Elizabeth Grinnell
American writer, clubwoman and naturalist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sarah Elizabeth Pratt Grinnell (May 9, 1851 – July 6, 1935) was an American writer, clubwoman, and naturalist, based in Pasadena, California.
May 9, 1851
Elizabeth Pratt Grinnell | |
|---|---|
Grinnell with her grandson Willard, from a 1913 publication. | |
| Born | Sarah Elizabeth Pratt May 9, 1851 |
| Died | July 6, 1935 (aged 84) |
| Occupations | writer, naturalist |
Early life
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]
Career
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
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]
