Charles Willson PealeBorn 15 Apr 1741; died 22 Feb 1827 at age 85.American artist and naturalist who opened the first U.S. popular Museum of Natural Science and Art. Alongside fame as a portraitist, Peale maintained a diverse interest in science. He used a physiognotrace machine used to record profiles and make silhouettes. He patented a fireplace, porcelain false teeth, and a new kind of wooden bridge. He invented a technique to put motion with pictures and wrote papers on engineering and hygiene. He perfected a kind of portable writing desk, named the polygraph, which reproduced several copies of a manuscript at once. In 1786, he established the first U.S. scientific museum with both living and stuffed specimens, and later a complete mastodon skeleton he helped excavate (1801).« |
