In March 1908 a remarkable partnership was forged that would affect the practice and teaching of field biology for more than a century.
Annie Montague Alexander, heiress to a Hawaiian sugar fortune, had trained in paleontology at the University of California. To the surprise and consternation of friends and family, Miss Alexander—as she was generally known—had participated in a number of expeditions in Alaska, the western United States, and Africa. Her experiences in the field had raised her concern over the loss of biodiversity and habitat as industrial agriculture and a growing human population transformed the western landscape. Teaming up with Joseph Grinnell, a recent Stanford University graduate who shared her passion for fieldwork, Alexander established the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley.