Record group RG84 - Department of Invertebrate Palaeontology records

The Invertebrate Paleontology record group of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) began in the Department of Natural History at the University of Toronto in 1892. Materials were held in the University of Toronto Biology Building from 1892 and in the Chemistry and Mining Building from c. 1902 to c. 1912. The ROM was established by provincial Act of Parliament in 1912 (to be governed by the University of Toronto), and the Royal Ontario Museum of Paleontology (one of five components of the ROM) was created on April 3, 1913, by the ROM’s Board of Trustees. The primary function of the Royal Ontario Museum of Paleontology was to research, collect, catalogue, and exhibit paleontological samples.

Dr. W.A. Parks was the first director of the Royal Ontario Museum of Paleontology, from 1913 to 1936. When Parks died in 1936, Dr. Madeline A. Fritz became Acting Director until 1937, when the Royal Ontario Museum of Paleontology was subdivided into Vertebrate and Invertebrate Paleontology Departments, each under an assistant director. Fritz was appointed Assistant Director of Invertebrate Paleontology and Dr. Loris S. Russell became Assistant Director of Vertebrate Paleontology. The Royal Ontario Museum Act, 1947 put the University of Toronto and the Government of Ontario equally in charge of the ROM. In 1950 the Royal Ontario Museums of Zoology and Paleontology were combined. Dr. F.A. Urquhart became director of this new Museum, and Fritz became Associate Director. In 1955 all museums within the ROM were amalgamated under a single director (Gerard Brett). At this point Fritz became Curator in the Department of Invertebrate Paleontology. In 1957, one year after these records end, Fritz received a full professorship from the University of Toronto and resigned her position as Curator. She remained affiliated with the ROM in the capacity of research associate.