The Wagner Free Institute of Science acquired its set of 28 mushrooms well over a century ago, but they haven't lost their color – and no, they don't stink. The collection is still in good shape despite its age and simple storage thanks to the fungi's unique matter: Each bulb is made of papier-mâché.
INSIDE THE ARCHIVES
PhillyVoice peeks into the collections at different museums in the city, highlighting unique and significant items you won't typically find on display.
These hollow mushrooms were models designed to show foragers which species were safe to eat, and which ones would kill them. Dr. Louis Auzoux mass-produced them and papier-mâché replicas of beetles, horses and human bodies in the 1800s at his factory in the tiny French village of Saint-Aubin-d'Ecrosville to provide a more effective and affordable teaching tool than wax models. It's especially fitting that a set of his landed at Philadelphia's Wagner Free Institute of Science, a monument to the natural world as 19th century audiences would've seen it.
Science for all
The museum opened its Renaissance Revival building on West Montgomery Avenue, just blocks from the Temple University campus, in 1865. It was the passion project of William Wagner, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant who believed scientific education should be accessible to everyone. He conducted free lectures in his home and later a public hall on Spring Garden Street before commissioning the museum's current headquarters, designed by the same architect who built City Hall.
The Wagner Free Institute of Science was largely built on its namesake's personal collection of shells, minerals and fossils acquired over a lifetime of travels – some of them at the behest of another Philly philanthropist, Stephen Girard. Its holdings expanded when Joseph Leidy, a prominent paleontologist who succeeded Wagner as the institute's president, went on a buying trip across Europe. He came back with mammal skeletons and taxidermy, and reorganized the museum into the layout still used today. Specimens are displayed in enormous wood and glass cases on the building's second floor, arranged by geologic time and complexity of the creature.
"He was certainly influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, and I think that's somewhat reflected in the arrangement," said Susan Glassman, the institute's executive director. "That was going on at places all across the country. So this place is interesting because we've sort of preserved this one kind of moment that he designed."
The Wagner Free Institute of Science augmented its collection further in the late 19th century with birds, caught and preserved locally (the building once had its own taxidermy lab), and insects acquired by a zealous curator. Sponsored expeditions along the East Coast also produced some treasures. A 1886 trip to Florida unearthed the first American saber-toothed tiger specimen. Its skull is still on display at the institute.
"Most of our stuff is things that were once alive or a part of the earth in some way," Glassman said.
The expeditions continued roughly into the 1920s, according to special collections librarian Lynn Dorwaldt, who generally caps the museum's holdings around 1940. While the Wagner stopped collecting long ago, it still offers the free classes that its founder and Leidy championed. They are held in a ground-floor, 1,500-seat lecture hall that feels like something out of "The Knick." The educational ethos is also apparent in the building's history as the home of the first branch of the Philadelphia Public Library, later the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Mushroom models
One result of Leidy's stewardship, and European shopping spree, was the set of papier-mâché mushrooms. Leidy found them at the shop of French taxidermy dealer Émile Deyrolle, still open and operating at 46 Rue de Bac in Paris, in 1889.
By that point, their creator, Auzoux, had been dead nearly a decade. But he found success with his intricate models during his lifetime, producing a catalog of 600 different anatomical and botanical replicas. He began crafting eyes, hearts and full-scale bodies out of papier mâché after realizing how difficult it was to teach anatomy. Cadavers were in short supply and wax figures were fragile and expensive, issues he had seen firsthand as a medical student. Eventually, his business expanded to include animals, insects and plants, created by his staff of about 100 workers at the Saint-Aubin-d'Ecrosville factory or his workshop in Paris.
Papier mâché mushrooms on wooden bases atop a tablecloth with flowersKristin Hunt/for PhillyVoice
The Wagner Free Institute of Science acquired 28 papier mâché mushrooms from a Parisian shop in 1889. The museum's president Joseph Leidy purchased them on a 'buying spree' in Europe.
A brown and tan papier mâché mushroom dissembled into pieces.Kristin Hunt/for PhillyVoice
The models come apart to reveal the inner features of each mushroom.
Auzoux's papier-mâché mushrooms come apart at a spot marked with an illustrated pointing finger to reveal a cross-section of the mushroom's inner cap and stem. Many of the species are represented through two models: one a budding, young fungi and the other fully grown. They are each mounted on a wooden base the Wagner commissioned the last time the set was displayed a decade ago, as part of the bygone Philadelphia Science Festival.
Each papier-mâché mushroom is labeled with one of three French words: comestible (edible), suspect (suspicious) or dangereux (dangerous). Altogether, the models served as a comprehensive visual aid to the person studying their spores – though they would eventually be supplanted by simpler, plaster sets.
A white papier mâché mushroom on a wooden base with French labels reading 'Agaric Bulbeux' and 'Dangereux'Kristin Hunt/for PhillyVoice
Dr. Louis Auzoux included labels on his mushroom models indicating which species were edible. 'Dangereux' meant they were poisonous.
A Victorian museum stuck in time
Preserving curios like Auzoux's mushrooms is key to the Wagner's mission. According to Dorwaldt, the staff has striven to "preserve this as an example of 19th century science," keeping most of the specimens' original labels intact and the space largely untouched by time. There is no air conditioning in the building, and the stairs creak when visitors ascend to the cavernous display floor.
"I think preserving history gives us a perspective on where we are today," Dorwaldt said. "Which I think is really important, and for lots of different reasons. How did we end up here? How were things different before? What's better now? What was better then?"
The last major change to the Wagner, staffers say, was its 1990 designation as a national historic landmark. The institute adopted a dual mission at the time, to provide free education, as it always had, and preserve the building and its collection as an example of a 19th century science. Those two directives, Dorwaldt admits, can "fight against each other" but it's also what makes the institute "so special and unique."
"You don't see displays of the natural world like this anymore," she said. "... It opens up your mind in a different way. It makes you experience something differently. It brings you out of your normal day to day."
Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt | @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Have a news tip? Let us know.