Introduction

This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.

Descriptive Entry

The papers of Stanley Paul Young consist of papers from his predatory animal control work; personal, official and professional correspondence; material on his publications; and material on his professional career. Additional Young material can be found in Record Unit 7171, the Bird and Mammal Laboratories Records.

Correspondents include: John Warren Aldrich, Durward L. Allen, Frank G. Ashbrook, John H. Baker, Rollin Harold Baker, Fred S. Barkalow, J. Neilson Barry, William Bonar Bell, Clifford Berryman, Theodore S. Bober, Irwin Theodore Bode, Paul Bransom, Walter John Breckenridge, James P. Buchanan, Milton H. Buehler, Noble E. Buell, Nelson Gardiner Bump, William H. Burt, Victor H. Cahalane, Arthur H. Carhart, Emma M. Charters, Clarence Cottam, Ian McTaggart Cowan, Jay N. Darling, William B. Davis, Albert M. Day, J. Kenneth Doutt, Frank Dufresne, Kenneth L. Duke, Richard P. Eckels, Robert K. Enders, Ira N. Gabrielson, Marshall C. Gardner, Francis Earl Garlough, John C. Gatlin, Donald A. Gilchrist, Raymond Maurice Gilmore, Frank Glaser, Edward Alphonso Goldman, A. E. Gray, Dorr Dudley Green, Tappan Gregory, Harold H. Haecker, William John Hamilton, Jr., Van T. Harris, Carl A. Hatch, Harry B. Hawes, Donald F. Hoffmeister, Emmet T. Hooper, Hartley H. T. Jackson, W. C. Jacobsen, Stanley Gordon Jewett, J. Knox Jones, Edwin R. Kalmbach, Karl Walton Kenyon, Edwin V. Komarek, Wesley Frank Kubichek, C. R. Landon, George B. Lay, Leo L. Laythe, Clarence F. Lea, Daniel Loney Leedy, J. Stokley Ligon, Ernest R. McCray, Richard Hyde Manville, Everett M. Mercer, George A. Montgomery, Adolph Murie, Olaus Johan Murie, Otto A. Owen, Theodore Sherman Palmer, Richard H. Pough, Paul T. Quick, Paul G. Redington, Theodore H. Reed, William E. Riter, Carl P. Russell, Victor Blanchard Scheffer, Carl D. Shoemaker, Harold Cramer Smith, Lloyd Mason Smith, Melvin D. Smith, Charles C. Sperry, Gustav A. Swanson, Walter P. Taylor, Rene Thevenin, Frederic A. Ulmer, Jr., Thomas Vaughn, Frederic C. Walcott, Ernest Pillsbury Walker, Hugh M. Worcester, Stanley Paul Young, R. Scott Zimmerman.

Historical Note

Stanley Paul Young (1899-1969) was born in Astoria, Oregon, on October 30, 1899. The son of a pioneer Columbia River salmon packer, Young grew up in that region and spent a good part of his boyhood in outdoor pursuits. His interests led him to the University of Oregon where he received his B.A. in mining engineering in 1911. He went to the University of Michigan for graduate work in geology, but his interests changed and he completed his M.S. in biology.

In 1917, on his way to California to teach, Young stopped to see his brother in Arizona. While there, he was offered a position as a ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, which he accepted. A few months later he joined the Bureau of Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture as a hunter. He worked in that area to control predatory animals that were destroying the livestock of local ranchers. While on the job, he crossed the Mexican border, was captured by Pancho Villa, and remained in his camp for a week before being rescued.

In 1919, Young became assistant inspector for Arizona and New Mexico and, in 1921, agent-in-control of predatory animal work in the Colorado-Kansas district. He remained there until 1927 when he was assigned to Washington, D.C., as assistant head of the Division of Predatory Animal and Rodent Control. In Washington, Young filled a variety of positions in the Biological Survey: chief of the Division of Economic Operations, 1928-1934; chief of the Division of Game Management, 1934-1938, and chief of the Division of Predator and Rodent Control, 1938-1939. When the Biological Survey was transferred to the Department of Interior in 1939, Young was made senior biologist in the Branch of Wildlife Research, where he worked with Hartley H. T. Jackson. In 1957, when the Bird and Mammal Laboratories were made an independent research unit, Young was named the first director and remained there until his retirement in 1959.

Young's chief interests were the predatory mammals of the West: the wolf, coyote, puma, and bobcat. His major publications included The Wolves of North America, with Edward Alphonso Goldman (1944), The Puma, Mysterious American Cat, with E. A. Goldman (1946), The Wolf in North American History (1946), The Clever Coyote, with Hartley H. T. Jackson (1951), and The Bobcat of North America (1958).