A businessman and orthnithologist, Arthur Cleveland Bent was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, on November 25, 1866, and educated at Harvard (AB, 1889). Enjoying success in business despite the tumultuous economic times, Bent rose to executive positions with the Mason Machine Works and Plymouth Light and Electric Co., but from his undergraduate days on, he maintained an abiding interest in birds. Although an amateur, he was well respected by academic scientists, becoming an associate in Ornithology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, a collaborator at the Smithsonian Institute, and an officer of the American Ornithologists' Union. His major work was the multivolume Life Histories of North American Birds.

The Bent collection contains a dense series of ornithological field notes kept by Owen Durfee (1880-1909) and Bent (1887-1942), along with photographs and miscellaneous materials relating to Bent's oological and ornithological work. The collection includes lists of nest observations, egg measurements, bird sightings, as well as records pertaining to negatives and specimens provided to organizations such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Bristol County Agricultural School, and the United States National Museum.

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