The Portland Society of Natural History (PSNH) began as the Maine Institute of Natural Science, organized in 1836 and later incorporated by a group of 24 White men in 1843, making it one of the first natural history museums in America.

Many museums in the 18th and 19th centuries grew their collections through exchanges and gifts from around the world. Needing to fill their newly constructed Elm Street museum in 1881, the PSNH petitioned “seafaring” captains and men (not women) and fishermen to search the ocean and their nets for natural history items saying, “the most common things are the really desirable ones.”

William Wood authored the appeal, deferring to the expertise of Charles Fuller, Keeper of the Cabinets. They asked that if “visiting foreign lands,” potential supporters of the PSNH could pick up starfishes, crabs, or shrimp and pack them in salt and seaweed or tie them up with paper. Perhaps a tourist to the South Pacific could drop some fresh fruits or seed pods into a jar with preservatives and bring them back to Portland.