Russell Graham, who oversaw the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ EMS Museum and Art Gallery for the past fifteen years, retired on May 31. He was succeeded by Jane Cook, former chief scientist at the Corning Museum of Glass.
Anyone who’s perused one of the museum’s many rotating exhibits—The Lure of the Mine and The Bearded Lady Project come to mind—know of Graham’s impact. It’s the same for any eager middle-schooler who’s ever created tornadoes with their fingertips or stomped their feet near an accelerometer to force mini earthquakes.
Fewer know about Graham’s decades of experience gathering, preparing, and maintaining exhibits for the Smithsonian Institution, the Illinois State Museum, and Denver Museum of Nature & Science, before coming to Penn State to oversee the transformation to a modern, professional museum.
Or of his most acclaimed discovery, finding stone tools used by the Clovis culture—a prehistoric Paleo-American culture and one of the first people to live in North America—during a dig in Missouri, which to date is the only evidence that the group hunted forest-dwelling mastodons. The site of the excavation has since been transformed into the Mastodon State Historic Site and State Park.
“I’ve been working for forty-two years, and it’s the diversity and fun that keeps me going,” Graham said. “I’ve had the opportunity to do scientific research and I love discovering new things. You get to interact with the public so you’re not just sitting in your office or laboratory. You’re telling people about the work you do and trying to get them turned on to research and science. From your research, you create exhibits, which brings out your creative side.”
Modernizing the museum
Through grants and elbow grease, Graham oversaw the inventory, safe storage, and restorations of much of the college’s vast collection. The museum is home to more than 18,000 geological specimens, thousands of mining safety and other extraction industry artifacts, and numerous paintings that began with artwork from former EMS Dean Edward Steidle’s personal collection.
Graham said it was reviewing these paintings in preparation for the book, The Wonders of Work and Labor, published with help from Julianne Snider, the museum’s assistant director of exhibitions and collections, that made him realize how unique and special the collection was. So did creating a digital inventory of the collection, where his staff examined each specimen piece by piece.
Parts of the museum’s collections are on display across the world, and Graham said a completed digital archive will only expand those opportunities.
Graham said restorations to the Steidle Art Collection—made possible through gifts from the Steidle family—unearthed new details in the works. The inventory process also exposed him to some of the more peculiar items in the collection. For example, the museum houses specimens of a material called trinitite, which was created during above-ground nuclear bomb testing in the United States just after World War II. It also owns one of the first furnaces used to conduct experiments for understanding volcanism. In it, rocks were heated to magma and cooled; then the new formations were analyzed.
The collections, once housed piecemeal throughout the campus, are now safely stored in a climate-controlled building near the University Park Airport.
Life after museums
Graham said there’s much he’ll miss about museums. He’ll miss developing eye-catching and accessible exhibits.
But retirement will free up more time to continue research and writing.
“I’ll be staying involved at a much more leisurely pace while working on the backburner projects that I’ve always wanted to do.” Graham said. “I’ve really enjoyed my job and engaging with students and the public. It’s been fantastic. I wouldn’t have stayed in it as long if I didn’t love it.”