Dr. Ray Gilmore Interview with Jack Reveal San Diego Natural History Museum

An oral-history style interview with Dr. Ray Gilmore covering his early life and career, recorded in his office at the Natural History Museum, San Diego. Gilmore recalls being born in Ithaca, New York (1907), early childhood in Honolulu while his father served as the first president of the University of Hawaii, and formative years in Berkeley, where outdoor pursuits shaped his interest in natural history. He describes university studies in zoology and anthropology, field work for the California Academy of Sciences, and Depression-era museum and ranger-naturalist work in Yosemite (including a memorable visit from Eleanor Roosevelt).

The conversation follows Gilmore’s graduate year at Harvard; specimen collecting for the American Museum of Natural History at the Guggenheim–Harriman Railroad Ranch near Ashton/Island Park, Idaho; and subsequent service with the Rockefeller Foundation in Brazil and the Amazon, where he trapped monkeys, pioneered treetop platforms, and supported jungle yellow fever research and vaccination efforts (travel via riverboat and early amphibious aircraft noted). He continues with work in Colombia (Villavicencio), rabies studies at Kilby Prison in Montgomery, Alabama, and World War II-era public health assignments in Bolivia and Peru (malaria and plague). Personal notes include meeting his future wife in New York and completing his PhD at Cornell (1941).