page_title: Joseph Grinnell
section_title: Editor of The Condor
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Grinnell / Editor of The Condor
caption_attribution_description: English: Want Ad section of magazine showing Grinnell offer to buy or trade bird skins for various publications. "The Condor" is published by the Cooper Ornithological Society in United States.
context_page_description: Joseph Grinnell was an American field biologist and zoologist. He made extensive studies of the fauna of California, and is credited with introducing a method of recording precise field observations known as the Grinnell System. He served as the first director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley from the museum's inception in 1908 until his death.
  He edited The Condor, a publication of the Cooper Ornithological Club, from 1906 to 1939, and authored many articles for scientific journals and ornithological magazines. He wrote several books, among them The Distribution of the Birds of California and Animal Life in the Yosemite. He also developed and popularized the concept of the niche.
context_section_description: The Condor is one of three publications by the Cooper Ornithological Club (or Society),  one of the largest non-profit ornithological organizations in the world, named for James G. Cooper,  a California naturalist.
  The magazine's first editor was Chester Barlow, a charter member of the club and editor until his death in 1902 at age 28 of tuberculosis.
  Joseph Grinnell was listed as editor beginning with the January 1906 issue, replacing Walter K. Fisher. The main office of the magazine moved to Pasadena from Santa Clara, California when Grinnell, who still lived in Pasadena, became editor. 
  The Condor published classified ads which listed items to buy, sell or trade for other specimens, collections, guns, cameras or publications. Species and their eggs for sale or exchange included rare birds like the California condor and bald eagle.
  Grinnell also advertised to trade specimens in the magazine; the November 1906 issue contained the ad: "Wanted-will pay cash or good exchange in mammal or bird skins". In the same 1906 issue, Grinnell commented on Thomas Harrison Montgomery's article questioning the scientific benefit of egg collection (Oology) in Audubon Society's Bird-Lore publication. Grinnell defends the collecting and study of birds' eggs in his editorial "Is Egg-collecting Justifiable?" and includes recreation as one of the values gained. "Then there is the recreative phase which is not to be disparaged; and the pleasure to be derived from this pursuit. We must confess that we have gotten more complete satisfaction, in other words happiness [italics in original], out of one vacation trip into the mountains after rare birds and eggs than out of our two years of University work in embryology!"
  Grinnell edited  The Condor for 33 years. He was one of the most influential, serving during the magazine's early years of development. As editor, he was democratic in some ways, asking members to vote on possible changes, like using metric units of measurement (the majority vote was no). He implemented  "simplified spelling" which used phonetics, and can be seen in early-edition phrases. The magazine under Grinnell's tenure expanded from 175 to 223 current-format pages, and as of 1993, at 1,100 pages per year, is the largest of any major ornithological journal.
caption: Advertisement from 1906
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