The IDHH has continued to grow, with new collections added each quarterly harvest!
In celebration of Earth Day, this month we’re featuring a new collection of watercolor illustrations: the Illustrations for The Fishes of Illinois, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library. The Fishes of Illinois (first edition 1908, second edition 1919) was the culmination of decades of work led by naturalist Stephen A. Forbes, chief of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History (now the Illinois Natural History Survey). Co-authored with ichthyologist Robert Earl Richardson, Forbes intended to create a reliable guide for the fish species present in Illinois, including color illustrations alongside descriptions of each species’ anatomy and appearance, habitat and distribution through Illinois, and lifecycle and taxonomy as known at the time. In the introduction, Forbes attributes the gorgeous illustrations to Lydia M. (Hart) Greene and Charlotte M. Pinkerton, whose signatures can be seen on some of the illustrations in the digital collection.
Here are a few of our favorite items from this new collection:
Want to see more?
Visit the IDHH to view more collections and items from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library or to view more items related to Stephen A. Forbes (including his Civil War Diary), fish or Earth Day, or you can visit the IDHH previous blog post Unearthing the Roots of Earth Day. You can also visit the Illinois Natural History Survey to learn more about their history and current research.