The New York Years (1931–1953)

Abstract

Mayr’s main research in Berlin right after his return from the Solomon Islands concerned the study of his bird collections from the Saruwa get and Herzog Mountains, New Guinea (Fig. 3.1) which included a lengthy visit to the Rothschild Museum in Tring, England to compare certain specimens. In June 1930 Mayr attended the VIIth International Ornithological Congress at Amsterdam where he met many of the luminaries in ornithology, including Frank M. Chapman, chief curator of the Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. A few months later Mayr was invited to come to New York for one year to work on the bird collections of the Whitney South Sea Expedition. He did not leave Germany until the beginning of next year, having finished the report on his New Guinea bird collection. Arriving in New York on 19 January 1931 he entered the museum on the following day.

Mayr came to the United States as an employee of the Museum of Natural History of Berlin on temporary assignment of one year. When the AMNH was able to purchase the Rothschild Collection in 1932, he accepted the position of Associate Curator at the AMNH responsible, over the next several years, for organizing, cataloguing and preserving the 280,000 specimens which filled a huge number of cases. His salary had to be raised annually from the Whitney family. There was no tenure. This meant that if the Whitneys should ever stop giving the money (which, of course, never happened), he would be without a job and probably forced to go back to Germany.