several years in Europe before emigrating to the US in 1883.

Sterki settled in Ohio and set up his medical practice there. He eventually retired from the practice of medicine in 1900 and pursued the study of natural history full-time. His main malacological interests included the gastropod family Pupillidae and the bivalve family Sphaeriidae. Carnegie Museum of Natural History acquired his Pupillidae collection of almost 4000 lots. Later the museum acquired the Sphaeriidae collection, which numbered over 12,000 lots at the time of Sterki's death. In addition, the Mollusk Section's library benefited by the addition of Sterki's library. This library contained 275 bound and unbound monographs as well as 1500 reprints.

Sterki was an assistant in the Section of Invertebrates from 1909 to 1933. He passed away in 1933 at the age of 87. At the time of his death, Sterki was working on his monograph The Sphaeriidae of the World, a work that was never finished. The journal Sterkiana was named in his honor.

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Prof. Herman Wright
In 1932, CMNH received a donation of the collection of Professor Herman P. Wright. Wright, a professor at Indiana University, amassed a collection of freshwater mollusks while studying the Tippecanoe River System of northern Indiana. The collection represents not only the main river, but also tributaries and 95 associated ponds and lakes. Sub-fossil taxa were obtained by taking 284 marl borings. This collection, when fully curated, will allow one to study variation within taxa from the headwaters of the Tippecanoe River to its end where it joins the Wabash River. In addition one will be able to study taxa from both riverine and lake habitats. The collection was donated to CMNH in 1932 by the Professor's widow, Christina Wright.

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