49 Facts About Robert Ridgway

Robert Ridgway was an American ornithologist specializing in systematics.

Robert Ridgway was appointed in 1880 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to be the first full-time curator of birds at the United States National Museum, a title he held until his death.

Robert Ridgway published two books that systematized color names for describing birds, A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists and Color Standards and Color Nomenclature.

Robert Ridgway was born in Mount Carmel, Illinois to David and Henrietta Robert Ridgway.

Robert Ridgway was educated at common schools in his native town, where he showed a special fondness for natural history.

In 1864, at the age of thirteen, the young Robert Ridgway wrote to the Commissioner of Patents, seeking advice on the identification of a bird he had seen.

Robert Ridgway enclosed a full-sized color drawing of what turned out to be a pair of purple finches.

Robert Ridgway observed 262 species, most of these on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Robert Ridgway had written most of his portion of King's report by 1872, but the "Ornithology" section was not published until 1877.

Robert Ridgway formally joined the Smithsonian in 1874, under the supervision of curator George Brown Goode.

Robert Ridgway was articulate and literate, and served as the Smithsonian's mouthpiece and representative for many years in the study of birds.

Robert Ridgway welcomed visits to the museum from colleagues and the general public alike, and would give tours.

Charles Wallace Richmond joined the institution in 1893 and was tasked by Robert Ridgway with writing reviews and other short pieces.

Robert Ridgway provided calculations of the wing loading and other aerodynamic characteristics of species like the wandering albatross, turkey vulture, and other soaring birds.

In 1883, Robert Ridgway was a founding member of the American Ornithologists' Union and he became an associate editor of the organization's journal The Auk.

Robert Ridgway was prevailed upon to serve as an officer of the organization, but on the condition that he not be required to preside at public meetings.

Robert Ridgway served as a vice president of the AOU and as its president.

Robert Ridgway addressed this need with two publications in 1880 and 1881, while Elliott Coues published a competing checklist in 1882.

Robert Ridgway was an enthusiastic supporter of trinomial nomenclature, although his thinking in later life became more moderate.

Robert Ridgway was a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London; was associated with the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Brookville, Indiana, Society of Natural History, and the Chicago Academy of Sciences; and was a foreign member of the British Ornithologists' Union.

Robert Ridgway was a member of the permanent ornithological committee of the first international congress at Vienna in 1884.

Robert Ridgway was honorary member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for which he contributed illustrations and 48 articles to its Bulletin.

The short-lived Robert Ridgway Ornithological Club of Chicago, Illinois was named in Robert Ridgway's honor, and he was an honorary member.

Robert Ridgway was listed with the title of Professor in Smithsonian annual reports and staff directories, despite his lack of a teaching appointment.

Robert Ridgway is sometimes referred to as "Dr Ridgway," particularly by writers from his home state of Illinois.

Robert and Julia Ridgway had one son, Audubon Whelock Ridgway.

Robert Ridgway's second-born brother, John Livzey Ridgway, was a nationally prominent bird illustrator who worked for many years at the United States Geological Survey, as well as the Smithsonian, the California Institute of Technology, and the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art.

Robert Ridgway acquired a tract of 18 acres located in the country, to be called Bird Haven, which he developed as a private nature reserve for birds and as a nursery for cultivation of non-native plants.

Robert Ridgway continued to live at Larchmound, tending to his beloved trees and shrubs, until his death on March 25,1929, at the age of 78.

Robert Ridgway was buried at Bird Haven where Julia's ashes had been scattered.

Robert Ridgway's first publication, at the age of 18, was an article about the belted kingfisher.

Robert Ridgway collaborated with Brewer and Baird on the five-volume History of North American Birds.

Robert Ridgway provided full-color illustrations for his own books and those of others.

Robert Ridgway was at the peak of his artistic proficiency in the late 1870s.

Robert Ridgway's contributions were published in two parts, in 1889 and 1895.

Robert Ridgway published a number of papers dealing with the woody plants of his region.

Robert Ridgway contributed twenty short pieces to Forest and Stream, a magazine edited by George Bird Grinnell.

Robert Ridgway published two books whose goal was to standardize the names of colors used by ornithologists to describe birds.

Robert Ridgway published Color Standards and Color Nomenclature himself in 1912, financed in part by a loan from his friend and colleague Zeledon.

Robert Ridgway paid tribute to colleagues, including Rood, Bradley, field guide pioneer Frank Chapman, watercolorist Samuel Prout, and others.

From two specimens collected by Eugene Bicknell, Robert Ridgway wrote the description of Bicknell's thrush as a subspecies of gray-cheeked thrush, naming it for Bicknell.

From specimens collected in 1888, Robert Ridgway was the first to describe hood mockingbird, Espanola cactus finch, Geospiza conirostris, and medium tree finch, all endemic to the Galapagos.

Robert Ridgway's career-crowning 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.

Robert Ridgway began the work in 1894 at the direction of Goode.

Robert Ridgway published the eighth installment of the work, commonly known as Bulletin 50, in 1919.

The Birds of North and Middle America and Color Standards and Color Nomenclature are complementary works, and indeed Robert Ridgway divided his time between the two projects in the first decade of the century.

Robert Ridgway used his own color terms extensively throughout Bulletin 50.

However, as ornithology around the turn of the twentieth century began to focus on bird behavior, reproduction strategies, and other aspects of the living organism, Robert Ridgway fell behind the advances made by his colleagues of the succeeding generations.

In 1919, Robert Ridgway was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences for his Birds of North and Middle America.