Herbert Spencer Zim (July 12, 1909 – December 5, 1994) was a naturalist, author, editor and educator best known as the founder (1945) and

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the

Golden Guide The Golden Guides, originally Golden Nature Guides, were a series of 160-page, pocket-sized books created by Western Publishing and published under their "Golden Press" line (primarily a children's book imprint) from 1949. Edited by Herbert S. Zim ...

s series of nature books.

Biography

Zim was born 1909 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, but spent his childhood years in southern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. At the age of fourteen he returned to the east. He took his degrees (B.S. biologia, M.S. biologia, Ph.D. botanica) at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Zim wrote or edited more than one hundred books on science, and in a thirty-year career teaching in the public schools introduced laboratory instruction into elementary school science. He is best known as the founder in 1945 (and, for twenty-five years, editor in chief) of the

s, pocket-size introductions for children to such subjects as

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...

rocks In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's ...

and

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

trees In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...

, wildflowers,

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

and more. He was the sole or co-author for many of the books, which were valued for their clarity, accuracy and attractive presentation—helped by the illustrations of

James Gordon Irving James Gordon Irving (June 2, 1913 – August 15, 2012) was a commercial illustrator and painter, best known for illustrating the early Golden Guide series of nature books. Life and career Irving, who went by the name Gordon, was born in Ridge ...

and Zim's friend Raymond Perlman. He moved to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

with his wife, the anthropologist Sonia (Sonnie) Bleeker, and continued to work on the Golden Guides series until

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

forced him to slow down in the 1990s. He died in 1994 at

Plantation Key Plantation Key is an island in Monroe County, Florida, United States. It is located in the upper Florida Keys on U.S. 1 (or the Overseas Highway), between Key Largo and Windley Key. All of the key is within the Village of Islamorada as of Nove ...

, survived by his second wife, Grace Showe, and two sons.

References

External links

The Herbert S. Zim papers at the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection, The University of Southern MississippiGuide to the Herbert Zim papers at the University of Oregon.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zim, Herbert 1909 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American educators American science writers American print editors Columbia College (New York) alumni Recreational cryptographers 20th-century American non-fiction writers Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Biography

See also

References

External links