Sarah Elizabeth Pratt Grinnell (May 9, 1851 – July 6, 1935) was an American writer, clubwoman, and naturalist, based in
Pasadena, California.
Early life
Sarah Elizabeth Pratt was born in
Brooks, Maine, the daughter of Joseph Howland Pratt and Martha Eunice Hanson Pratt.[1] Her parents were
Quakers.[2]
Career
In 1904, Elizabeth Grinnell was a founding member of the Pasadena
Audubon Society.[3] Philanthropist
Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage was a frequent visitor to Grinnell's home and a benefactor of the society's work.[4] Grinnell provided photographs of birds to
Vernon Lyman Kellogg for his textbook Elementary Zoology (1901).[5] She also owned and bred goats,[6] and raised chickens.[7] She protested city regulations limiting the possession of chickens and cows. "Cows sometimes moo and good laying hens do cackle. Trolleys make a noise and so do wagons rattling over pavements," she argued.[8]
Grinnell was a popular speaker on "birds and bees",[9] and wrote at least seven books, some of them in collaboration with her elder son,
Joseph Grinnell, a zoologist and museum director.[1] Their books together were Our Feathered Friends (1898),[10]Birds of Song and Story (1901),[11]Gold Hunting in Alaska (1901),[12] and Stories of Our Western Birds (1903).[13] Other books by Grinnell were How John and I Brought Up the Child (1894),[14]John and I and the Church (1897),[15]For the Sake of a Name (1900),[16]A Morning with the Bees (1905),[17] and Thoughts for the Kit-Bag (1918).[18] She also wrote articles and stories for
Sunset magazine.[19]
Grinnell was active in the
Humane Society of Pasadena. Her work with the society extended beyond animal protection to the care of human orphans,[20] the prevention of child abuse,[21] and the promotion of film censorship for the "morality of the city's youth."[22]
Personal life
Elizabeth Pratt married Fordyce Grinnell (1844-1923), a medical doctor, in New Hampshire in 1874.[23] They had two sons, Joseph (1877–1939) and Fordyce (1882–1943), and a daughter, Elizabeth (1883–1929).[1] Elizabeth Pratt Grinnell moved to
Sausalito in the 1920s,[24] and died there in 1935, aged 84 years. "She was a little grey-haired woman somewhat stooped, whose hair falling about her face and shoulders gave her an almost witch-like appearance as she went about clad in male attire," noted a local newspaper.[25]
Some of Elizabeth Grinnell's letters are in the Joseph Grinnell Papers at the
Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California,[26] and in the Fordyce Grinnell Jr. Papers at the
Autry National Center in Los Angeles.[27]
^"Humane Society Talks on Rabies". Los Angeles Herald. September 21, 1910. p. 11. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
^"Knows Much About Birds and Bees". Los Angeles Herald. April 22, 1902. p. 7. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
^Grinnell, Elizabeth; Grinnell, Joseph (1898).
Our feathered friends. Boston Mass.: D.C. Heath.
^"Sunset for February". Los Angeles Herald. March 6, 1904. p. 6. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
^"Supply of Waifs Short of Demand". Los Angeles Herald. January 18, 1910. p. 14. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
^"Woman Denies She Struck Little Girl". Los Angeles Herald. March 28, 1908. p. 10. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
^"Says Moving Picture Shows Need Censor". Los Angeles Herald. January 5, 1909. p. 10. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
^"Mrs. Grinnell, 84, Called by Death". Sausalito News. July 12, 1935. p. 1. Retrieved September 12, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.