Rea, Tom 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born 1950, in Pittsburgh, PA; married.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Casper, WY.

CAREER:

Author. Formerly a reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune, Casper, WY; founder of Dooryard Press, Story, WY.

AWARDS, HONORS: Spur Award, 2002, for Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur.

WRITINGS:

Man in a Rowboat (poems), Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 1977.

Smith and Other Poems, Dooryard Press (Story, WY), 1985.

Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur (nonfiction), University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 2001.

Devil's Gate: Owning the Land, Owning the Story (nonfiction), University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 2006.

Contributor to anthologies, including What Have You Lost?, Greenwillow Books, 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tom Rea is the author of Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur, "a gripping account of the early evolution of dinosaur study," observed Phil Roberts in Ohio Valley History. The work concerns the efforts of steel tycoon and philanthropist Carnegie to obtain the fossilized remains of a dinosaur for his newly-built Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When he learned that a gigantic sauropod skeleton had been discovered in the Wyoming badlands in 1899, Carnegie assigned museum curator William Holland, a self-taught paleontologist, to purchase the rights, despite the objections of trustees from the University of Wyoming. The creature, named Diplodocus carnegii in honor of the wealthy industrialist, proved so popular that plaster casts were made of its bones and shipped to national museums across the globe, including England, Germany, France, and Argentina.

Bone Wars garnered strong reviews. "The cast includes several self-made men, including Carnegie himself, in an age of strong egos and great ambitions," noted John J. Ernissee in Rocks & Minerals. Ernissee added, "It is the personalities that Rea brings to life that make this book so rewarding." "As Rea describes it, the dinosaur-hunting business created intense competition among American universities and museums," Roberts stated, adding: "Rea's book does an excellent job of identifying the key players and explaining their motivations."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 2001, Gavin Quinn, review of Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur, p. 620.

Choice, May, 2002, T.J. Kroeger, review of Bone Wars, p. 1615.

Isis, December, 2002, Dennis R. Dean, review of Bone Wars, p. 722.

Library Journal, January, 2002, Amy Brunvand, review of Bone Wars, p. 147.

Midwest Book Review, July, 2005, review of Bone Wars.

Ohio Valley History, fall, 2005, Phil Roberts, review of Bone Wars, pp. 97-98.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 2007, review of Devil's Gate: Owning the Land, Owning the Story.

Rocks & Minerals, July-August, 2003, John J. Ernissee, review of Bone Wars, p. 279.

Small Press Review, May, 1986, Patricia Keuning, review of Smith and Other Poems, p. 1.

Times Literary Supplement, March 22, 2002, Michael J. Benton, review of Bone Wars, pp. 4-5.

True West, March, 2007, Chuck Lewis, review of Devil's Gate.