Practising taxonomy: Joel Asaph Allen and species-making (W. T. Stearn Prize 2017)

Abstract

This article uses Joel Asaph Allen (1838–1921), naturalist and curator at New York's American Museum of Natural History (1885–1921), and the naturalists, collectors and other actors in his orbit to explore how taxonomists handled the concept of species during the field's acceptance and incorporation of evolutionary theory. The work of taxonomy can be characterized as “species-making”, the practice of defining and demarcating of species through examining collections of specimens. Allen occupied a liminal space between what could be called the theoreticians and the technicians of systematics. As the curator of major collecting and research enterprises in the United States, Allen was intimately involved in the practical details of specimen collection, including conducting and arranging field expeditions, describing bird skins and other specimen collections, arranging public displays, and securing patronage. At the same time, he published widely on theoretical issues such as zoological nomenclature and the definition of subspecies, expanded the study of biogeography, and helped professionalize zoology. This essay aims to illustrate how the multifarious threads of specimen collecting, taxonomy and professionalization interweave within the life of a single individual to present one facet of the nineteenth-century natural history: the normal taxonomist.