The parents of George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938) must have had great intuition when they gave him his middle name. Grinnell would become the father of American conservation with a particular affinity for ornithology―the study of birds.
“Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870” (1905). (Public Domain)
Born into a wealthy family, the Grinnells moved from Brooklyn to upper Manhattan when he was 8. Nearby was a tract of land called Audubon Park, named after the French-American artist John James Audobon, who was known for his bird paintings. The young Grinnell attended the small elementary school run by Audubon’s widow. Though he later attended and graduated from Yale, he was not known as an exceptional student. In fact, he was quite mediocre. His curiosity about the world around him, however, would pave the way for his career….