This placard inside the Aquarium is next to another about Rickett's friend John Steinbeck. It reads:
"'Everyone near (Ed) was influenced by him,
deeply and permanently. Children on the
beach he taught to look for and find
beautiful animals in worlds they had not
suspected were there at all. He taught
everyone without seeming to.'
Ed Ricketts 1897-1948
He was an ecologist before his time
Ed explored seashore habitats and studied how
different species of plants and animals interacted
with each other. Today, his spirit informs the work
of new generations of marine biologists who seek
to understand the rocky shores."
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts (May 14, 1897 – May 11, 1948) commonly known as Ed Ricketts, was an American marine biologist, ecologist, and philosopher. He is best known for Between Pacific Tides (1939), a pioneering study of intertidal ecology, and for his influence on writer John Steinbeck, which resulted in their collaboration on the Sea of Cortez, later republished as The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)....
Ricketts was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Abbott Ricketts and Alice Beverly Flanders Ricketts. He had a younger sister, Frances, and a younger brother, Thayer. His sister Frances said of him that he had a mind like a dictionary and was often in trouble for correcting teachers and other adults. Ricketts spent most of his childhood in Chicago, except for a year in South Dakota when he was ten years old.
After a year of college, Ricketts traveled to Texas and New Mexico. In 1917 he was drafted into the Army Medical Corps. He hated the military bureaucracy but, according to John Steinbeck, "was a successful soldier."
After discharge from the army, Ricketts studied zoology at the University of Chicago. He was influenced by his professor, W.C. Allee, but dropped out without taking a degree. He then spent several months walking through the American south, from Indiana to Florida. He used material from this trip to publish an article in Travel magazine titled "Vagabonding." He returned to Chicago and studied some more at the university."