New York Aquarium Departmental Files, bulk: Bulk, 1971-1975, 1966-1986

The majority of the records in the series consist of outgoing memos, correspondence and other materials created by the Aquarium’s animal curators and its Education Department. Curatorial files were created by James Atz, John Clark, William Flynn, and Stephen Spotte, as well as Assistant / Associate Curator H. [Howard] Doug Kemper; Education files were created by Director of Education Karen Hensel and Aquarium Instructor Douglas Dixon. Atz and Clark are somewhat less well represented than the other creators, Kemper and Hensel somewhat more so. The records document the activities and concerns of the Aquarium’s curatorial and education staff from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s. Major subjects include the Aquarium’s volunteer/docent program, its educational programs, the duties of Aquarium tank-men, collection research and acquisition, and relations between Aquarium staff and their colleagues at the New York Zoological Society. There are also more general materials produced for the public, for example fact sheets and bibliographies, as well as correspondence between the public and Aquarium staff (including 1972 correspondence between curators and two young boys who wrote in expressing their desire to acquire penguins from the Aquarium and/or accompany Aquarium staff on a South Pole penguin-collecting voyage).

Additionally, the series includes daily and hourly totals of Aquarium attendance for the years 1971-1974, when the Aquarium was experimenting with evening and night hours, as well as a file containing 1985-1986 correspondence with the Aquarium Committee of NYZS Board of Trustees from Kathy Schaeffer, the Associate Manager of Public Affairs for the Aquarium.