Grace Olive Wiley

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Grace Olive Wiley (1884-1948) was an American herpetologist best known for her work with venomous snakes. She died of a snakebite while posing for a photographer at the age of 64.

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[edit] Background

Wiley originally worked as an entomologist at the University of Kansas, but during her mid-thirties she began collecting and observing rattlesnakes while doing field work in the Southwestern United States. Within a few years she became the first person to successfully breed rattlesnakes in captivity [1], and in 1923, she was named a curator at the Minneapolis Public Library, which, at the time, had an extensive collective of live reptiles and amphibians in its now-defunct natural history museum [2].

[edit] Mission, methods, and controversy

Wiley attracted much attention while working in Minneapolis, even appearing in national publications like Time and Life. At the time, it was very unusual for a woman to be a curator of reptiles[3], and Wiley earned a reputation as a "woman without fear" [4]. Taking advantage of her fame, Wiley strove to change the public's negative perception of snakes, arguing, “The fear of snakes is cultivated. We are not born with it. Children love snakes as naturally as they love dogs and cats. Don’t be afraid of a reptile’s tongue. The only animal that can hurt you with its tongue is the human being” [3].

Wiley famously argued that even venomous snakes were harmless if properly trained [3]. She boasted that she had tamed over 300 venomous snakes in her lifetime[1], and her daring snake-handling techniques attested to her confidence in her abilities. For example, she routinely handled rattlesnakes, cobras, copperheads, and mambas with her bare hands, eschewing any special instruments like hooks or snake tongs [5]. She also left snakes' cages open for long periods of time and permitted venomous species to crawl throughout her workspace [3].

Though Wiley did not receive any serious snakebites during her time at the Minneapolis Library [1], her habits still brought her into conflict with many of her colleagues, who feared for Wiley's and their own safety [3]. After a series of disputes, Wiley was finally pressured to leave the Minneapolis Library in 1933. Wiley quickly found new work as a curator of reptiles at the Brookfield Zoo, which opened in the western suburbs of Chicago in 1934, and she brought the library's collection of 236 reptiles and amphibians with her [3]. Unfortunately, her casual snake-handling methods did not endear her to zoo staff members there, either, and after she had allowed 19 snakes to escape from their cages in 1935, she was fired by zoo director Robert Bean [6].

[edit] California years

After parting ways with Brookfield Zoo, Wiley moved to California, where she became a snake trainer and reptile consultant for Hollywood films such as Moon Over Burma, The Jungle Book, and the Tarzan series[7]. She also operated a reptile zoo in Cypress, California, where she charged 25 cents for visitors to see her large, personal collection [4].

On July 20, 1948, Wiley invited a journalist named Daniel P. Mannix to photograph her collection. While posing with a venomous Indian cobra she had just acquired, the snake suddenly bit her middle finger, and she requested to be taken to a hospital. Unfortunately, the hospital only had antivenom serums from North American snakes, and Wiley was pronounced dead less than two hours after being bitten [8]. Though family and friends tried to preserve her collection, it was ultimately auctioned off, and the snake that killed Wiley was subsequently displayed at an Arizona roadside attraction [4].

Shortly before she died, Wiley's life story was adapted for a comic book (True Stories #58, 1947) [9]. In 2006, the city of Long Beach opened Grace Park, which is named after Grace Olive Wiley [10].

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c ”Deadly snakes are just pets to this woman”. Chicago Daily Tribune. April 3, 1934. p. 3.
  2. ^ "Snakelets". Time. July 31, 1933. http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,753886,00.html
  3. ^ a b c d e f Ross, Andrea Friederici. Let the Lions Roar. Brookfield, Illinois: Chicago Zoological Society, 1997. p. 32.
  4. ^ a b c Mannix, Daniel. “Woman Without Fear”. All Creatures Great and Small. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.
  5. ^ Miller, Christie. “Grace Olive Wiley: Cobra Queen”. Reptile & Amphibian Magazine. March-April 1997. p. 26-30.
  6. ^ ”Snakes”. Chicago Daily Tribune. September 22, 1935. p. 18.
  7. ^ ”Grace Olive Wiley”. Southeastern Hot Herp Society. http://www.venomousreptiles.org
  8. ^ ”Creeping Death”. Time. August 2, 1948. http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,888389,00.html
  9. ^ Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection. Michigan State University Libraries. http://www.lib.msu.edu/comics/rri/wrri/wildf.htm.
  10. ^ ”Grace Park Opened Officially With Ribbon Cutting”. City of Long Beach Website. http://www.longbeach.gov/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=1807

[edit] External links

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