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Donald Ryder Dickey Photographic Collection
1908-1962
59
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Title: Donald Ryder Dickey Photographic
Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1908-1962
Collection number: 59
Creator: Dickey, Donald Ryder
1887-1932
Extent:
72.7 linear ft.
(139 boxes)
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library.
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections
Division
Los Angeles, California 90095-1490
Abstract: Struck by a serious heart condition during his senior
year at Yale, Dickey returned to early interests in natural history and
photography to occupy his mind and hands during the prolonged recovery period.
By the time he had regained full strength in 1916, he had also formulated a new
life goal: to establish a research center for study of the vertebrate zoology of
Southern California, and to build a supporting collection of taxidermy
specimens, photographs and books. This finding aid introduces the still
photography part and some movie footage of that collection: over 4000 images
captured by Dickey and his associates on various formats of film negatives,
glass plates and slides. Each entry in the finding aid for the still photographs
leads to a Dickey negative and a 5 x 8" reference card which contains a positive
image, and identifying information. Three-hundred-and-fifty of the images, from
1911-1929, have been digitized and are viewable online at:
http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/biomed/dickey/index.cfm.
Physical location: History and Special Collections Division,
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, University of California, Los
Angeles
Language of Material: Collection materials in English
The collection is open for research. Contact the History and Special
Collections Division, Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA, for
information.
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 photographic collection (Manuscript collection 59).
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections Division, University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
5674440
In 1940 Mrs. Dickey donated the entire Donald R. Dickey Collection of
Vertebrate Zoology and Library of Vertebrate Zoology to the Research Library and
to the Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles. After the
creation of the Biomedical Library in 1947, many of the ca. 10,000 books and
journals of this gift were transferred from the Research Library to the
Biomedical Library in 1949. No separate list of this material exists, but each
volume is identified by a Dickey Collection bookplate. The photographic
collection was transferred to the Biomedical Library in 1989 by James Northern
and Brian Obst from the Department of Biology. Approximately 50,000 bird and
mammal specimens are still housed in the Department of Biology.
In 2001, Donald R. Dickey Jr. deeded more family items to the Biomedical
Library, including approximately 189 additional glass slides. Mr. Dickey has
also supported the collections his father built with funds to the Library and to
the Biology Department for preservation of the various materials.
Processed by Pat L. Walter, 2007
The preservation and conservation of the Donald R. Dickey Photographic
Collection was made possible through a grant from Donald R. Dickey, Jr. This
allowed complete rehousing of items in appropriate conservation envelopes and
boxes, starting in 1994; negatives on nitrate film were converted to safety
film; and Dickey's information for each negative was entered into a Microsoft
Access database which served as the basis for this finding aid. A sample of 350
photographs from the collection was digitized and mounted on the UCLA Biomedical
Library History and Special Collections website.
Donald Ryder Dickey (March 31, 1887-April 15, 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 collapse 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" (from an autobiographical note, "The Condor",
36(2):62, 1934). Eventually he determined to establish a research center for
vertebrate zoology, with a supporting study collection of specimens,
photographs, and books. By 1926 the collection had grown to nearly 30,000
specimens of mammals and birds (nearly doubled six years later), backed by a
sizable working library and an outstanding group of still and movie photographs.
The California Institute of Technology provided space to house the materials and
named Dickey a Research Associate in Vertebrate Zoology. In 1940 Mrs. Dickey
donated the collection to the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dickey died at the young age of 45. He was survived by his wife Florence Van
Vechten Dickey and a son, Donald Ryder junior. Additional information, including
his involvement in the civic life of Pasadena, may be obtained from Dickey's
bibliography, obituary, and remembrances by his colleagues ("Wildlife of
America: photographs by Donald R. Dickey," in: "The World's Work", v.52: 566-
570, 1926; Harris, Harry. "An appreciation of Donald Ryder Dickey," in:
"Condor", v.36: 59-66, 1934; Millard, Bailey. "The Martin Johnson of America
(Donald R. Dickey)," in: "The World's Work", v. 52:557-565, 1926; "Obituary,
Donald Ryder Dickey", in: "Auk", v.49: 517-518, 1932}.
The limitations of his health and the breadth of vision and ambition for his
collection dictated that Dickey had to use others' talents and energy to help
with his work. His field collaborators and assistants included: Adriaan Joseph
van Rossem, an eminent ornithologist in his own right; Laurence Markham Huey, an
expert on the birds and mammals of the Southwestern United States and Baja
California; Ruben Arthur Stirton and George A. Stirton; William Henry Burt;
Henry Hargrave Sheldon; and John Zoeger.
The collection contains photographs of birds (and their nests and eggs),
mammals, people, and places, documenting Dickey's extensive field work in:
California and the rest of the southwest; northern Michigan; New Brunswick and
Newfoundland; Baja California; El Salvador; and Laysan Island in Hawaii (with
the Smithsonian-sponsored Tanager Expedition). One small group offers landscapes
and people of Algeria. Dickey recorded in still photographs, some moving
pictures, and extensive field notes the birds, mammals and habitat of an area,
with special interest on reproduction and behavior. His photographs serve as a
valuable resource not only for field biologists but also for historians, since
they illustrate the appearance of many natural areas before the transformations
wrought by population expansion.
The dates of the photographs range from 1908 to 1962, with the greatest part
clustered between 1912 and 1923; later material was added by Dickey's
collaborators. Formats represented in the collection include film and glass
negatives, prints, and glass lantern slides. Nitrate film has been copied to
safety film. The lantern slides are of four kinds: autochrome, black and white,
colored, and toned. Most of the positives are on gelatin developing-out
paper.
Dickey created a pictorial reference card index to the negatives. Each
negative and its matching reference card bears a unique identification number
starting with a group identifier: A = 5x7" film; B = 4x5" (or smaller) glass
plate; C = 5x7" glass plate; F = 4x5" (or smaller) film; P = positive; S =
lantern slide. He organized the reference cards by broad subjects (birds,
mammals, geography), with the first two sections arranged alphabetically by
genus, the last alphabetically by place name. This finding aid is organized
according to the same scheme, with each entry corresponding to a negative and
reference card. The series are: 1: Birds. 2: Mammals. 3: Fish. 4: Geography. 5:
People. Subseries within the first two series are arranged alphabetically by
genus, with species arranged alphabetically within the genus. Series 4 has
subseries of countries/specific regions. Entries in Series 5 are arranged
alphabetically by personal name.
Current taxonomic nomenclature often differs from that used by Dickey almost
a hundred years ago. In the creation of this finding aid, considerable effort
has been spent to link Dickey's identifications to present usage.
Genus/species/subspecies/common name are reproduced exactly as given by Dickey,
but any changes in scientific or common name, or spelling differences, have been
added in square brackets. Under each organism, entries are ordered according to
the alpha-numeric number assigned by Dickey to his negatives. Major databases
consulted for official current names: "The A.O.U. Check-list of North American
Birds", Seventh Edition; "Obsolete English Names of North American Birds and
Their Modern Equivalents", USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center; "ITIS, the
Integrated Taxonomic Information System"; "North American Mammals", Smithsonian
Institution.
Three boxes of almost 200 glass slides were added to the Dickey gift in 2001;
these are not contained in the Access database mentioned under Provenance and
were newly entered for this finding aid. Dickey used these slides to illustrate
many of his lectures. Many are hand-colored and are numbered, but the numbers
overlap and duplicate numbers in his S series, and approximately one third are
not numbered. Some captions identifying subjects and location are provided on
the lids of the original wooden boxes housing the slides, but with little
specificity. This material is described in Series 6 of the Finding Aid,
"Additional Pictorial Materials", using the information provided on the box
lids.
The collection is organized into the following series:
- Series 1. Birds.. ca. 2650 entries
- Series 2. Mammals.. ca. 640 entries
- Series 3. Fish.. 1 species; 6 entries
- Series 4. Landscapes.
- Series 5. People.. 89 entries
- Series 6. Additional Pictorial Materials
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION. 350 of the
images from the Dickey Photographic Collection are viewable online at:
http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/biomed/dickey/index.cfm
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION. Manuscript
Collection #110: Donald Ryder Dickey Field Notes; notebooks, 1909-1948, which
provide locations and context for the photographic collection.
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION. Manuscript
Collection #213: Anna Ryder Dickey Collection; includes personal photo albums
belonging to Anna Ryder Dickey (D.R.D.'s mother), with photos from a Sierra Club
trip she, the 16 year-old D.R. Dickey, the naturalist John Muir, and others took
in 1896 and 1902.
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION. Manuscript
Collection #301: Donald R. Dickey Personal Photo Album; includes photos taken on
honeymoon collecting trip to Canadian woods of Dickey and wife, and views of the
interior, exterior, and garden of their first home in Pasadena.
UCLA BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY HISTORY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION. Manuscript
Collection #404: Donald R. Dickey Papers, 1914-1920. Collection consists chiefly
of personal and family letters and a copy of Dickey's will.
UCLA FILM AND TELEVISION ARCHIVE. Wilderness lives : a naturalist's intimate
record of unmolested game. No. 3, [White-tailed deer], Donald R. Dickey
presents. M47395. 1 reel of 1 (ca. 100 ft.)
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
Dickey, Donald R.
(Donald Ryder), 1887-1932--Archives
Mammals--North
America--Photographs
Birds--California--Photographs
Birds--Canada--Photographs
Birds--El
Salvador--Photographs
Birds--Hawaii--Laysan
Islands--Photographs
Birds--Mexico--Photographs