Ralph Hoffmann

Ralph Hoffmann (November 30, 1870 – July 21, 1932) was an American natural history teacher, ornithologist, and botanist. He was the author of the first true bird field guide.

Early life Ralph Hoffmann was born on November 30, 1870, at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Ferdinand Hoffmann (1827–1906) was born in Germany, the son of a surgeon who had served in Napoleon's army. He came to America in the late 1840s where, with the assistance of educator Jared Reid, he founded the Berkshire Family School for Boys (also known as the Edward Place School for Boys) in 1855. Jared Reid is additionally known for being the father of painter Robert Reid. Ralph Hoffmann would go on to attend Harvard University and graduate with the class of 1890.

Career Hoffmann began teaching at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in 1891. Nine years later he relocated to Santa Barbara to teach natural history at the Cate School for Boys. There he became a mentor to the American botanist G. Ledyard Stebbins. In 1925, Hoffmann was named to succeed William Leon Dawson as director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

In 1901 Hoffmann published with Ernest Thompson Seton Bird Portraits and in 1904 released A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York, a work that focused on field marks, behavior, habitat, call notes and songs in order to facilitate bird identification in the field. In 1922 he published a monograph on the flora of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and in 1927 Birds of the Pacific States.

Marriage On June 23, 1894, Hoffmann married at Cambridge, Massachusetts, Eliza Gertrude Wesselhoeft, the daughter of a prominent German-American doctor. Over the following ten years the couple became the parents of two daughters and a son. After her husband's death in 1932, Gertrude turned to acting and began what would become a 30-year career as a character actor in Hollywood.

Death On July 21, 1932, Hoffmann joined a group of scientists on an expedition to California's Channel Islands to explore San Miguel Island for fossil remains of the prehistoric pygmy mammoth. Later in the day he separated from his party to search for specimens of a rare flower on the island's rocky cliffs. After he failed to return the group searched the foggy island for some eight hours before finding his body at the base of a steep cliff. The handle on his climbing trowel had broken, apparently causing his fatal fall.

Selected publications