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Mark Robinson slides and photographs
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Held at: Delaware County Institute of Science [Contact Us]11 Veterans Square, Media, PA, 19063
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Delaware County Institute of Science. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Mark Packard Mills Robinson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to florist Benjamin Franklin Robinson and Elizabeth Smith Robinson in 1906. He graduated from the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades near Media, PA in 1927 and worked as an electrical engineer. He married Helen Keddie in 1933; they had one child, Mark P. M. Robinson Jr. By the 1960s he was a senior engineer and supervisor of electric jet engines production at the Westinghouse Electric Company in the community of Lester, Tinicum Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Robinson passed away in 1965.
Robinson had a passion for nature and natural science, especially entomology, mineralogy, wildflowers, and ferns. Well respected in both amateur and professional circles, he frequently gave talks to Boy Scouts, school groups, clubs, and scientific societies. These talks were often accompanied by numerous color slides of natural history subjects taken by Robinson on his many travels throughout the United States. Additionally, Robinson wrote about one hundred research papers relating to natural science, about one-quarter of which were on the scarab beetle. Just before passing away, he was collaborating on a book about notable trees in the Delaware Valley.
Robinson was involved in several natural science organizations, serving as a curator at the Delaware County Institute of Science (Media, PA), research associate in the department of insects at the Academy of Natural Science (Philadelphia, PA), president of the American Entomological Society (1947-1948), founding member and first president of the local Comstock Society (an entomological group that later became a general nature society) in the 1930s, and as an active member in many other groups.
Bibliography:
Cartwright, O. L. "Mark Robinson (1906-1965)." Entomological News 79, no. 10 (December 1968): 285-286. Document viewed on-site in member files.
This collection consists of nine binders with photograph and slide images of botanical specimens in the wild, such as plants, trees, and flowers (especially orchids); historic sites and monuments; birds and other animals; transportation; and other subjects. Locations depicted include Delaware County, Pennsylvania and a variety of other places across the United States visited by Robinson on his travels. Some photographs are of family members and friends.
The slides are well labeled and at least one binder has an inventory.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Delaware County Institute of Science directly for more information.
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Delaware County Institute of Science
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Sarah Leu through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Delaware County Institute of Science for information about accessing this collection.