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Elizabeth Grinnell

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Elizabeth Pratt Grinnell
An older white woman, smiling, embracing a small child with blond hair.
Grinnell with her grandson Willard, from a 1913 publication.
Born
Sarah Elizabeth Pratt

May 9, 1851
Brooks, Maine
DiedJuly 6, 1935
Sausalito, California
Occupation(s)writer, naturalist

Sarah Elizabeth Pratt Grinnell (May 9, 1851 – July 6, 1935) was an American writer, clubwoman, and naturalist, based in Pasadena, California.

Early life

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Sarah Elizabeth Pratt was born in Brooks, Maine, the daughter of Joseph Howland Pratt and Martha Eunice Hanson Pratt.[1] Her parents were Quakers.[2]

Gold Hunting in Alaska, by Joseph Grinnell and Elizabeth Grinnell

Career

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In 1904, Elizabeth Grinnell was a founding member of the Pasadena Audubon Society.[3] Philanthropist Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage was a frequent visitor to Grinnell's home and a benefactor of the society's work.[4] Grinnell provided photographs of birds to Vernon Lyman Kellogg for his textbook Elementary Zoology (1901).[5] She also owned and bred goats,[6] and raised chickens.[7] She protested city regulations limiting the possession of chickens and cows. "Cows sometimes moo and good laying hens do cackle. Trolleys make a noise and so do wagons rattling over pavements," she argued.[8]

Grinnell was a popular speaker on "birds and bees",[9] and wrote at least seven books, some of them in collaboration with her elder son, Joseph Grinnell, a zoologist and museum director.[1] Their books together were Our Feathered Friends (1898),[10] Birds of Song and Story (1901),[11] Gold Hunting in Alaska (1901),[12] and Stories of Our Western Birds (1903).[13] Other books by Grinnell were How John and I Brought Up the Child (1894),[14] John and I and the Church (1897),[15] For the Sake of a Name (1900),[16] A Morning with the Bees (1905),[17] and Thoughts for the Kit-Bag (1918).[18] She also wrote articles and stories for Sunset magazine.[19]

Grinnell was active in the Humane Society of Pasadena. Her work with the society extended beyond animal protection to the care of human orphans,[20] the prevention of child abuse,[21] and the promotion of film censorship for the "morality of the city's youth."[22]

Personal life

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Elizabeth Pratt married Fordyce Grinnell (1844-1923), a medical doctor, in New Hampshire in 1874.[23] They had two sons, Joseph (1877–1939) and Fordyce (1882–1943), and a daughter, Elizabeth (1883–1929).[1] Elizabeth Pratt Grinnell moved to Sausalito in the 1920s,[24] and died there in 1935, aged 84 years. "She was a little grey-haired woman somewhat stooped, whose hair falling about her face and shoulders gave her an almost witch-like appearance as she went about clad in male attire," noted a local newspaper.[25]

Some of Elizabeth Grinnell's letters are in the Joseph Grinnell Papers at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California,[26] and in the Fordyce Grinnell Jr. Papers at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles.[27]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Porter, Florence Collins; Trask, Helen Brown (1913). Maine Men and Women in Southern California: A Volume Regarding the Lives of Maine Men and Women of Note and Substantial Achievement, as Well as Those of a Younger Generation Whose Careers are Certain, Yet Still in the Making. Kingsley, Mason & Collins. p. 96.
  2. ^ Garabedian, Michael; Ruud, Rebecca (2016-04-04). Whittier. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781439655832.
  3. ^ "Elizabeth Grinnell". Pasadena Audubon Society. Retrieved 2019-09-12.
  4. ^ "Humane Society Talks on Rabies". Los Angeles Herald. September 21, 1910. p. 11. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  5. ^ Kellogg, Vernon Lyman (2012). Elementary Zoology, Second Edition. Library of Alexandria. ISBN 9781465572370.
  6. ^ The American Milch Goat Record. American Milch Goat Record Association. 1914. p. 72.
  7. ^ "Famous Hen is Dead at Age of Twenty-Five". Sacramento Union. April 27, 1913. p. 13. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  8. ^ "Citizens Object to New Livestock Law". Los Angeles Herald. September 27, 1909. p. 10. Retrieved September 12, 2019.
  9. ^ "Knows Much About Birds and Bees". Los Angeles Herald. April 22, 1902. p. 7. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  10. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth; Grinnell, Joseph (1898). Our feathered friends. Boston Mass.: D.C. Heath.
  11. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth; Grinnell, Joseph (1901). Birds of song and story. Chicago: A. W. Mumford.
  12. ^ Grinnell, Joseph (1901). Gold Hunting in Alaska. David C. Cook publishing Company. pp. 3. Elizabeth Grinnell Pasadena.
  13. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth; Grinnell, Joseph (1903). Stories of our western birds. Western series of readers ;v. 9. San Francisco: Whitaker and Ray.
  14. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth (1894). How John an I brought up the child. Green fund book,no. 9b. Philadelphia: The American Sunday-school Union.
  15. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth (1897). John and I and the church. New York : Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company.
  16. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth (1900). For the sake of a name: a story for our times. Elgin, Ill.: David C. Cook Pub. Co.
  17. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth (1905). A morning with the bees. Medina, O.: A. I. Root co.
  18. ^ Grinnell, Elizabeth (1918). Thoughts for the kit-bag. New York: Association press.
  19. ^ "Sunset for February". Los Angeles Herald. March 6, 1904. p. 6. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  20. ^ "Supply of Waifs Short of Demand". Los Angeles Herald. January 18, 1910. p. 14. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  21. ^ "Woman Denies She Struck Little Girl". Los Angeles Herald. March 28, 1908. p. 10. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  22. ^ "Says Moving Picture Shows Need Censor". Los Angeles Herald. January 5, 1909. p. 10. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  23. ^ The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. New England Historic Genealogical Society. 1943. p. 201.
  24. ^ Laurie, Annie (January 13, 1928). "Woman, 77, Greets Year; Peace Made with Life". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 6. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ "Mrs. Grinnell, 84, Called by Death". Sausalito News. July 12, 1935. p. 1. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  26. ^ "Guide to the Joseph Grinnell papers, 1884-1938, Bancroft Library". Online Archive of California. Archived from the original on 2012-10-12. Retrieved 2019-09-12.
  27. ^ "Finding aid to the Fordyce Grinnell, Jr. Papers MS.202, Autry National Center". Online Archive of California. Archived from the original on 2015-09-08. Retrieved 2019-09-12.
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