Background

Robert Ridgway was born on July 2, 1850, in Mount Carmel, Illinois, the eldest child of David Ridgway, a small-town pharmacist, and Henrietta James (Reed) Ridgway. His family, on his father's side, was of Philadelphia Quaker stock; his mother's family came originally from Maryland.

Education

Robert's education consisted of the course in the local school, supplemented by what he derived from his parents and through his own exertions. Both parents were lovers of nature and in his ninth year, Robert was busy making colored drawings of the birds he shot as well as of other objects of interest. He mixed his own colors in his father's drug shop and even manufactured his own gunpowder.

In 1864 the mother of one of his boy companions (Lucien Turner, later explorer of Alaska and Ungava) suggested that he write to the Patent Office in Washington for information about certain birds that puzzled him. The resulting correspondence with Professor Spencer F. Baird, which lasted over several years, determined him more than ever to continue with his study of ornithology.

Ridgway received the Master of Science degree from Indiana State University in 1884.

Career

At the age of seventeen, having received through Baird an appointment as a zoologist on an exploring party to study a possible railway route along the Fortieth Parallel, he went to Washington, where he made the personal acquaintance of Baird, who ever remained his ideal.

He served as zoologist to the United States geological exploration of the 40th parallel under Clarence King in California, Nevada, southern Idaho, and Utah, 1867-69; was occupied chiefly with government work, 1869–80, and was a Smithsonian Curator of the Division of Birds of the ornithological division of the United States National Museum from July 1, 1880, in which post he continued until his death. It was located on the fifth floor of the South Tower, in the Smithsonian Institution Building, the "Castle" where Ridgway worked in the South Tower from about 1875 to 1895.

He was one of the founders of the American Ornithologists' union in 1883; its vice-president, 1883–98, and its president, 1899–1900. He was also a member of the permanent ornithological committee of the first international congress at Vienna in 1885, and an honorary member of the second congress Ornithologique International at Budapest in 1891.

He published more than 200 descriptive papers of new species and races of American birds, many of which appeared in the "Proceedings of the United States National Museum"; several catalogues of North American and other birds contained in the museum, and is the joint author with Professor Spencer F. Baird and Dr. Thomas M. Brewer of: A History of Northern American Birds (1874), and of The Water Birds of North America (1884), in which he wrote a large portion of the technical parts. He also published: Report on Ornithology of the Fortieth Parallel (1877); A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists (1886); Manual of North American Birds (1887); The Ornithology of Illinois (1889–1895), and The Birds of North and Middle America (1901).

Second to ornithology, Ridgway was best known for his color key. This work, consisting of fifty-three plates showing 1,115 colors in small rectangles, was published in an edition of 5,000 copies. Each color was hand-mixed according to a careful formula, and to ensure absolute uniformity each color was produced at a single time in sufficient quantity for the entire edition. The work was widely used not only among scientists but also among florists; manufacturers of paints, chemicals, and wallpapers; and in many government offices. When a careful description of colors was necessary, no better method for objective description was known, until fairly recently, except by comparison with Ridgway’s Color Standard.

Ridgway's report appeared in Professional Papers of the Engineer Department, United States Army: Report of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. Returning to Washington, he became a member of the staff of the Smithsonian Institution, relieving Baird of the care of the bird collections. In 1883 he was one of the founders of the American Ornithologists' Union, of which he was president in 1898-1900.

In spite of his exacting duties at the Museum he managed to do important fieldwork, visiting Florida in 1895, 1896, and 1897, and Alaska, as a member of the Harriman Expedition, in 1899; while in 1904 and 1908 he visited his friend José Zeledon at his home in Costa Rica.

In 1915 he arranged to spend his remaining years at Olney, not far from his old home at Mount Carmel, Illinois. He had purchased a property which was, in fact, a natural wildlife sanctuary, and here he continued his work on his monumental Birds of North and Middle America, which had for some years occupied all his time in Washington.

He later acquired a much larger tract, close by, which was particularly rich in native flora. This tract, named "Bird Haven," has been purchased by the ornithologists of the country and Ridgway's friends and is maintained as a memorial to him.

Achievements

• 

  Ridgway was considered America’s leading professional ornithologist. He was a prominent botanist as well, who possessed an intimate knowledge of the plant life of his native state, while he took great delight in horticulture. His discrimination of colors was remarkable and his interest in the accuracy of color terms in scientific descriptions, especially of birds, led him to publish his Color Standards and Nomenclature (1886, 1912), which has been a boon to systematists throughout America.
  
  Besides the volumes mentioned and some five hundred papers in various magazines and proceedings of scientific societies, his important publications are as follows: A History of North American Birds: Land Birds, and The Water Birds of North America, both in collaboration with Spencer F. Baird and Thomas M. Brewer; A Manual of North American Birds (1887, 1896); The Hummingbirds (1892), from the Report of the United States National Museum for 1890; The Birds of Illinois; and The Birds of North and Middle America, of which eight volumes were published (1901 - 19) and two left in manuscript, nearly completed, at the time of his death. This last, one of the greatest works on systematic ornithology ever written, won the Brewster Medal of the American Ornithologists' Union.
  
  Ridgway at the height of his career was the leading American ornithologist; his systematic knowledge of the birds of the Americas was unsurpassed, and his knowledge brought him honorary membership in the principal foreign ornithological societies.
  
  Another Ridgway's achievement was in becoming one of the founders of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1883, its vice-president, 1883–98, and its president, 1899–1900.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Birds of North and Middle America: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Higher Groups, Genera, Species, and Subspecies of Birds Known to Occur ... the West Indies and Other Islands of the

    (Volume 3)

    1901
  • Birds of the Galapagos Archipelago 1897
  • Nomenclature of North American Birds: Chiefly Contained in the United States National Museum 1881
  • Manual of North American Birds 1887
  • Color Standards and Color Nomenclature 1912
  • Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, And, Compendium of Useful Knowledge for Ornithologists 1886
  • The humming birds 1892
  • Ornithology 1877

Views

Ridgway's scientific writings were models of accuracy and correct terminology, but he could also write delightfully in a more popular vein, and no matter how deeply interested he might be in technical ornithology, there was always present in him a deep underlying love of the beauties of nature.

Membership

Ridgway was a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London, and of the Academies of Science of New York, Davenport, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois. He was also a foreign member of the British Ornithologists' union, an honorary member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Brookville, Indiana, Society of Natural History, the Ridgway Ornithological club of Chicago, Illinois, and a member of the committee of patronage of the International Congress of Zoölogy at London.

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  Zoological Society of London , United Kingdom

Personality

Ridgway received his love for the outdoors from his father, David Ridgway, a small-town pharmacist. Later in life he was known as a delightful companion to his intimates but was of a shrinking disposition with an extreme aversion to any sort of publicity, never making communications before scientific gatherings and rarely appearing in public. While he did permit his election to the presidency of the American Ornithologists' Union it was with the distinct understanding that he would never be called upon to preside at a meeting. Personally, he was of medium stature, rather quick in action and in speech.

Connections

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

Father:

David Ridgway

1819–1888

Mother:

Henrietta James (Reed) Ridgway

1833–1886

collaborator:

John Muir

April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914, also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American:42 naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States of America.

Son:

Audubon Whelock Ridgway

1877–1901, he died in his twenty-fourth year, soon after being appointed an assistant in ornithology in the Field Museum, Chicago.

Wife:

Julia Evelyn Perkins Ridgway

1857–1927

Brother:

John Livzey Ridgway

1859–1947

Brother:

Joseph H Ridgway

1864–1907

Brother:

Clarence David Ridgway

1872–1902

Brother:

Willie Ivens Ridgway

1872–1872

collaborator:

Edward Harriman

In 1899, Ridgway 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.

mentor:

Spencer Baird

colleague:

Clarence King

At sixteen years old Ridgway was appointed by Baird as zoologist under Clarence King at the Geological Survey of the Fortieth Parallel.

Friend:

José Castulo Zeledón

March 24, 1846 – July 16, 1923, Zeledon is commemorated in a number of birds, including the wrenthrush, Zeledonia coronata and the white-fronted tyrannulet, Phyllomyias zeledoni.

References

• The Feathery Tribe: Robert Ridgway and the Modern Study of Birds
  2012
• A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology After Audubon
  1998
• Biographical Memoir of Robert Ridgway, 1850-1929: National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs
  2011