Background
Sanford was born in New Haven, Connecticut.
Sanford was born in New Haven, Connecticut.
He graduated from Yale University and pursued a successful career as a surgeon.
However, his main interest throughout his life was ornithology. He became an Associate of the American Ornithologists" Union in 1902, and a Life Associate in 1919. Although Sanford was elected a trustee of the museum in February 1921, his association with the institution had begun much earlier.
As well as acquiring many specimens of rare and extinct species for the museum’s collection, he instigated a major collecting expedition to South America by persuading philanthropist Frederick F. Brewster of New Haven to finance lieutenant
The Brewster-Sanford Expedition, headed by Rollo Beck, took place from 1912 to 1917 and produced a large number of specimens, providing the basis for studies resulting in the publication of Robert Cushman Murphy’s two-volume “Oceanic Birds of South America”. Sanford was also instrumental in establishing the long-term relationship between philanthropist Harry Payne Whitney and the museum, which first saw Whitney financing the Whitney Memorial Wing of the museum, which housed the department of birds there.
Subsequently Whitney sponsored the extensive Whitney South Seas Expedition, which lasted from 1921 to 1932, making biological and anthropological collections through Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia. Sanford died in 1950 at his winter home in Florida.
He is commemorated in the names of Sanford"s sea-eagle (Haliaeetus sanfordi), Sanford"s bowerbird (Archboldia sanfordi), and Sanford"s brown lemur (Eulemur sanfordi).
