Frank Chapman (ornithologist)

Frank Michler Chapman (June 12, 1864 – November 15, 1945) was an American ornithologist and pioneering writer of field guides.

Biography

Chapman was born in West Englewood, New Jersey and attended Englewood Academy. He joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in 1888 as assistant to Joel Asaph Allen. In 1901 he was made associate Curator of Mammals and Birds and in 1908 Curator of Birds.

Chapman came up with the original idea for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. He also wrote many ornithological books such as, ''Bird Life'', ''Birds of Eastern North America'', and ''Life in an Air Castle''. Chapman promoted the integration of photography into ornithology, especially in his book ''Bird Studies With a Camera'', in which he discussed the practicability of the photographic blind and in 1901 invented his own more portable version of a blind using an umbrella with a large 'skirt' to conceal the photographer that could be bundled into a small pack for transport along with the other, at the time very bulky, paraphernalia of the camera gear. For his work, ''Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia'', he was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1917.

Chapman fathered one child, Frank Chapman, Jr., who first married playwright Elizabeth Cobb and had a daughter, actress and TV personality Buff Cobb,Hevesi, Dennis
"Buff Cobb, Actress and TV Host, Dies at 82"
''The New York Times'', July 21, 2010 and after divorcing married mezzo-soprano opera singer Gladys Swarthout.

Chapman was interred at Brookside Cemetery.

Publications

As well as numerous papers in scientific journals and magazines such as the ''National Geographic Magazine'', books and major reports authored by Chapman include:
* (1894)
''Visitors' Guide to the Local Collection of Birds in the American Museum of Natural History''

* (1895)
''Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America''

* (1897)
''Bird-Life: A Guide to the Study of Our Common Birds''

* (1898)
''Four-Footed Americans and Their Kin''
(by Mabel Osgood Wright, with Frank Chapman as editor and Ernest Seton Thompson as illustrator)
* (1899). ''Descriptions of five apparently new birds from Venezuela''. Bull. of the American Museum of Natural History 12 ( 9): 153-156
* (1900)
''Bird Studies with a Camera''

* (1901). ''The Revision of the Genus Capromys''.
* (1903). ''Color Key to North American Birds''

* (1903)
''The Economic Value of Birds to the State''

* (1907)
''Warblers of North America''

* (1908)
''Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist''

* (1910). ''The Birds of the Vicinity of New York City: A guide to the Local Collection''.
* (1915)


* (1917). ''The Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia''.
* (1919)
''Our Winter Birds''

* (1920). ''What Bird is That?''.
* (1921). ''The Habit Groups of North American Birds''.
* (1921). ''The Distribution of Bird Life in the Urubamba Valley of Peru. A report of the birds collected by the Yale University - National Geographic Society's expedition''.
* (1926). ''The Distribution of Bird-life in Ecuador''.
* (1929). ''My Tropical Air Castle''.
* (1931). ''The Upper Zonal Bird-Life of Mts Roraima and Duida''.
* (1933). ''The Autobiography of a Bird-Lover''.
* (1938). ''Life in an Air Castle: Nature Studies in the Tropics''.

References

Further reading

*
*
*"Frank M. Chapman," in Tom Taylor and Michael Taylor, ''Aves: A Survey of the Literature of Neotropical Ornithology'', Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Libraries, 2011.

External links

Obituary
*
*


Western Kentucky University

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chapman, Frank Michler
1864 births
1945 deaths
American ornithologists
Nature photographers
John Burroughs Medal recipients
People from Teaneck, New Jersey
People associated with the American Museum of Natural History
Burials at Brookside Cemetery (Englewood, New Jersey)
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences