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

Biography

Chapman was born in the West Englewood section of present-day Teaneck, 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. He was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 1921.

Chapman fathered one child, Frank Chapman, Jr., who first married playwright Elizabeth Cobb and had a daughter, actress and TV personality Buff Cobb. He later divorced Cobb and married mezzo-soprano opera singer Gladys Swarthout.

Chapman was interred at Brookside Cemetery.

The Legacy of Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia

Published in 1917, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia collated data and records from Chapman and the American Museum of Natural History’s eight ornithological expeditions into Colombia. These expeditions, like others in the 1910s, emphasized the collection of avian specimens as the predominant form of data collection. The goals of this project according to its website is “to document the current status and past changes of bird assemblages and their habitats throughout the country, and to establish a quantitative, publicly-available database for future assessments and monitoring”. Additional modifications to the project’s resurveys included decolonial practices such as emphasizing and crediting local contributors and sharing information gained from the studies to support long term conservation efforts in the study’s vicinity. This project was reportedly inspired by the team member's rediscovery of Elizabeth Kerr's contributions to Chapman's and the American Museum of Natural History’s collections.

  • (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.
  • THE MAN WHO LOVED BIRDS: Pioneer Ornithologist Dr. Frank M. Chapman, 1864-1945, by James T. Huffstodt. Tallahassee: Self-published. (2022)
  • Obituary
  • Chapman, Frank Michler (United States 1864-1945) , Western Kentucky University