John S. White
Site Admin
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1295
Location: Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, USA
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Posted: Aug 14, 2007 04:42 Post subject: Re: Histories and historical value |
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BACKING IN THE DOOR, A TALE OF IRONY
This is not about minerals, per se, but it may fit the category.
While at the Smithsonian as a technician in the Mineral Sciences Department, it was always made very clear to everyone that there was no possibility of becoming a curator unless one possessed a PhD. As I had only a Master's Degree in mineralogy I was convinced, and was always told, that I could never be promoted to curator. I did not want to remain a technician at the museum for the rest of my employment, so I began exploring alternate possibilities. The one that I ended up pursuing was that of starting a new mineral journal, The Mineralogical Record, in 1970. I fully expected that once the journal became widely circulated, I could leave the museum and the magazine would provide whatever income I required.
What must be the irony of ironies, in just three years after its birth, the magazine so impressed the then director of the Natural History Museum that he not only supported an effort to promote me to curator, he actively encouraged it. In 1973 I was made a curator. So, the vehicle that was created in order to provide me with a future outside of the museum, actually became the means to the end that I most desired, a curatorship in what was then the museum with the world's greatest mineral collection.
Life can have many funny twists and turns.
John S. White _________________ John S. White
aka Rondinaire |
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