Dickey, Anna Ryder, 1863-1928.

Anna Ryder Dickey was born December 23, 1863 in Dubuque Iowa and died May 4, 1928 in Pasadena, California. She was the mother of Donald Ryder Dickey, Sr. and the grandmother of Donald Ryder Dickey, Jr. Prior to moving to Pasadena, she lived in Dubuque, marrying Ernest M. Dickey in 1885. The scrapbooks, photographs of John Muir, and related ephemera in her collection were accumulated while residing in Pasadena (specifically, the area known as San Rafael Heights). As evidenced by the photographic material and several personal notes in the ephemera, she maintained a close friendship with Muir during this time.

Biography

ANNA RYDER DICKEY was born December 23, 1863 in Dubuque Iowa and died May 4, 1928 in Pasadena, California. She was the mother of Donald Ryder Dickey, Sr. and the grandmother of Donald Ryder Dickey, Jr. (from whom the collection was obtained). Prior to moving to Pasadena, she lived in Dubuque, marrying Ernest M. Dickey in 1885. The scrapbooks, photographs of John Muir, and related ephemera, were accumulated while residing in Pasadena (specifically, the area known as San Rafael Heights). As evidenced by the photographic material and several personal notes in the ephemera, she maintained a close friendship with Muir during this time.

DONALD RYDER DICKEY, Sr. (1887-1932), who is featured in several of the photographs in Scrapbook #2, was the son of Ernest and Anna Ryder Dickey. He was a respected innovator in and practitioner of wildlife photography and collector of Pacific Coast mammals and birds. In 1902, at age 16, he and his mother joined a Sierra Club group in travel up the King's River Cañon, eventually climbing and reaching the summit of Mount Whitney. The participants of this trip included John Muir, C. Hart Merriam, Dr. Henry Gannett, as well as historian Theodore Hittell and landscape artist William Keith.

During his senior year at Yale University, Dickey was stricken by a serious heart condition. Allowed to graduate because of his high academic standing, he returned to his parents' home in Pasadena for two years of rest. During this time he gradually returned to his former interest in the outdoors and began photographing and collecting birds and small mammals. Eventually he determined to establish a research center for vertebrate zoology in Southern California, with a study collection of specimens, with photographs and books to support it. The collection, which focused mainly on southwestern fauna of California and Mexico, but also included the birds of Laysan Island, and fauna of Michigan, New Brunswick, and Central America, was housed at the California Institute of Technology in the 1920s, and came to the University of California, Los Angeles after his death.

JOHN MUIR (1838-1914) was born in Dunbar, Scotland. In 1849 he and his family immigrated to Portage, Wisconsin. Muir was internationally renowned as a writer, naturalist and forest conservationist, particularly in his advocacy for the preservation of Yosemite Valley and adjacent wilderness areas of the Sierra Nevada's during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also the first acting president of the Sierra Club from its founding in 1892 until his death. Through his publications and advocacy for environmental causes, Muir became one of the strongest figures in the early environmental and ecological movement within the United States.