Personal Archive of Ornithologist/Biologist/Superintendent of National Zoological Park Ned Hollister Including Photo Albums, Professional Papers, and Manuscript, plus his Collecting and Field Journals.
Personal Archive of Ornithologist/Biologist/Superintendent of National Zoological Park Ned Hollister Including Photo Albums, Professional Papers, and Manuscript, plus his Collecting and Field Journals.
Extensive archive of several hundred items plus 1300 plus photos and negatives. The vast majority of items in very good condition. Ned Hollister seemingly was a very meticulous person which this archive reflects. Film negatives are mostly in labeled sleeves with accompanying book with annotations tied to numbers on sleeves. Notebooks are all numbered, signed and dated. Typical wear to exterior but interiors very good. Professional papers/extracts in at least good to very good condition.
Ned Hollister (1876-1924) was born in Delavan, Wisconsin where he attended Delavan High School. Growing up, Ned and his brother Warren often missed school because of collecting field trips and other interests including amateur printing and a home museum devoted to their collected birds, eggs and nests. In fact, Ned missed High School graduation as he was in the field.
Ned Hollister published his first three papers at the age of sixteen including two in the "Taxidermist" and one in the "Oologist". Milton College Professor Ludwig Kumlien befriended young Ned which led to their collaboration in 1903 of the publication of "The Birds of Wisconsin". Kumlien tutelage likely made up for the fact that Ned Hollister never attended college.
In 1896 and 1897 Hollister spent extensive time in the field, including stints in Minnesota and Arkansas (this archive includes his Arkansas Journal) in addition to collecting and hunting trips throughout Wisconsin. Many of the journals in this archive date to his amateur years of collecting, 1888-1900 complete with detailed notes in a clear hand.
One poignant scientific journal publication by Hollister was from 1896: "Recent Record of the Passenger Pigeon in Southern Wisconsin.--On September 8, 1896, I was fortunate enough to be presented with a beautiful immature male Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) which was killed that afternoon by a local hunter. It was a single bird and was shot from a dead tree near Delavan Lake; the crop was well filled with acorns and grasshoppers. This is the first record of the capture of the Wild Pigeon here in many years, and I consider myself extremely lucky in obtaining so fine a specimen. ---N. Hollister, Delavan, Wis." The last confirmed wild Passenger Pigeon was shot in southern Ohio in 1900.
We also found one reference to Hollister referencing a paper by a young Wisconsin naturalist named Aldo Leopold. Leopold was 11 years younger than Ned but it's inconceivable their paths did not cross.
in 1902 Ned Hollister joined his first United States Biological Survey party in Texas. Hollister's mentor Ludwig Kumlien passed away in 1902 leaving Hollister to finish work on their "Birds of Wisconsin". In 1903 Hollister joined the Biological Survey in Alaska (photo album from 1903 Alaska in this collection) for five months. From 1904 through 1910 Hollister continued field work for the Biological Survey (stints in Utah, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona) but also began to dive into writing professional papers for publication.
By 1908, Hollister and his bride moved to Washington D.C. Ned was appointed Assistant Curator of Mammals at the U.S. National Museum in 1909 drawing on museums experience of his youth. Field work continued (Canadian Rockies in 1911 and Siberia in 1912) but more and more of his time was spent writing, reflected in the 109 papers in this collection.
Ned Hollister was becoming an expert in Mammalogy world-wide with an increasing number of papers extending outside of North America. This archive includes a manuscript for Mammals of Africa with approximately 195 pages (some pages missing according to pagination). This manuscript most likely was part of a three-volume report titled "East African Mammals in the United States National Museum" which appeared in 1918, 1919 and 1923.
Hollister is credited with collecting 26 type specimens (definitive example of a species), while naming 162 mammals. A San Juan Island, Washington mouse species was named after Hollister, Peromyscus maniculatus hollisteri.
The great strength of this archive lies in the field notebooks and photographs of a young, mostly untrained naturalist in rural Wisconsin in the late 1800's. The 1890's inventory of bird species in Wisconsin is a tremendous resource in this day of rapidly diminishing bird populations, providing baseline species counts before many formal inventories were done.
Ned Hollister would go on to produce hundreds of papers and become respected world-wide for his scholarship and administrative skills.
Hollister died on November 3, 1924, in Washington D.C at the age of 47 with tributes flowing in from throughout the world. The Field Museum of Chicago wrote: "No further summary of his character and achievements seems necessary. A man loved, respected and honored has gone from a small company. It is, indeed, a very small company, for if we take stock of ourselves, we cannot but realize how few are the real students of mammals. The type represented by Ned Hollister is one which, under present economic and social conditions in this country, seems threatened with extinction while yet the need for it continues to be very great. Therefore, his passing before his time is the more to be regretted. We mourn a genial friend beloved for his attractive human qualities and we deplore the absence of a colleague of trained ability; but when we look for his like among the coming generation, we are brought to the distressing realization that this is not all, for no one stands ready to fill the gap in the ranks."
Inventory of Ned Hollister Archive:
Photos
Photo on board of Chic Stanton, Ned’s dog
(84) 3 ¼ x 5 ¼ prints mostly from Mojave Desert
(18) About 4 x 5-inch photos on board of annotated hunting scenes
(2) Delavan Wisconsin Cabinet Cards—no ID
Up to 1300 plus negatives (mostly 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ inches) filed numerically with some annotations about corresponding photo album in which they appear.
Further Miscellaneous collection of several hundred negatives—some of family, with remaining appearing to be from the field.
About (150) 5 ½ x 3 ¼ prints all annotated 1909 California and Arizona
(35) 5 ¼ x 3 ¼ inch prints fully annotated 1904 Louisiana
1901 Photo Album “Off for the Rockies—Two Spike Club”
1903 photo album with 100 fully annotated Alaska images
Vernacular Family and work album, no date but labeled with photo negative #’s (Album 3)
Vernacular Family and work album, no date but labeled with photo negative #’s (Album 7)
Vernacular Family and work album, no date but labeled with photo negative #’s (Album 8)
Notebook of Captions for numbered photos (negatives) 1-1362
Paper
(12) Letters and Telegrams mostly to brother Warren leading up to and shortly after death of Ned.
Warren and Ned Hollister Museum Handwritten Promotional.
Hand-written Manuscript for text on Africa survey of mammals. In four numbered sections: 22pp., 21pp., 230pp., (but missing quite a few leaves), and 76pp.
Journal of Mammalogy Tribute February 1925 (copy).
Notebooks and Journals
Collecting Register Ornithology, Oology and Caliology. Birds, their Nests & Eggs, Signed. Beginning 1888
Collection List of Mounted Birds, List of Skins, Birds’ Nests and Eggs Book I, Signed, early 1890’s
Collection List of the Mammal Skins in the Cabinet of N. Hollister, Delavan, Wis. 1896
Cabinet List of the Collection of North American Birds, Nests and Eggs of N. Hollister, Delavan, Wis. 1896-
Bird and Mammal Register Vol. III No’s 1351-… “Collection of N. Hollister, Delavan, Wis. 1898-1906 with laid in Eliot Cous’ obituary and handwritten response to a Cous article in the “Auk”, and with obituary for Fhure L.T. Kumlien (brother of Ludwig Kumlien co-author with Ned Hollister of 1903 Birds of Wisconsin)
Journal of Bird Notes & Register of the Collection of Bird Skins—Birds’ Eggs—and Nests, From January 1, 1896 to Feb. 15, 1896. From Feb. 16, 1896 Simply “Journal”. Signed
List of the Birds and Mammals of Walworth Co., Wis. Jan. 1901, Signed with List of Birds Observed in Lonoke, Prairie and Arkansas Counties, Arkansas 1899-1900
Plants Journal 1909 California
1904 Journal
California Journal From June 1, 1904 to____ Signed Biological Survey U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
1905 Journal Vol. 2 Beginning Sept. 18, 1905 Burley, New Mex. Signed, Biological Survey U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
Small undated field notebook with 19 pp. used
Pocket Journal, no date, N. Hollister U.S. National Museum Washington, D.C.
Professional Papers
Nine linear inches of papers, offprints, extracts and reports.
Someone, at some point had numbered each of these items; the archive is missing 50 of the 159 numbered items. The archive was acquired in Denver, Colorado where Ned’s brother Warren lived when Warren passed. Supposedly the archive was purchased at the Hollister family’s estate, decades ago.
31 offprints and extracts owned by Hollister, all written by Edward R. Warren, most of which appear to be mammalogy papers from Colorado.
Book
Ned Hollister’s own copy of Birds of Wisconsin which he co-authored in 1903. Special three-quarter leather-bound copy signed on free endpaper. Issued as volume 3 Nos. 1,2 and 3 of the Bulletin of the Wisconsin Natural History Society, 1903. This copy interleaved with lined notepaper with multiple notes in Hollister’s fine hand. With newspaper clipping laid in announcing publication. Item #2477
Price: $14,500.00