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J. d'Arcy Northwood papers
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Held at: John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove [Contact Us]1201 Pawlings Road, Audubon, PA, 19403
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
John d'Arcy Northwood (1897-1972) was born in England, survived WWI as a fighter pilot, and traveled parts of the world as a sailor after the war. An avid birder, he was the founder and president of the Audubon Society of Hawaii and authored Familiar Hawaiian Birds (1940). He worked as a guide/warden for the National Audubon Society in Florida and New Jersey and became the first director/curator of the "Mill Grove Shrine & Wildlife Sanctuary" in 1954. The site had been purchased by Montgomery County in 1951, and as of 2012 was still in operation as the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, a public/private partnership between Montgomery County and the National Audubon Society. Northwood served in that capacity until retiring in 1966 and moving to Cape May, NJ, where he and his wife continued their mutual passion for ornithology.
Bibliography:
Earnest A. Choate. Obituary for J. d'Arcy Northwood. Cassinia 54 (1973): 20-21. Accessed April 9, 2012. http://www.dvoc.org/CassiniaOnLine/Cassinia54/C54_20_21NorthwoodJD.pdf
At the heart of this collection are five bird-watching journals (1910-1914, 1920-1923, 1953, 1954-1960, and 1961-1966), plus an index to the last three journals (1953-1966). The journals are written as narratives--they are more personal, but not as organized as bird-watching log-books. There is also one clippings scrapbook on Audubon (1953-1956), and two bird-watching pamphlets (by other authors).
Gifts, ca. 1972-1992, Mrs. Anne A. Northwood and the Cape May Bird Observatory.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2011-2012 as part of a pilot project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) received a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Mill Grove directly for more information.
People
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Michael Gubicza through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Mill Grove for information about accessing this collection.