Alice Gray
| Alice Gray | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 7, 1914 |
| Died | April 27, 1994 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | entomology and origami |
| Institutions | American Museum of Natural History |
Alice E. Gray (June 7, 1914 – April 27, 1994) was an American entomologist and origamist who was known as the "Bug Lady" of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Gray was born on June 7, 1914 to an engineer father and farmer mother. She was interested by insects as a child. Her mother, when asked by Alice to keep insects she had caught, agreed under the condition that Alice learn what they ate by dinnertime, leading her to become an amateur entomologist at a young age. While still in high school she knew she wanted to work at the American Museum of Natural History, and called its Insects and Spiders Department to ask about employment. Based on the advice she received from then-chairman, Frank E. Lutz, she applied to and attended Cornell University, studying biology and entomology and training in scientific illustration.
Upon graduating from Cornell in 1937, she started work with the museum and remained there until she retired.
She proved to be a skilled illustrator, modeler, and writer, and engaged in a range of public relations and communications activities. She wrote for museum publications, constructed many of the department's displays, built large models, and illustrated entomology handouts still used as of 2016[update].
One of her projects was the creation of large-scale models of insects that she called "model monsters". She explained her modeling process and purpose in a lengthy article in Mechanix Illustrated in 1945. The first such model she created took six months to produce, taking pains to ensure its accuracy. "A well-made model is both a text and treasure... Of the hundreds of people who daily pass these models in the museum, many never see them. Others take one glance and gulp and run. There are some, however, who look, see and remember that it is for them that all museum modelling is done." She cited a flea as one example of her work: "A flea made large enough to serve six at dinner by the lens of the microscope, stands revealed as most admirably streamlined and thus enabled to slip unimpeded between hairs."
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