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Carl Eduard Hellmayr (29 January 1878 in
Carl Eduard Hellmayr (29 January 1878 in Vienna
en, Viennese
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, Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
– 24 February 1944 in Orselina, Switzerland) was an Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n ornithologist.
Biography
Hellmayr was born inVienna
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and studied at the University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...
, although he did not complete his degree. After his studies he worked in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Tring (England), and Chicago.
He spent the years 1905–1908 studying Baron Rothschild's private collection of natural history specimens at Tring, near London. There he received guidance from the German ornithologist Ernst Hartert.
In 1908, Hellmayr was appointed Curator of the Bird Department at the Bavarian State Museum, which he had helped organize in 1903 and where he became a specialist in Neotropical birds, studying Johann Baptist von Spix's collection of Brazilian birds.
In 1922, he was made Curator in Zoology at the Field Museum
The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...
in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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. He stayed there until 1931. His books included 13 of the 15 volumes of the ''Catalogue of Birds of the Americas'' (1918–1949), a work initiated by Hellmayr's predecessor, Charles B. Cory. With Henry Boardman Conover
Henry Boardman Conover (January 18, 1892 – May 5, 1950) was an American soldier, salesman, and amateur ornithologist.
Conover was born in Chicago, the son of Charles Hopkins Conover and his wife Delia Louise Boardman. He attended The Hill School ...
he published ''The Birds of Chile''.
In 1931, Hellmayr went back to Vienna. After the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, he was arrested and briefly jailed for reasons that are not fully known but probably related to his unsympathic views toward the Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
(Hellmayr did not make political statements in public, but his interest – as an amateur historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
– in the French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
shows that he was more than casually interested in such topics). After his release he emigrated with his wife to Switzerland. Following a long period of declining health, he died in 1944 in Orselina, near Locarno.
Historian François Vuilleumier writes that "Hellmayr's pivotal role was first and foremost to bring order to henomenclatural chaos" of his day that had resulted in erroneous citations and hindered analysis of species and genera.
References
* *Further reading
*External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hellmayr, Carl Eduard 1878 births 1944 deaths Austrian ornithologists Scientists from Vienna