Rosa Smith Eigenmann Scrapbooks

Title: Rosa Smith Eigenmann Scrapbooks

Dates: ca. 1897

Collection Number: LA.1998.1209

Creator/Collector:

Extent: 2 volumes

Repository: San Diego Natural History Museum Research Library

Abstract: The Rosa Smith Eigenmann Scrapbooks collection consists of two volumes of newspaper accounts of San Diego Society of Natural History meetings, beginning in 1897. Included are her notes and corrections in the margins. See the early minutes of the San Diego Society of Natural History (1874-1914) for her handwritten accounts of the meetings.

Language of Material: English

The collection is open to researchers by appointment. Contract the Research Library Director, San Diego Natural History Museum.

Copyright may be reserved. Consult the San Diego Natural History Museum Research Library Director for more information.

Rosa Smith Eigenmann Scrapbooks. San Diego Natural History Museum Research Library

Rosa Smith Eigenmann (1858-1947) was an American ichthyologist. She was an early member of the San Diego Society of Natural History and served as secretary of the Society in the 1890s. Born in Monmouth, Illinois on October 7, 1858, she moved with her family to California, settling in San Diego in 1876. She was a student of David Starr Jordan at the University of Indiana, Bloomington (1880-1882) where she met fellow Starr student Carl Eigenmann; they were married on August 20, 1887. She studied cryptogamic botany with Professor William G. Farlow at Harvard (1888), and returning to California in 1889, the Eigenmann's established a biological station in San Diego, continuing their fish studies of the region and holding appointments as curators at the California Academy of Sciences. The Eigenmann returned to the University of Indiana, Bloomington, when Carl accepted an appointment in the Zoology Department; he later became Dean of the Graduate School there. Rosa continued to work as an editor of her husband's research papers. The couple retired to Coronado, California in 1926. She died on January 12, 1947 in San Diego.

Two scrapbooks of news clippings, ca. 1897.