The Field Journal and the Nature of the City

What’s the story?

Among the oldest and supposedly clearest boundaries people draw is that between nature and civilization, or sometimes just “the country” and “the city.” But close observation and an openness to what is around us reveals that nonhuman life thrives in myriad ways and in all niches, regardless of whether the landscape is untouched by artifice or is in fact human-built.

As a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, James A.G. Rehn (1881-1965) was a prolific collector of specimens, particularly birds and insects. Eventually his collecting expeditions would take him to the American West and other continents. However, in his field notebooks from 1898 through 1901, Rehn records casual observations of birds, insects, plants, and more in Philadelphia and the surrounding region.

The label “field journal” evokes the opposition between nature and the built environment referenced earlier: we think of the “field” as separate from the laboratory or the museum, and by extension separate from the city itself. But while many of Rehn’s observations were recorded in Philadelphia’s set-apart city parkland or in rural areas outside of the city limits, others were taken on the squares, sidewalks, and even doorways of downtown buildings and other constructions. Rehn’s observations often began quite literally in the Academy’s backyard.

Such observations, and the knowledge of nature that derives from them, remind us that even our densest and most built-up cities exist within the natural world, and that they are a part of it and coextensive with it. Rehn’s notebooks are recordings of encounters between an observer and a portion of that natural world, encounters that occurred at a particular time and a particular place. Their value to the study of scientific questions is self-evident, but they also remind us to ask another more basic question: where is nature, and how do we best remind ourselves that we are ourselves a part of it?

More details

theme: Place of Power
subjects: Biological specimens, Field notes, Grasshoppers, Insect trapping
contributing repository: Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Library and Archives
submitted by: Paul Roberts
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