James Dryden, a scientist from Oregon, is inducted for his pioneering work in poultry science.

Known as a studious scientific investigator, Dryden knew fowl more intimately and profoundly than virtually all other individuals of his time. He first drew national attention to his work with poultry at the Utah Agricultural College Experiment Station, where he experimented with incubation and breeding. He was later selected to head the first poultry husbandry department at the Oregon Agricultural College in 1907.

Dryden’s work at Oregon from 1907-1922 earned him worldwide acclaim in the disciplines of artificial incubation and hybridization, where he bred poultry selected for economic traits over aesthetics. The first hen to lay three hundred eggs in a year and the first hen to lay one thousand eggs in a lifetime were Dryden-bred. Dryden was known as a practical man who demonstrated the profitability of poultry to the typical farm.

In 1922, he established the Dryden Poultry Breeding Farm in Modesto, California. Dryden became the leading United States poultry breeder until his death in an automobile accident in 1935.