Research project
The Ralum Research Project (1896-1897) and its Yield for the Museum of Natural History
This project attempts to contextualise zoological research material using the example of Friedrich Dahl's collection in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. The processing of numerous archival sources, above all that of a file of the Historical Image and Written Material Collection of Berlin, enables the documentation of Dahl's extensive collecting activities in 1896-1897 in the Bismarck Archipelago, at that time a German South Sea colony.
It also bears witness to the extraordinary history of the Ralum Research Station. The project of this facility was initiated by zoologist Anton Dohrn, who wanted to establish this facility as a permanent contact point for scientists from all over the world, following the example of his Stazione Zoologica in Naples, which is still famous today. Through intensive preparation, Dohrn had created extremely favourable conditions in Ralum to realise this, which would ultimately also have meant a step towards realising his vision of a worldwide network of zoological stations. Friedrich Dahl was chosen as the first researcher for Ralum through the intercession of his teacher Karl August Möbius, at that time director of the Natural History Museum. Dohrn's collaboration with Möbius ultimately meant the failure of his project. Möbius, with the support of the money-giving institutions of the German Empire, claimed all the material for the museum, so that none of the objects were made available to Dohrn. Dahl remained the only researcher ever to work in Ralum.
Dohrn and Möbius held very different views on the establishment of museum collections; in contrast to Dohrn, Möbius was very concerned to complete the collection of the Natural History Museum. Therefore, Dahl collected all the material accessible to him that he observed and caught during his excursions, from which all the zoological departments of the Berlin Museum and the Botanical Museum Berlin profited. According to this, there should still be material in all the curatorial departments today. This was investigated more closely in this work on the basis of four departments: objects from Ralum were found in all of them. In addition, the different treatment and attention that the material received after its arrival in the museum became clear. The material of the mollusc collection, which had apparently received the least attention of the departments examined, had to a large extent not even been inventoried and identified, while in the others detailed publications had been made about the Dahl collection. The missed identification work and cataloguing of the malacological material was made up for in the course of this work. By combining archival work and research in zoological departments of the Museum für Naturkunde, the present work exemplarily documents the process of building, processing and using natural history collections against a background of the history of science.
Employed in the project
- Elisa Schmitt
- Matthias Glaubrecht
Publications produced
Schmitt, E.M. & Glaubrecht, M. 2013. “Give me a museum and I will fill it”. The first German Tropical Research Station at Ralum, Bismarck Archipelago, 1896-1897, in context of collecting for the Museum of Natural History Berlin. Zoosystematics and Evolution 89 (2): 337-364.
Schmitt, E. & Glaubrecht, M. 2012. Revisting the Ralum Collection. Molluscs collected by Friedrich Dahl for the Museum of Natural History Berlin. Zoosystematics and Evolution, 88 (1): 79-95.
Schmitt E. & Glaubrecht M. 2010. How to become museum director: lessons from the decisive years 1882 to 1887 and Karl August Möbius' appointment at the Zoological Museum in Berlin. Zoosystematics and Evolution,
86 (2): 165–184.