Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Donald Ryder Dickey Personal Papers 1911-1916
296
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Donald Ryder Dickey Personal Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1911-1916
Collection number: 296
Creator: Donald R. Dickey
1887-1932
Extent:
1 box (0.5 linear ft.)
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library.
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections
for the Sciences
Los Angeles, California 90095-1490
Abstract: Collection consists chiefly of personal letters to
Dickey, some newspaper clippings of persons and happenings of interest to him,
numerous wedding invitations, and a copy of his will, dated 1916.
Physical location: Biomedical Library History and Special
Collection Cage Manuscripts
Language of Material: Collection materials in English
Collection is open for research.
Property rights in the physical objects belong to the UCLA Biomedical
Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and
their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds
the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission
to publish if the Biomedical Library does not hold the copyright.
[Identification of item], Donald Ryder Dickey personal papers (Manuscript collection 296). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library
History and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
6400237
In 1940 Mrs. Donald R. Dickey donated the Donald R. Dickey Collection of
Vertebrate Zoology and Library of Vertebrate Zoology to the University of
California, Los Angeles. This document box was included in the donation.
Donald Ryder Dickey (1887-1932) was an adventurous, pioneer wildlife
photographer as well as an ornithologist and mammalogist. He was well known in
his time for: his photographs (both still and moving) of birds and mammals; his
lectures on wildlife; and eventually, for his substantial specimen collection of
birds and mammals. Drawn to outdoor life in his childhood and youth, he
considered this nothing more than a hobby until he experienced a serious heart
attack in his senior year at Yale and was sentenced to immediate and complete
bedrest. Allowed to graduate with his class because of his high academic
standing, he returned after graduation to his parents' home in Pasadena for two
years of inactivity. He visited a friend's ranch in the Ojai Valley after about
a year, and there, from his steamer chair, he began to observe, and after a time
to photograph, local birds and their nests.
As Dickey became stronger he also became more active, taking longer and
longer photographic jaunts and starting to collect small mammals in an amateur
way. When he had finally regained full strength, in about 1916, he found that he
was "too interested by that time in what started as a hobby, to forego it for a
conventional business life." Eventually he determined to establish a research
center for vertebrate zoology in Southern California, consisting of a study
collection of specimens with photographs and books to support it. In 1926 the
California Institute of Technology provided housing for the by-then-sizeable
collection and named Dickey "Research Associate in Vertebrate Zoology"; in 1940
the collection was moved to UCLA. The collection covers North and Central
America, but focuses mainly on southwestern fauna including the Pacific slopes
of Mexico and Central America, with important pictorial records also of the
birds of Laysan Island, Hawaii, and the large mammals of New Brunswick,
Canada.
In June, 1921, Dickey married Florence Van Vechten Murphy and they had one
son, Donald Jr. They built a home in Pasadena, California.
These papers - letters, newspaper clippings, social invitations - though
small in number, provide a window on an important phase of Dickey's life, when
he was slowly regaining his health after an almost-fatal heart attack and
beginning active life again. A few letters from his mother and female friends
originated from Paris and Switzerland in August 1914, during the first weeks of
World War I.
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS FOR THE SCIENCES.
Manuscript Coll. #59: "Donald Ryder Dickey Photographic Collection"
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS FOR THE SCIENCES.
Manuscript Coll. #110: "Donald Ryder Dickey Field Notes"
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS FOR THE SCIENCES.
Manuscript Coll. #301: "Donald R. Dickey personal photo album, ca.
1921-1926"
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS FOR THE SCIENCES.
Manuscript Coll. #213: "Anna Ryder Dickey Collection"
The following terms have been used to index the description of this
collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Dickey, Donald R.
(Donald Ryder), 1887-1932 -- Archives
Zoologists -- United States --
Archival resources