John Ripley Forbes

John Ripley Forbes (25 August 1913 – 26 August 2006) was an American naturalist and conservationist who helped found hundreds of nature museums for children in over 200 communities and thirty states. His museums were noted for their interactivity as children could often even borrow animals.[1]

John Ripley Forbes
Born(1913-08-25)August 25, 1913
DiedAugust 26, 2006(2006-08-26) (aged 93)
OccupationNaturalist, Conservationist
Parent(s)Kenneth Forbes

Early life

Forbes appreciation for nature was fostered during time spent at his family's summer cottage on Birch Island in Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.[2] As a child he also was a frequent visitor to the Boston Children's Museum, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History.[3]

As a teenager, Forbes befriended William T. Hornaday, a noted zoologist and conservationist. Hornaday worked at the Smithsonian Museum and was instrumental in developing the animal collections and exhibits that would later become the National Zoo. Hornaday was also responsible for the creation of the Bronx Zoo. After retiring from the Bronx Zoo, Hornaday moved to Stamford, Connecticut. The teenage Forbes was a Boy Scout in Stamford at the time, and he approached Hornaday at his home after discovering a frog with a glowing belly during a troop hike. The two held a lengthy discussion to arrive at the conclusion that the frog had swallowed a firefly.[4]

After completing high school, Forbes enrolled at the University of Iowa to study in their museum training program. He later briefly studied at the Boston School of Fine Arts before enrolling at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine where he studied for a year.[5]

Later life

In 1937, Forbes served as a scientist in the Arctic expedition of explorer Donald MacMillan.[6]

Also in 1937, Forbes founded the William T. Hornaday Foundation for children's museums which later became the Natural Science for Youth Foundation.[7]

Forbes was instrumental in the establishment of many prominent museums and nature centers including the Kansas City Museum of History and Science, Earthplace in Westport, Connecticut and the Chattahoochee Nature Center in Roswell, Georgia.[7]

Later in his career, worried about rampant real-estate development, he shifted his attention towards conservation, and he founded the Southeast Land Preservation Trust in 1976. He would subsequently establish several forest preserves.[7][8]

gollark: I'm not sure this is true. It should still be more efficient to have a *few* humans "preprocess" things for robotics of some kind than to have it entirely done by humans.
gollark: Those are computationally hard problems, but I would be really surprised if there wasn't *some* fast heuristic way to do them.
gollark: Except that people are somewhat inconsistent about how much inconvenience/time/whatever is worth how much money.
gollark: I'm not sure you can reasonably call their preferences *wrong*.
gollark: People are very happy to ignore some amount of extra less tangible/obvious problems for lower costs in a lot of situations.

References

  1. "John Ripley Forbes, 93, Who Planted Many Nature Museums, Is Dead". New York Times. September 5, 2006. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  2. Ferguson, Gary (2012). "Chapter 1". Nature's Keeper: John Ripley Forbes and the Children's Nature Movement. Helena, Montana: Sweetgrass Books, A Division of Farcountry Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 978-1-59152-086-3.
  3. Ferguson, Gary (2012). "Chapter 1". Nature's Keeper. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-59152-086-3.
  4. Ferguson, Gary (2012). "Chapter 1". Nature's Keeper. pp. 23–26. ISBN 978-1-59152-086-3.
  5. Ferguson, Gary (2012). "Chapter 1". Nature's Keeper. pp. 35–38. ISBN 978-1-59152-086-3.
  6. Ferguson, Gary (2012). "Chapter 2". Nature's Keeper. pp. 42–59. ISBN 978-1-59152-086-3.
  7. Hurd, Hatcher (August 1, 2012). "John Ripley Forbes, the great man nobody knows: Left indelible (green) mark on North Fulton, Atlanta". Alpharetta and Roswell Revue & News. Appen Newspapers Inc. Archived from the original on 2014-04-01. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
  8. "John Ripley Forbes Bio". Southeast Land Preservation Trust.
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