Not even 48 hours after the posting of my last blog I received two emails offering information about “mysterious Mr. Walsin.” I discovered that far from being unknown, unidentified, or illegible, the signature on the flyleaf of our little book is the authentic autograph of Frederick Roelker Wulsin (1891-1961).

Clearly, I had far too quickly jumped to the conclusion that we might never know who had owned the book before it came into the hands of ASM curator Robert G. Baker. This is a reminder that the rush to judgment will be countered quickly in this age of digital interaction; it is an exciting time for a researcher to be able to push their investigation further because of receiving linked information so quickly.

Now that I look at the signature, the loops and bumps easily form themselves into a Wulsin. And the history of the book owned by Baker becomes more interesting by several degrees.

Portrait of Frederic Wulsin seated beside the ruler of the kingdom Ala shan, at the edge of the Gobi Desert near Wang Ye Fu, Mongolia, 1923.

Frederick Wulsin was an explorer, a professor at Tufts University, and an anthropologist who collected zoological specimens from around the world. It is easy to imagine that “Directions for collecting and preserving specimens,” a small pocket guide written by leading scientists, would have been in his library.

The ASM Library has four publications written by Wulsin. His article in the February 1926 National Geographic Magazine “The Road to Wang Ye Fu” conveys his adventurous spirit and passion for exploring exotic places. He describes his mission to gather botanical and zoological specimens. “Our scientific collections grew rapidly. We posted big red placards in Chinese all over the city, offering to buy any wild animals brought to us.” Through his eyes we experience sandstorms, heat, smells, and colors without the slightest hint that the ancient cycle of caravan traders and nomadic Mongolian communities could ever be altered. The train Wulsin and his group took from Peking [sic] to the remote outpost Paotow in the 1923 now extends all the way to Lhasa Tibet.

Frederick Wulsin’s papers and photographs and those of his traveling companion and first wife Janet January Elliott Wulsin are in the collection of the Peabody Museum at Harvard. I was surprised to learn that some of these materials were donated by Wulsin in 1958, after he had retired from teaching at Tufts and moved — of all places — to Tucson, Arizona. His beautiful home can be seen today in a neighborhood slightly northeast from where the El Conquistador Hotel once stood.

Thus, our hypothetical biography of an unusual book aquires an alternative final chapter. Perhaps Frederick Wulsin and Robert Baker knew each other. Was the book a gift from an older scientist to a young ASM curator? Somewhere out there, possibly in the local Tucson community, someone knows a few more details to this story.

Today’s blog was written by Arizona State Museum’s archivist Amy Rule. She can be found working alongside the rest of the Library and Archives staff in the beautiful second floor reading room at ASM providing preservation and access to over 1500 linear feet of archival and manuscript holdings.