Throwback Thursday: October 19, 1923

Young Austin H. Clark, 1910. Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image Number SIA2007-0009. 

On October 19th, 1923 local Washington, DC radio station WRC, of the Radio Corporation of America, began broadcasting a series of talks on the Smithsonian. The talks were so successful that a regular series on scientific subjects was initiated on April 9, 1924, with Austin H. Clark who gives a talk on "The Giants of the Animal World."  The series runs for more than four years.

Austin Hobart Clark (1880-1954) came to the Smithsonian in 1908 as a Collaborator in the Division of Marine Invertebrates, United States National Museum, now known as the National Museum of Natural History, and in 1910 he became Assistant Curator of the Division. In 1920, the collection of Echinoderms was removed from Marine Invertebrates to form a new Division of Echinoderms, with Clark as its Curator, a position which he held until his retirement in 1950.

Click here to explore more about Austin H. Clark at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. 

Pamela Henson, Historian
Smithsonian Institution Archives