Release SPRING 2027
University of Texas Press
Grace Olive Wiley believed that any snake, if treated with kindness, would become tame. She made pets of everything from Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnakes to Gila Monsters to massive king cobras, handling all her creatures, venomous or not, with bare hands and impunity.
Wiley burst onto the national stage in 1923 when the Minneapolis Journal newspaper splashed the title “The Girl Who Hunts Snakes for Fun” over a full-page article. In the center of the page, surrounded by the gigantic coils of a crudely drawn rattlesnake, a modestly dressed, slightly plain woman stands smiling wistfully. Captions dance around her proclaiming that she has magic power over snakes and that she laughs when capturing deadly moccasins and rattlesnakes. The girl was in fact a forty-year-old divorcee who, with no formal training, had just landed the job of Museum Curator for the Academy of Science at the Minneapolis Public Library. Grace promised to shake up the staid Museum and promptly ordered a baker’s dozen of live rattlesnakes from Texas. Together Grace and her rattlesnakes would change history, and, in the process, she would become internationally famous for her venomous pets.
By Margie Crisp
Release SPRING 2027
University of Texas Press
Grace Olive Wiley believed that any snake, if treated with kindness, would become tame. She made pets of everything from Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnakes to Gila Monsters to massive king cobras, handling all her creatures, venomous or not, with bare hands and impunity.
Wiley burst onto the national stage in 1923 when the Minneapolis Journal newspaper splashed the title “The Girl Who Hunts Snakes for Fun” over a full-page article. In the center of the page, surrounded by the gigantic coils of a crudely drawn rattlesnake, a modestly dressed, slightly plain woman stands smiling wistfully. Captions dance around her proclaiming that she has magic power over snakes and that she laughs when capturing deadly moccasins and rattlesnakes. The girl was in fact a forty-year-old divorcee who, with no formal training, had just landed the job of Museum Curator for the Academy of Science at the Minneapolis Public Library. Grace promised to shake up the staid Museum and promptly ordered a baker’s dozen of live rattlesnakes from Texas. Together Grace and her rattlesnakes would change history, and, in the process, she would become internationally famous for her venomous pets.
By Margie Crisp
