Elizabeth Grinnell

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

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

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]

Gold Hunting in Alaska, by Joseph Grinnell and Elizabeth Grinnell

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]

References
  1. 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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