Annie Montague Alexander

Born: 1867

Died: 1950

Country of Birth: USA

Nationality: USA

Ethnicity: White

Lasell Seminary for Young Women 1886

""We worked hard up to the last. My dear friend Miss Wemple stood by me through thick and thin. Together we sat in the dust and sun, marking and wrapping bones. No sooner were these loaded in the wagon for Davison to haul to Mill City than new piles took their places. Night after night we stood before a hot fire to stir rice, or beans, or corn, or soup, contriving the best dinners we could out of our dwindling supply of provisions. We sometimes wondered if the men thought the fire wood dropped out of the sky or whether a fairy godmother brought it to our door, for they never asked any questions…" (ucmp.berkeley.edu); in a 1907 letter to the President of the University of California she wrote, “Dear President Wheeler, Should the University of California within the next six months erect a galvanized iron building furnished with electric light, heat and janitor services and turn it over to my entire control as a Museum of Natural History for the next seven years, I will guarantee the expenditure of $7000 yearly.” (scientificamerican.com); “I sometimes feel that one’s efforts to advance science by this sort of work are so feeble that it is almost ridiculous, but I suppose we must do the best we can, and leave to future generations with bigger brains what is beyond us to master.” (scientificamerican.com); “I am gratified that the Museum has its contribution to make to the solution of the great problems of evolution. That is the ultimate, if not the only goal, is it not, of our special kind of scientific work?” (mvz.berkeley.edu); “People naturally count it among their blessings to have a roof over their heads at night but how oppressive this roof seems to you, and the four walls of your room after a month or two in the open!” (museumoftheearth.org); "I like it more and more, this study of our old, old world and the creatures to whom it belonged in the past, just a much as it does to us today. Perhaps the study is all the more interesting because it is incomplete, there is so much yet to find out – but I think it is wonderful, what all at once you might almost say, this tremendous desire to know has done for science. " (museumoftheearth.org); "

— Annie Montague Alexander

Field of Study: Explorer, naturalist, paleontological collector, philanthropist

Institution/Corporation: UC Berkeley; UC Museum of Paleontology; Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Degrees & Memberships: None found

Awards: None found

Achievements: founded the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ); after the death of her father in 1904 she dedicated her life to preserving the wild flora and fauna of California and the West Coast; through an anonymous donation, established in 1920 the Folklore Foundation at Vassar College; funded & went on numerous fossil collecting expeditions & amassed a large collection of fossils & exotic game animals she later donated to the museums she founded