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Finding Aid

Fossey, Dian

Dian Fossey fonds. -- 1955-1987. -- 12.5 cm of textual records. -- 5 photographs: colour.

Dian Fossey, primatologist, educator, and author, was born in San Francisco, California, on 16 January 1932. She was educated at San Jose State College (B.A, 1954) and Cambridge University (Ph.D., 1976). With the encouragement of Louis Leakey she founded the Karsoke Research Centre in 1967 in Rwanda to study mountain gorillas. She made several television appearances on programs such as National Geographic, wrote many journal and magazine articles and published a book, Gorillas in the Mist (1983). She was murdered in late December 1985 in Ruhengeri, Rwanda.

The fonds consists of manuscripts and articles, including typescript drafts of Gorillas in the Mist; field notes; correspondence; photographs; materials relating to the Digit Fund (named after one of the gorillas). It was used by Farley Mowat for his own book about Fossey, Virunga: The Passion of Dian Fossey (1987).

Title based on content of fonds.
Fonds was acquired from Farley Mowat in 1990. A second accrual of a single letter from Fossey (31-2006) was acquired from Alan Mulholland in 2006.
Finding aid available in hard copy and electronically.
Fonds is closed until December 2015. Farley Mowat can be contacted through archival staff for permission to use the fonds before it becomes generally open. The second accrual is closed until 2020, although a photocopy with parts of the original letter excised is open.
Further accruals are not expected.

Contact: archives@mcmaster.ca
Last Reviewed: December 6, 2006
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