William
Henry CarrWilliam
Henry CarrWilliam Henry Carr (1902-1985) received the Pugsley Bronze Medal in 1937 “for his development of trailside museums as a method of outdoor education. He was born and reared in Flushing, Long Island.” He was an only child, whose interest in natural history was nurtured by his mother. Carr’s father was a school principal, but his early and untimely death made it necessary for Carr to drop out of high school and take a job at the age of 17.
Carr was a dedicated Boy Scout, achieving Eagle Scout rank, and in the summers worked as a nature counselor at a Scout camp in Bear Mountain. He was mentored by Dr. Benjamin “Uncle Bennie” Talbot Hyde who was a pioneer in the outdoor education area and who had led expeditions to unexplored areas of the west. As a young Boy Scout, Carr encountered “Uncle Bennie” while waiting on a train platform when returning to New York City from a visit to Herriman Park. He was inspired by the man and his message. The meeting in 1919 led to Bill Carr’s introduction to volunteer work, and later to following in Hyde’s footsteps when he joined the education department of the American Museum of Natural History. He subsequently became chief naturalist of Palisades Interstate Park and was editor of The Camp Naturalist magazine.
In 1926 after several years of working at the museum, Carr was offered an opportunity to set up an experimental outdoor educational project at Bear Mountain Park. Time would prove that the project and the man were made one for the other. He became director of the Bear Mountain Nature Trails and Trailside Museum. Over the next 18 years Carr devoted himself to establishing and overseeing the Nature Trails and Trailside Museums at Bear Mountain. Two miles of footpaths were laid out and along them were interspersed five small trailside museums whose exhibits interpreted the natural surroundings. These were the first facilities of their kind – an outdoor, living museum established to interpret the animals, plants, and geology of a specific area – and are the oldest such facility continuously in use. Carr later wrote of that experience, “I learned first-hand, and not without pain, every lesson then available of attracting, educating, and dealing with the public that visits or patronizes museum and nature exhibitions.” He observed:
All trails leading through the woods, along the margins of lakes, or over the tops of mountains, are, in effect, nature trails. They serve as guides to bring men, women, and children into a healthy and voluntary contact with nature. Unfortunately, however, not may of them aid in brining nature to the people. The purpose of labeled nature trails and of trailside museums is to give thousands of visitors an opportunity to gain a real conception of the meaning of “nature mindedness” by providing them with simple, visual means of becoming better acquainted with the wonderful world in which they live.
Carr’s educational exhibits were designed to communicate with visitors who had little knowledge of nature and many of him ideas and methods came from interacting with visitors. He noted:
New ideas, new methods, and thus general progress are all the direct result of our contact with the people. In our efforts to discover in what channels their interests lie we have but to mingle with the crowd, listen to their remarks, and study their actions. As it is our aim to provide a definite educational activity for our visitors, we must first place ourselves on a plane with them and build our work from their viewpoint, as well as our own. A wealth of stimulating experiences awaits the nature museum director who learns to be one with his public. If we were to be aloof, to plan our exhibits with only our own ideas for background materials, then would our guests be disappointed. As a matter of fact, the Bear Mountain Nature Trails and the Trailside Museum have been planned as much by the public as by the actual builders.
Carr took advantage of the extensive public-work programs of the 1930s to increase his corps of trained naturalists to twenty-two, including geologists, botanists, archeologists, and zoologists. He constructed new buildings, trails and exhibits at the museum with the full support of William Welch, the Palisades’ director. The museum’s activities were expanded to include four “regional” museums strategically placed in Harriman Park to more effectively serve the group camps. Carr and his naturalists staffed the regional museums, allowing for direct contact with thousands of children. Influenced by the style of “Uncle Bennie” Hyde, the education programs specialized in snakes. A popular technique used by Carr and his staff was to allow snakes to casually crawl out of shirt sleeves or collars while the seemingly oblivious naturalists talked about something else.
In 1944 Carr was experiencing health problems and was advised to seek a drier climate, so he left his beloved Bear Mountain for an extended rest in a warmer climate. He had been impressed by a magazine article he had read about Tucson, Arizona, so he moved he there with “four suitcases and $400.” Once there, he decided that would be his new home.
Carr had been a prolific author of natural history articles and he continued to write these; he established a small bookshop dealing in rare natural history, science, and southwestern history books; and he became active in local environmental causes. Carr later wrote that having arrived in Tucson, “From the first I was enchanted by the desert, yet struck by what seemed a gross lack of knowledge about it among the local populace as well as on the national level.” He saw the need for an institution similar to Bear Mountain, but did not have the financial means to implement his ideas.
A fortuitous meeting of Carr and Arthur Pack in 1951, and Pima County’s quandary regarding use of the Mountain House property in Tucson Mountain Park, opened the way to the founding of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum driven by the initiative of Carr and Pack. This launched the next phase of Bill Carr’s career in outdoor education.
The Arizona-Sonora Museum was patterned after Carr’s Bear Mountain Museum. The Museum was firmly established by September 1954 when exhaustion and ill-health made it necessary for Carr to resign as Director. The following year he was able to serve as a consultant for the Museum and he was instrumental in establishing new exhibits there, including the Tunnel and Water Street, U.S.A. This was one of Carr’s fondest achievements. Originally opened in 1957, the tunnel was a popular exhibit until 1978 when wear and tear made its closure necessary. In 1989, the renovated Tunnel was renamed “Life Underground” and dedicated to the memory of William H. Carr. He served on the Museum’s Board of Trustees for many years, freely advised and promoted the Museum for the remainder of his life, and carried the titles co-founder and director emeritus. By the time of his death this museum enjoyed an international reputation as superb outdoor educational facility.
Carr and Pack teamed a second time and established the Ghost Ranch Museum, patterned along lines similar to the Desert Museum, near Abiquiu, New Mexico. It opened in 1959. For this museum, Carr also bore the title of co-founder and director emeritus.
Although he never graduated from high school, Bill Carr taught the first formal college course on outdoor education at Columbia University. In Tucson, he was named vice president of the Charles Lathrop Pack Forestry Foundation, and served as technical editor for the U.S. Forest Experiment Station. He wrote more than a hundred articles and six books. The latter included The Desert Speaks, an account of the founding and growth of the Desert Museum, which went through several editions; and his longer history of the Desert Museum, Pebbles in Your Shoes. His earlier books were Stir of Nature (1930), African Shadows (1932), Glimpses of Familiar Birds (1933), and Desert Parade (1946). Education of all those whom the Museum touched was always uppermost in Bill Carr’s mind and in 1980 he was honored by establishment at the Desert Museum of the William H. Carr Interpretive Naturalist Position.
William Woodin, who helped Carr establish the Museum, became director after Carr, and worked with him over many years, described Bill Carr as “a man of total dedication and boundless imagination and truly a pioneer in the concept of outdoor education.” A later Desert Museum director, Dan Davis, wrote of Carr in a memorial after his death in 1985, “Few people leave the kind of legacy Bill gave to the world. He was a true pioneer, a leader in natural history interpretation. His ideas about outdoor, regional interpretation are epitomized at the Desert Museum. Those ideas have taken hold throughout the world. Bill Carr was one of a kind.” Carr requested that his ashes be spread on the Desert Museum grounds, a long-time colleagues explaining, “He used to say he wanted to rest on the museum, out in the desert, because it was part of him.”