Childs Frick
{{Short description|American paleontologist (1883–1965)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Childs Frick
| image = Portrait of Childs Frick by The Falk Studio, 1901.jpg
| birth_name = Childs Frick
| birth_date = March 12, 1883
| birth_place = Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
| death_date = {{death date and age|1965|5|8|1883|3|12}}
| death_place = Roslyn Harbor, New York, United States
| burial_place = Homewood Cemetery Pittsburgh
| nationality = American
| spouse = {{marriage|Frances Shoemaker Dixon|1913|1953|end=d.}}
| children = 4, including Henry II
| father = Henry Clay Frick
| family = Helen Clay Frick
}}
Childs Frick (March 12, 1883 - May 8, 1965) was an American vertebrate paleontologist. He was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History and a major benefactor of its Department of Paleontology, which in 1916 began a long partnership with him. He established its Frick Laboratory. He also made many expeditions to the American West, and his efforts helped to shape an understanding of the evolution of North American camels. By employing many field workers, Frick accumulated over 200,000 fossil mammals, which later were donated to the Museum.
Biography
Frick was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of the coke and steel magnate Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and Adelaide Howard Childs. He grew up at the family's Pittsburgh estate, Clayton, although the family later moved in 1905 to New York City. He developed his lifelong love for animals playing in the wooded grounds and steep hills behind Clayton, later dedicated as Frick Park. He attended Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh and graduated from Princeton University in 1905, where he was a member of Colonial Club.Bric a Brac Yearbook, Princeton University, 1904.
In 1913, Frick married Frances Shoemaker Dixon (1892–1953) of Baltimore, Maryland. The couple had four children: Adelaide, Frances, Martha Howard (Marsie; wife of J. Fife Symington Jr.), and Henry Clay II. As a gift, Frick's father purchased a Georgian-style mansion in Roslyn Harbor, New York, on land that originally belonged to the poet William Cullen Bryant. The couple lived at the estate, named "Clayton" after his childhood home, for more than 50 years.
Henry Clay Frick famously played favorites with his two surviving children, Childs and Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984). After the reading of their father's will, which favored Helen, the two siblings were estranged for the rest of their lives.
Childs Frick was associated with Bermuda, having established a residence in Tucker’s Town, Bermuda. To this day there is a Frick's Point and Frick's Beach. Childs Frick was the philanthropic benefactor that helped support the expedition that rediscovered the Bermuda Petrel or Cahow in 1951 just off his property in an uninhabited island. {{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1650/CONDOR-16-70.1 | doi=10.1650/CONDOR-16-70.1 | title=Rare Birds: The Extraordinary Tale of the Bermuda Petrel and the Man Who Brought It Back from ExtinctionRare Birds: The Extraordinary Tale of the Bermuda Petrel and the Man Who Brought It Back from Extinctionby Elizabeth Gehrman. 2012. Beacon Press. Boston, Massachusetts. Xi + 240 pp. ISBN 978-0-8070-1078-5. $26.95 (Hardcover), $19.00 (Paperback) | date=2016 | last1=Kushlan | first1=James A. | journal=The Condor | volume=118 | issue=3 | pages=684-685 }}
Childs Frick died of a heart attack at age 82 in Roslyn. He is interred alongside his wife and parents in the Frick family plot at Pittsburgh's Homewood Cemetery.
In 1969, Frick's Roslyn Harbor estate was purchased by Nassau County for the purpose of conversion into the Nassau County Museum of Art.https://www.untappedcities.com/gold-coast-mansion-on-long-island-houses-an-art-museum/
References
- {{cite book | author=Sanger, Martha Frick Symington |authorlink=Martha Frick Symington Sanger | title= Henry Clay Frick: An Intimate Portrait | location=New York | publisher=Abbeville Press | year=1998 | isbn=0-7892-0500-9}}
- {{cite book | author=Sanger, Martha Frick Symington |authorlink=Martha Frick Symington Sanger | title= Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress | location=Pittsburgh | publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press | year=2007 | isbn=9780822943419}}
;Specific
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20080512171602/http://paleo.amnh.org/projects/Project3A.htm Childs Frick Building at AMNH]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frick, Childs}}
Category:Scientists from Pittsburgh
Category:American paleontologists
Category:Burials at Homewood Cemetery
Category:People associated with the American Museum of Natural History
Category:People from Roslyn, New York
Category:People from Roslyn Harbor, New York