Alfred Marshall Bailey


Alfred Marshall Bailey was an American ornithologist who was associated with the Denver Museum of Natural History
in Colorado for most of his working life.

Early years

Bailey was born in Iowa City, Iowa, where he went to school and then attended the University of Iowa. While a student there he participated in a three-month scientific expedition to Laysan, one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Career

After graduation in 1916, Bailey served as curator of birds and mammals at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans. From 1919 to 1921 he was involved in surveying south-eastern Alaska for the Bureau of Biological Survey, followed by a curatorial stint at the Denver Museum. From 1926 to 1927 he was on the staff of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, during which period he took part in an expedition to the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia. From 1927 to 1936 he was Director of the Chicago Academy of Sciences.

Denver Museum

Bailey returned to the Denver Museum as Director in 1936, a position he served in for over thirty years, eventually retiring in 1969 at the age of 75. He was a proponent of fieldwork, over the years leading or taking part in several further expeditions to various parts of the world, including the Arctic, Siberia, Mexico, Pacific islands, and New Zealand’s subantarctic Campbell Island. He was also a popularizer of science and a skilled photographer, producing the Denver “Museum Pictorial” series of booklets, and contributing articles to magazines such as National Geographic and Natural History.

Honours

Formal recognition of Bailey's achievements include:
Bailey died in Denver at the age of 84. He is honoured in the scientific name of the Sierra Madre sparrow, collected by him in Mexico and described by Outram Bangs in 1931, as well as in the name of Bailey's shrew of which he collected the type specimen in Ethiopia, to which it is endemic. He is commemorated in the name of the Denver Museum's Alfred M. Bailey Library & Archives.

Publications

Among some 200 publications authored or coauthored by Bailey are: