Holland Letter Archive

As one of largest natural history museums in the country, Carnegie Museum of Natural History stewards, preserves, and interprets over 22 million artifacts, objects, and scientific specimens. This material serves to broaden our understanding of humans’ place in the interconnected web of life. The Holland Correspondence Archive contains the correspondence of William Jacob Holland (1848-1932). Holland was an American naturalist who served as the first director of the Carnegie Institute--now known as Carnegie Museum of Natural History. It contains hundreds of pages of correspondence between Holland and countless colleagues, partners, and researchers around the world. Spanning from 1896 to 1913, it documents the museum’s earliest years and elucidates museum collecting practices during this formative period for museums in the United States.