William Stimpson
William Stimpson | |
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| Born | February 14, 1832 Boston, Massachusetts, US |
| Died | May 26, 1872 (aged 40) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Marine biology, malacology |
| Academic advisors | Louis Agassiz |
| Signature | |
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William Stimpson (February 14, 1832 – May 26, 1872) was an American
Chicago Academy of Sciences
.
Biography
Stimpson was born in
railway car wheels instead of on the outside, as had been the custom.[1] His son was to inherit his energy, love of social life, enthusiasm, and brilliant wit.[1]
Stimpson's father moved from Roxbury and built a house in the village of Cambridge. When fourteen years of age he read with delight Edwin Swett's work on geology, and soon after this a copy of Augustus Addison Gould's Report on the Invertebrata of Massachusetts filled him with exultant enthusiasm.[1]
He graduated from the Cambridge high school in 1848, winning the gold medal, the highest prize of the school. In September 1848 he entered the Cambridge Latin School, absorbing the mastery he displayed in the use of Latin in the description of marine animals in his Prodromus of 1857–60.[1]
He studied under the great naturalist
invertebrates. Starting when he was 21 years old, from 1853 to 1856, he collected various specimens in the Pacific Northwest. He then settled in Washington, D.C., where he founded the Megatherium Club at the Smithsonian Institution. At the Smithsonian, he was named the director of the department of invertebrates.[3] When fellow club member Robert Kennicott left his post as director of the Academy of Science in Chicago, Stimpson went to that city to take his place. There he gathered one of the most extensive natural history collections in the United States. The academy was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 (later rebuilt), and almost all of Stimpson's works and specimens were lost. He died the following year of tuberculosis in Ilchester, Maryland
).
Species named for him
Field Museum
.- Rare Hawaiian Goby Fish Sicydium stimpsoniGill, 1860
- Eel Bathycongrus stimpsoniFowler, 1934
- Sun Starfish Solaster stimpsoni
- Stimpson coastal shrimp Heptacarpus stimpsoni
- Fossil - small aquatic arthropod Acanthotelson stimpsoni Meek & Worthen
- Striped sunstar Solaster stimpsoni
- Clam Mercenaria stimpsoni
- Yellow Cone Dall, 1902
- Eyespot Rock Shrimp Sicyonia stimpsoni Bouvier, 1905
- Nudibranch mollusc Coryphella stimpsoni (Verrill 1879)
- Gastropod Pteropurpura stimpsoni (A. Adams, 1863)
- Gastropod Dall, 1919)
- genus of A.Gray, 1859 [4])
Bibliography
- Stimpson W. (1851). Shells of New England. A revision of the synonymy of the testaceous mollusks of New England. Phillips, Samson & Co., Boston. vi + 58 pp., 2 plates.
- Stimpson W. (1864). "On the structural characters of so-called melanians of North America". The American Journal of Science and Arts (2)38: 41-53.
- Stimpson W. (1865). "On certain genera and families of zoophagous gastropods". American Journal of Conchology 1(1): 55-64, plates 8-9.
- Stimpson W. (1865). "Diagnoses of newly discovered genera of gasteropods, belonging to the sub-fam. Hydrobiinae, of the family Rissoidae". American Journal of Conchology 1: 52-54.
- Stimpson W. (1865). "Researches upon the Hydrobiinae and allied forms chiefly made upon materials in the museum of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 7(201): 1-59.
- Vasile, R. S. (2018). William Stimpson and the Golden Age of American Natural History (1st ed., p. 308). Northern Illinois University Press.
See also
References
This article incorporates public domain text from the reference[1]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Mayer A. G. (1918). "WILLIAM STIMPSON 1832-1872". Biographical Memoirs (part of volume VIII): 419-433. National Academy of Sciences, Washington. PDF.
- ^ Historic New England: billhead, dated 1850
- ^ "William Stimpson (1832-1872)". NATURALIST COLLECTORS. National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
- ^ "Stimpsonia C.Wright ex A.Gray | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
External links
- Stimpson biography from the Smithsonian Institution
- Biography and reproductions of some of Stimpson's illustrations
- William Stimpson Papers, 1852-1861 from the Smithsonian Institution Archives
- https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780875807843/william-stimpson-and-the-golden-age-of-american-natural-history/#bookTabs=1
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