Ray Stannard Baker was born to Major Joseph Stannard and Alice Potter Baker in Lansing, Michigan on April 17, 1870. At the age of 19, Baker received a Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State University. In 1896, He married the daughter of noted MSU botanist, Professor William James Beal. During the period of 1892-1897 Baker was a reporter with the Chicago Record, later becoming a writer for Century Magazine, Youth’s Companion, associate editor of McClure’s magazine, and editor and co-purchaser of American Magazine. He possessed a great interest in sociological and economic problems, which were the subjects in many of his writings. Under the pen name of David Grayson, Baker published country life books Adventures in Friendship, Adventures in Contentment, Adventures in Understanding, and Adventures in Solitude. A close friend of Woodrow Wilson, he published Woodrow Wilson – Life and Letters, a biography that won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. Less well known is Baker’s fascination with bee culture, which began after he moved to Amherst, Massachusetts in 1910. Eventually he began to collect antique books on bees and in 1925 conceived the idea of establishing an apiary library at Michigan State University. Before his death on July 12, 1946, Baker arranged to have his collection of bee books donated to the MSU library.