Margaret Whittaker Moodey (December 1862 – January 17, 1948) was an American scientific curator affiliated with the United States National Museum (later the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

Early life

Moodey was born in

Steubenville, Ohio Steubenville is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Ohio River 33 miles west of Pittsburgh, it had a population of 18,161 at the 2020 census. The city's name is derived from Fort Steuben, a 1 ...

, the youngest of ten children born to Virginia Southgate Eoff Moodey and Roderick Sheldon Moodey, a lawyer who died in 1866. She lived in Steubenville until she moved to Washington D.C. in the 1890s.

Career

Moodey was a secretary and scientific aide in the Department of Geology at the National Museum in Washington, D.C. She classified, catalogued, and maintained the museum's geological and

paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (geology), epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes t ...

holdings. She also assisted with exhibitions, and wrote reports. She and

Edgar T. Wherry Edgar Theodore Wherry (1885–1982) was an American mineralogist, soil scientist and botanist. He had a deep interest in ferns and ''Sarracenia''. Wherry earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1906 from the University of Pennsylvania. He r ...

were assistant authors of

George Perkins Merrill George Perkins Merrill (May 31, 1854 – August 15, 1929) was an American geologist, notable as the head curator from 1917 to 1929 of the Department of Geology, United States National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural History of the Smith ...

's ''Handbook and Descriptive Catalogue of the Collections of Gems and Precious Stones in the United States National Museum'' (1922). In the 1920s, she was in charge of a large collection of American gemstone samples; "she has had the entire responsibility and care of the collection of cut gems," explained the museum's annual report in 1924, "and in connection with this has been called upon to answer numerous inquiries and furnish information on gems and gem minerals." Pictures of Moodey peering into a microscope were published in newspapers and magazines across the United States during this time. Moodey resigned from the Museum in 1941, when she was almost 80 years old. As a "fitting finale to her Museum endeavors", she was co-author with Ray S. Bassler of ''Bibliographic and Faunal Index of Paleozoic Pelmatozoan Echinoderms'' (1943)''.'' She also co-authored a biography of George P. Merrill, with

Waldemar Lindgren Waldemar Lindgren (February 14, 1860 – November 3, 1939) was a Swedish-American geologist. Lindgren was one of the founders of modern economic geology. Biography Waldemar Lindgren was born in Vassmolösa, Kalmar Municipality, in the historica ...

Personal life

Moodey was guardian to her brother Beverly's three children after he died in 1906. She lived with her niece, Helen M. Coolidge, a high school principal, before she died in 1948, aged 85 years.

References

External links

Margaret Moodey & William Foshag
photograph from about 1926, in the Smithsonian Institution Archives *Diana Elizabeth Marsh
"From 'Extinct Monsters' to Deep Time: An ethnography of fossil exhibits production at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History"
(PhD diss., University of British Columbia 2014). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Moodey, Margaret W. 1862 births 1948 deaths People from Steubenville, Ohio Smithsonian Institution people American women scientists American curators American women curators Gemologists