1. Family

2. Career

3. Work

4. Awards

5. References

Hope Elaine Ryden (* {{Birth date|1929|8|1|}} in Saint Paul, Minnesota; † {{Death date|2017|6|18|}} in Hyannis, Massachusetts) was a documentary film producer, photographer, and author of 26 books mostly on wildlife subjects and a frequent photo contributor to National Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian, Defenders of Wildlife, the New York Times Magazine, and more.^[1] Her photographs of North American beavers, coyotes, mustangs and other wildlife helped elevate them into poster animals for conservation campaigns. Her lifelong concern for the wellbeing of animals led her to become a wildlife activist and she testified before Congress numerous times in behalf of wild animal rights.

Family

Her father, E. E. Ryden, was a Lutheran minister who helped unify four denominations to form the Lutheran Church of America. Her mother, the former Agnes Johnson, was an organist and pianist. Hope Ryden was the third of three daughters and a son born to Ernest Edward Ryden and Agnes Ryden, who were respectively minister for the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul and the church organist/pianist.

Career

Ryden was an English major at the College of Iowa. While earning a degree Hope Ryden starred opposite Milburn Stone in A Closed Book, an educational film mini-drama promoting accident prevention, produced by the Farm Bureau Insurance Companies.

In 1957, after having worked as an assistant to singer Kate Smith on The Kate Smith Hour and working as a fashion model in New York City, Hope Ryden took a job as a Pan American Airlines flight attendant. On October 26, 1958 she was among the crew for Pan Am’s inaugural transatlantic jet flight, from Idlewild, New York to Le Bourget, Paris. ^[2] On the 25th anniversary of the flight, in 1983, Pan Am flew 14 of the original passengers and seven of the crew, including Hope Ryden, along the same route in the same Boeing 707.^[3]

In 1961 she resigned from Pan Am and became a freelance photographer where she joined Robert Drew & Associates a documentary production company where she and her colleagues were in the vanguard of cinéma vérité filmmaking as producers of newsreels.^[4] She was the only female 'Associate' of the production company at that time. ^[5]

By the early 1970s, she had become a full-time naturalist and animal-rights advocate, publishing books for adults and children lushly illustrated with her own photographs.

Her advocacy was credited with encouraging Congress to pass legislation in 1971 protecting the populations of wild horses and burros in the West; their numbers had dwindled to an estimated 17,000 in 1970 from a peak of two million. She also helped persuade New York’s Legislature to name the beaver the official state mammal in 1975.

Work

Among her first documentaries was “Jane” (1962), which profiled the actress Jane Fonda at 25 as she prepared for her starring role in “The Fun Couple” on Broadway. ^[6]

Hope Ryden enjoyed her biggest success as a documentarian with Mission to Malaya (1963) in which she followed two Peace Corps nurses in Malaya.^[7]

In 1965, she and her production team, immersed themselves in the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving, a Virginia couple who challenged the state’s law against interracial marriage.

The filmed footage was not immediately screened publicly, but was incorporated into The Loving Story an Emmy Award-winning documentary released in 2011, in which she also appeared.^[9]

After she left Drew Associates Ryden worked for the American Broadcasting Company as a documentary producer. In 1965 ABC dispatched Ryden to Suriname to cover the rescue ^[10] of nearly 10,000 wild animals from the Upper Surinam River in South America.^[11] The experience convinced her that she wanted to spend the rest of her life photographing and writing about animals.

In 1968 ABC sent Ryden to Lovell, Wyoming, to cover a Bureau of Land Management wild horse roundup in the Pryor Mountains after which she followed the wild mustangs for much of the rest of her life. Hope Ryden eventually produced seven books about wild horses, beginning with America’s Last Wild Horses (1970). ^[12] Her testimony helped pass the Wild Horse Act of 1971, and when the law was challenged her testimony before the Supreme Court helped to uphold its constitutionality.

In 1972 Hope Ryden released the book God’s Dog: A Celebration of the North American Coyote after having camped in remote areas of Wyoming and Montana for two years to observe and photograph the elusive coyote "in an effort to discover the truth behind the ignorance and misinformation that has plagued this much-maligned animal for over 200 years" ^[13]

With naturalist John Miller, who would later become her husband, she undertook the research at Harriman State Park that became Lily Pond: Four Years with a Family of Beavers (1989). ^[14]

In her late career Ryden returned to documentary film making, producing Defining the Moment (2000) and A President to Remember (2008), about John F. Kennedy. ^[15]

Awards

Ryden earned numerous awards, among the Humane Excellence Award from the ASPCA, the Animal Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Animal Protection Institute, and the Joseph Wood Krutch Award from the Humane Society, which recognizes individuals who have made a “significant contribution toward the improvement of life and environment on the planet.” ^[16]

References

• Philip Meadows
• Philip Meadows (1708-1781)
• Philip Meadows (1708–1781)
• Philip Meadows (c.1662-1757)
• Philip Meadows (c.1662–1757)
• Philip Meadows (died 1718)
• Philip Meadows (died 1781)
• Philip Meckseper
• Philip Mede
• Philip Medows
• Philip M. Epstein
• Philip Mestdagh
• Philip M. Halpern
• Philip M. Hamer
• Philip Michael Rivers
• Philip Michael Short
• Philip Miles (cricketer)
• Philip Miller (composer)
• Philip Mitchell Brailsford
• Philip Mitchell (disambiguation)
• Philip M. Jeffries
• Philip M. Kaiser
• Philip Moeller (author)
• Philip Moeller (journalist)
• Philip Mok