This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
The august members of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences who met in June of 1869 to vote on the membership of Joseph Duncan Putman must have had a reservation or two. They were only amateur scientists themselves—a penmanship teacher, a public-school teacher, a real estate agent, and a tobacconist who had formed the Academy to combine their personal collections of shells, minerals, bones, and rocks. But Joseph Putnam was only thirteen.
Nevertheless, the young man had already amassed an astounding collection of insects, and he was voted in. Adding Joseph Duncan Putnam to their collection turned out to be the smartest move those august members ever made.
To encourage their son's interest in natural science, the parents joined the Academy along with him. His mother, Mary Louisa, believed that the natural sciences should be available to the whole community. In 1874, she led a fund drive to buy window shades and display cases for the new Academy Quarters in the Odd Fellows Building. The following year, after the Academy Museum was opened the public, she honored her son's request to help out by establishing the Women's Centennial Association to raise money. That effort led the Academy to build its own museum in 1878, and to add a science hall in 1889.
In 1879 Mary Putnam became the Academy's first woman president.
After her son's death at the age of 26 in 1881, Mary remained true to his vision. Her fund-raising efforts eventually led to the establishment of the Putnam Memorial Trust, following her husband's death in 1887. Through the efforts of the entire family, the Putnam Trust grew, allowing the Museum to expand, and to move, in 1963, into a spacious new building on the bluffs above Davenport where the Putnam's home once stood. In 1974, the Museum was accredited by the American Association of Museums, an honor achieved by fewer than ten percent of all museums. To honor the Putmans, the name now became the Putnam Museum of History and Natural Science—all because of a young kid's hobby.
That house that Jack built pales in comparison to this house that bugs built.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
