History
The current home for the Alabama Museum of Natural History, Smith Hall, is named in honor of Dr. Eugene Allen Smith. He was appointed as state geologist in 1873 and spent nearly forty years surveying, mapping and collecting scientific specimens throughout the state. The cornerstone for Smith Hall was laid on May 28, 1907. Construction of Smith Hall was completed in fall 1909 and it was formally dedicated on May 5, 1910.
Eugene A. Smith recruited collector Herbert Huntington Smith (no relation) as the Museum's Curator. Herbert H. Smith directed the Museum under Eugene A. Smith from 1910 till his death in 1919. During this period the Alabama Museum of Natural History was very active in acquiring natural history objects by collecting, trading and donation, especially fossil and recent mollusks of Alabama. Large collections of Tertiary shells were made and traded to other institutions and individuals. The two Smiths generously sent specimens to local and out-of-state researchers, generating many publications on Alabama material. The Museum also improved its exhibits and provided identified sets of natural history objects to schools in Alabama.
Herbert Smith's wife, Amelia ("Daisy") Wentworth Smith, was also a collector and worked for the Museum, but with scant public attention, as this would have been thought of as immodest at the time. Remarkably, after her husband's unexpected death, Daisy Smith replaced him as Acting Curator, making her one of the few women to direct a natural history museum in the early twentieth century. Her endeavors included seeing her late husband's malacological projects through to completion, which she accomplished by recruiting Calvin Goodrich and other malacologists.
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