Over the summer, Professor Antony Adler ‘06 of the History Department presented a paper called “The Secret Lives of Giant Squid: How Photography, Taxidermy, and Unexpected Encounters with Deep-Sea Creatures Shaped Perceptions of the Abyss” at the Fourth World Congress of Environmental History in Oulu, Finland. This paper reflects Professor Adler’s devotion to the history of oceanography and the intersection between science and history. His research for this paper focused on environmental history as told from non-human perspectives, specifically sea animals. He was specifically interested in the first photograph of the Giant Squid that was taken in Newfoundland in 1873. This image depicted a squid draped over a bathtub and was a close-up of the squid’s tentacles.
This image spurred Professor Adler to research more about the photograph owner, Moses Harvey, a Newfoundland clergyman studying the island’s natural history. Adler began his methods of research by doing archival work in Newfoundland, reading through Harvey’s correspondence where he learned that the reverend kept an entire network of his letters. Although in popular literature like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, giant squid are often depicted as elusive monsters. There are actually thousands of them in the ocean, destroying the illusion of their mysteriousness.
He identified three instances that the giant squid has been made comprehensible: the photograph taken by Moses Harvey, a taxidermy display in a museum in 2000, and submersible footage from 2004. Using these three examples from his research, Professor Adler connected it to how people’s ideas about the giant squid species as well as the ocean in general, has changed over time.
Would you like to learn more about history and science? Check out Dr. Adler’s book Neptune’s Laboratory: Fantasy, fear, and science at sea at the Gould library.
