Frederic Augustus Lucas papers

Frederic Augustus Lucas was a curator and naturalist born in Plymouth, Massachusetts on March 25, 1852. He received and honorary D.Sc. degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1909. In 1871 Lucas entered Ward's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York, where he remained for eleven years working in taxidermy, osteology, and museum technique. He began his curatorial career at the United States National Museum in 1882. From 1904 to 1911 he was the curator-in-chief of the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. In 1911, Lucas became the director of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he remained until 1923, and served as the honorary director from 1924 to 1929.

Lucas' work was mainly in the field of museum administration, the preparation of museum materials, and osteology. Throughout his career, he belonged to numerous professional societies and published many works on the anatomy of birds, fossil vertebrates, and museum methods. He was the author of two books, Animals of the Past (1901), and Animals Before Man in North America (1902).

In 1933, the American Museum of Natural History published his biography, Fifty Years of Museum Work which includes a bibliography of his writings.