Struck by a serious heart condition during his senior year at Yale, Dickey returned to early interests in natural history and photography to occupy his mind and hands during the prolonged recovery period. By the time he had regained full strength in 1916, he had also formulated a new life goal: to establish a research center for study of the vertebrate zoology of Southern California, and to build a supporting collection of taxidermy specimens, photographs and books. The present collection comprises the still photography part of the larger collection: over 4000 images captured by Dickey and his associates on various formats of film negatives, glass plates and slides. Each entry in the finding aid leads to a Dickey negative and a 5 x 8 inch reference card which contains a positive image, and identifying information. The collection contains photographs of birds (and their nests and eggs), mammals, people, and places, documenting Dickey's extensive field work in: California and the rest of the southwest; northern Michigan; New Brunswick and Newfoundland; Baja California; El Salvador; and Laysan Island in Hawaii (with the Smithsonian-sponsored Tanager Expedition). One small group offers landscapes and people of Algeria. Dickey recorded in still photographs, some moving pictures, and extensive field notes the birds, mammals and habitat of an area, with special interest on reproduction and behavior. His photographs serve as a valuable resource not only for field biologists but also for historians, since they illustrate the appearance of many natural areas before the transformations wrought by population expansion. The dates of the photographs range from 1908 to 1962, with the greatest part clustered between 1912 and 1923; later material was added by Dickey's collaborators. Formats represented in the collection include film and glass negatives, prints, and glass lantern slides. Nitrate film has been copied to safety film. The lantern slides are of four kinds: autochrome, black and white, colored, and toned. Most of the positives are on gelatin developing-out paper.
