Ripley, S Dillon, II

▪ 2002

      American museum director, educator, and author (b. Sept. 20, 1913, New York, N.Y.—March 12, 2001, Washington, D.C.), was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from 1964 to 1984 and was responsible for greatly expanding the museum complex's activities and popularity. Ripley earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1943 and served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He joined the Yale University faculty as a professor of zoology and biology in 1946, and from 1959 to 1964 he was director of the university's Peabody Museum. During Ripley's tenure at the Smithsonian, the number of annual visitors to the complex rose from 10.8 million to more than 30 million. He added eight new museums to the institution, began television programs, and launched Smithsonian magazine. Aside from his work for the Smithsonian, Ripley wrote a number of notable books on ornithology, including Trail of the Money Bird (1942), Search for the Spiny Babbler (1953), and, with Salim Ali, the 10-volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan (1968–74). Ripley was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985.

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