Gray, John Edward

Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887) was a Dickinson College graduate (class of 1840) and a professor of natural history and science at the college from 1845 until 1850, when he became assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institute (1850-1878). He was later promoted to secretary of that institution in 1878 and remained in that capacity until his death. The collection consists solely of correspondence between Spencer Fullerton Baird and his friend and colleague George Newbold Lawrence between 1868 and 1873. The bulk of the correspondence is from Baird to Lawrence, with a few drafts of letters from Lawrence to Baird.