Walter J. Breckenridge papers

Walter Breckenridge, B.A. (1926) University of Iowa; M.A. (1934), Ph.D. (1941) University of Minnesota. Curator (1936-1946), director (1946-1969) Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota. Noted ecologist, artist, and film maker; author of Reptiles and Amphibians of Minnesota (1944), the first comprehensive guide completed on the subject.

Walter John "Breck" Breckenridge was born on March 22, 1903 in Brooklyn, Iowa. After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1926, he came to the University of Minnesota for graduate school and to be preparator/taxidermist at the Minnesota Natural History Museum (now the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History). Breckenridge received a masters degree in ornithology in 1934 and Ph.D. in herpetology in 1941. He was appointed as curator of the Bell Museum in 1936 and became director in 1946. He was an accomplished ornithologist and naturalist, producing dozens of academic papers, drawings, photographs and nature themed educational films. In 1953, he led a scientific research expedition to Northern Canada to collect biological, botanical, and geological specimens. Breckenridge retired in 1969, and lived in Minneapolis continuing his study of nature until his death on May 22, 2003.