Robert Ridgway

This article is about the American ornithologist. For other uses, see Robert Ridgway (disambiguation).

Robert Ridgway
Born	July 2, 1850(1850-07-02) Mount Carmel, Illinois
Died	March 25, 1929(1929-03-25) (aged 78) Olney, Illinois
Nationality	United States
Awards	Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1919)

Robert Ridgway (July 2, 1850 – March 25, 1929) was an American ornithologist. Ridgway was a protégé of zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird, who, on becoming the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, appointed Ridgway the first full-time curator of birds at the United States National Museum. He served from 1880 until his death in 1929. Ridgway also published one of the first and most important color system for bird identification, with his 1886 book A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists. In 1912 he self-published a larger work on color nomenclature, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, financed using money from his friend and colleague José Castulo Zeledón of Costa Rica. Ornithologists all over the world continue to cite Ridgway's color studies and books.

Biography

Ridgway was born in Mount Carmel, Illinois. He was educated at common schools in his native town, where he showed a special fondness for natural history. A correspondence with Spencer F. Baird in 1864 led to his appointment, three years later in the spring of 1867, at the age of 16, as the naturalist on Clarence King's Survey of the 40th Parallel. In an undertaking that lasted nearly two years, Ridgway collected many bird specimens and served as a key member on one of the four great surveys of the American West. Upon his return to the Smithsonian, he was taken on in an informal basis until he was formally named as the Curator of Ornithology. Ridgway had a high school education as well as an honorary master's degree in science from Indiana University in 1884, as a sign of gratitude for his supplying them with bird specimens after their museum burned down. However, he was articulate and literate, and served as the Smithsonian's mouthpiece and representative for many years in the study of birds. Friends and colleagues described him as almost painfully shy, and he generally shirked publicity and the limelight.

He was co-editor of the American Ornithologists' Union's journal The Auk from its founding in 1883, and served as president of the AOU in 1900. He was also corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London, and the Academies of Science of New York, Davenport, and Chicago, foreign member of the British Ornithologists' Union, and member of the permanent ornithological committee (Vienna), also honorary member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Brookville, Indiana, Society of Natural History, and of the Ridgway Ornithological Club of Chicago, Illinois.

In 1899, he joined E. H. Harriman on his famous Harriman Alaska Expedition of the Alaska coastline, where he was accompanied by John Muir and a number of other naturalists and scientists, for an extended study of Alaska's coastline flora and fauna.

In 1916 he moved to Olney, Illinois, to give himself the freedom from distraction to work on his major opus Birds of North and Middle America. Eventually he acquired two properties there, the first a tract of eighteen acres located in the country, which he called Bird Haven (located on present day, North East Street, Millers Grove, adjacent to East Fork Lake) and which he developed as a bird sanctuary. The second purchased as the state of his wife's health was such that it was prudent to be nearer to town. This was called Larchmound and his skill in landscaping and tending to the grounds was such that his expertise in that area was in some demand.

A chromolithograph of a Bald Eagle by Robert Ridgway, from A.K. Fisher's The hawks and owls of the United States in their relation to agriculture (US Dept of Agriculture, 1893)

Family

In 1875 he married Julia Evelyn Parker. They had one son, Audubon Whelock Ridgway, who died of pneumonia in 1901 while working at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Mrs. Ridgway's death on May 24, 1927 was a severe blow to Robert. Robert continued to live at Larchmound tending to his beloved trees and shrubs until his death on March 24, 1929, age 79. Robert and his wife are both buried at Bird Haven.

Robert Ridgway's brother, John Livzey Ridgway (1859–1947) was an illustrator who worked for the Smithsonian, the California Institute of Technology, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

Works

Ridgway published a number of papers dealing with the woody plants of his region. Ridgway was the joint author (with Thomas Mayo Brewer and Spencer Fullerton Baird) of History of North American Birds (Boston, 1875–1884; Land Birds, 3 vols., Water Birds, 2 vols). He also authored several other books and monographs, and had a total of more than 450 articles and publications to his credit. In 1912 he self-published a major work on color nomenclature, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature. His largest work, on bird systematics, was the monumental 6,000-page The Birds of North and Middle America, published by the Smithsonian in eleven volumes between 1901 and 1950. Ridgway finished the first eight before his death, leaving Herbert Friedmann of the Smithsonian to complete the final three volumes. In 1919 he was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.

Legacy

Birds named for Ridgway include the Buff-collared Nightjar, Caprimulgus ridgwayi, Ridgway's Hawk, Buteo ridgwayi, the Aztec Thrush Ridgwayia pinicola, and the Caribbean subspecies of the Osprey, Pandion haliaetus ridgwayi.

Bibliography

• Lewis, Daniel. The Feathery Tribe: Robert Ridgway and the Modern Study of Birds. Yale University Press. Forthcoming March 26, 2012. [1].
• Barrow, Mark V. A passion for Birds: American ornithology after Audubon. Princeton University Press. 1998
• Harris, Harry (1928). Robert Ridgway. Condor 30(1):5-118.
• United States National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, Volume XV, Second Memoir, Biographical Memoir of Robert Ridgway, 1850-1929, by Alexander Wetmore, presented to the National Academy of Sciences annual meeting of 1931.

External links

• Ridgway Family Papers at Utah State University
• Ridgway Color Standards and Color Nomenclature
• A Nomenclature of Colors (1886) and Color Standards and Color Nomenclature (1912) - text-searchable digital facsimiles at Linda Hall Library