Frank Stephens Field Notes Collection, ca. 1881-1929

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Summary

Creators:
Stephens, Frank, 1849-1937
Abstract:
The Frank Stephens Field Notes collection consists of notebooks, travel diaries, and species lists from collecting trips. In addition, the collection includes biographical material, a small number of photographs, one hand-drawn map, and photocopies of Stephen's letters to William Brewster (originals are housed at the Harvard University's Ernst Mayr Museum of Comparative Zoology).
Extent:
.5 Linear Feet
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Frank Stephens Field Notes Collection (LA 1994.0412). Research Library, San Diego Natural History Museum.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection includes handwritten and typescript field notes created by Frank Stephens; the bulk of the material dates from the period 1878 to 1929 and includes journal entries of collecting trips in the southwestern United States and Baja California, Mexico. The collection is described in three series. Series I consists of Stephens's handwritten field notebooks and loose sheets (some typescript) of field notes and collection lists. It also includes a hand-drawn map. Series II consists of biographical material and photographs. Series III consists of two reprints of the Transactions of San Diego Society of Natural History relevant to Stephens's collecting activities.

Biographical / historical:

Frank Stephens was born on April 2, 1849 near Portage in Livingston County, New York, the eldest of four sons of Nelson and Julia Benson. While Stephens was a teenager, the family moved to the Midwest, farming in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. Stephens moved to Colorado in 1874, where he married Elizabeth Fowler and studied taxidermy with ornithologist Charles E. Aiken. In the early 1880s, Stephens worked in mining communities in southwest New Mexico and Arizona while collecting for Aikens and for William Brewster of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Stephens moved to California in 1876 and settled in Witch Creek, San Diego County, California, farming, collecting, and working intermittently for the U. S. Biological Survey. He collected for Donald Ryder Dickey and C. Hart Merriam, among others. He was a collector for the U. S. Department of Agriculture's 1891 Death Valley Expedition. After his first wife's death in January 1898, Stephens married Kate Brown in August 1898; she accompanied him on several collecting trips including the 1907 Alaska expedition sponsored by Annie Alexander of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ). Stephens also participated in Joseph Grinnell's 1910 MVZ expedition on the Colorado River. A frequent contributor to The Condor, Stephens published his magnum opus California Mammals in 1906. He was an early member of the San Diego Society of Natural History and the first curator of mammalogy for the San Diego Natural History Museum; he was also a founding member of the San Diego Zoological Society. He is credited with collecting at least 45 type specimens. Stephens was struck by a street-car in San Diego and died ten days after the accident on October 5, 1937 in San Diego.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

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

Terms of access:

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

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Frank Stephens Field Notes Collection (LA 1994.0412). Research Library, San Diego Natural History Museum.

Location of this collection:
1788 El Prado, Balboa Park
San Diego, CA 92101, US
Contact:
(619) 255-0225
library@sdnhm.org
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