Karl Jordan: a Life in Systematics

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Kristin Renee Johnson for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of SciencePresented on July 21, 2003. Title: Karl Jordan: A Life in Systematics Abstract approved: Paul Lawrence Farber Karl Jordan (1861-1959) was an extraordinarily productive entomologist who influenced the development of systematics, entomology, and naturalists' theoretical framework as well as their practice. He has been a figure in existing accounts of the naturalist tradition between 1890 and 1940 that have defended the relative contribution of naturalists to the modem evolutionary synthesis. These accounts, while useful, have primarily examined the natural history of the period in view of how it led to developments in the 193 Os and 40s, removing pre-Synthesis naturalists like Jordan from their research programs, institutional contexts, and disciplinary homes, for the sake of synthesis narratives. This dissertation redresses this picture by examining a naturalist, who, although often cited as important in the synthesis, is more accurately viewed as a man working on the problems of an earlier period. This study examines the specific problems that concerned Jordan, as well as the dynamic institutional, international, theoretical and methodological context of entomology and natural history during his lifetime. It focuses upon how the context in which natural history has been done changed greatly during Jordan's life time, and discusses the role of these changes in both placing naturalists on the defensive among an array of new disciplines and attitudes in science, and providing them with new tools and justifications for doing natural history. One of the primary intents of this study is to demonstrate the many different motives and conditions through which naturalists came to and worked in natural history. It argues that understanding this diversity within the views, methods, and priorities of naturalists is not only important to developing a more accurate understanding of the naturalist tradition, but to understanding the ramifications of the complexity in the naturalist tradition for the fate of certain research programs as well. © Kristin Renee Johnson July 21, 2003 All Rights Reserved Karl Jordan: A Life in Systematics by Kristin R. Johnson A DISSERTATION submitted to Oregon State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Presented July 21, 2003 Commencement June 2004 Doctor of Philosophy dissertation of Kristin Renee Johnson presented on July 21, 2003 APPROVED: Major Professor, representing History of Science Dean of the I understand that my dissertation will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my dissertation to any reader upon request. Kristin Renee Johnson, Author ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project was supported through National Science Foundation Grant SES-02 18289. Carrying out the research for this dissertation would have been impossible, particularly given recent trends in the history of science, without the Archives of the Natural History Museum, London. Susan Snell and Potty Tucker helped me navigate the Archives' correspondence collections, and, along with assistant James Hatton and the archives' volunteers, provided a friendly place to work. Julie Harvey of the Entomology Library made me feel welcome there, and Chris Mills encouraged me to pursue this study. In England I would like to thank for all their kind assistance Linda Birch of the Alexander Library at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology in Oxford, Stella Brecknell of the Hope Entomological Archives at the Oxford Univeristy Museum of Natural History, Alison Harding and Effie Warr of the Tring Library at the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum (now part of the Natural History Museum), and Bent Pedersen of the Royal Entomological Society of London. David Allen has been more than kind in meeting to talk about natural history and giving me a lovely tour of the Wellcome Institute. Jonathon Harwood provided a warm welcome to Manchester. I am grateful to the entire staff of the Center for the History of Science of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm for their warm velcome and help during my visit. In the United States, Pam Henson met with me to discuss the project, and I am grateful for her encouragement. I would like to thank in particular Lee R. Hiltzik of the Rockefeller Archive Center, Dr. Roberto Poggi of the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Genoa, and Stella Brecknell of the Hope Entomological Archives for copying letters in their collections from Jordan and sending them gratis across the seas. At Tring, Effie Warr took the time to give me a "Jordan" tour of the museum, walking me through where Jordan might have worked and explaining the historical lay out of the buildings. I am also very grateful to Robert Prys-Jones for his encouragement throughout this study. Natural History Museum entomologists Phil Ackery, Ian Kitching, and Malcolm Scoble kindly took time to talk to me about Jordan. I would like to thank Graham Howarth, Ernst Mayr, Miriam Rothschild, and Elwood C. Zimmerman for sharing their memories of Jordan. During the early stages of this project Daniel Alexandrov and Frank Ste inheimer provided encouragement through their common interest in the natural history of the period, as have my undergraduate mentors Keith Benson and Bruce Hevly. At Oregon State University I would like to thank my fellow graduate students for their friendship and conversation; Barb Arnold, Nathan Boisteridge, Melinda Gormley, Kristine Harper, Chris Jolly, Tulley Long, Bill Martin, Leslie McCabe, Kori McDonald, Brian Schefke, and Kevin Stoller. Thank-you also to Ginny Domka, Marilyn Bethman, Christine Schwartz and Rachel Lilly for their smiles, support, and conversation. Dee Baer, Ron Dod, Maureen Healy, Bill Husband, Jon Katz, Jeff Sklansky, and Lisa Sarasohn provided helpful comments during various stages of my research. Thank-you to Trischia Goodnow for being my graduate school representative, and to Andrew Brower for his encouragement. I would also like to thank Katie Hubler for her friendship and Mark Largent for his kindness, advice, and for serving on my committee. Thank-you to Channah Farber for being in London, to my parents Larry and Donna Johnson for all the phone calls, and to Erik Ellis for moving to fifth street. Thank-you to Mary Jo and Bob Nyc for their gentle guidance and support. And finally, thank-you to Vreneli Farber for her warmth, and to Paul Farber for being an incredible mentor and for believing inme both as a person and as a historian. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Chapter 1 Becoming a Zoologist: At University, as a School Teacher, 20 and as Curator Chapter 2 "The Good Life" at Tring 65 Chapter 3 Making Systematics Scientific: Retraining Collectors and 116 Colleagues Chapter 4 Operational Philosophizing Pending Facts, Individuals, 170 and Species Chapter 5 "A Very Great Change in Zoology" 1906-1939 231 Chapter 6 Sustaining the Naturalist Tradition amid Change: 1939-1959 285 Conclusion 351 Archival Sources 366 Bibliography 367 Karl Jordan: A Life in Systematics Introduction Karl Jordan arrived in the village of Tring to begin his job as curator of insects for Walter Rothschild's natural history museum in 1893. In doing so he became a professional member of the naturalist tradition, a vibrant enterprise that had developed into its own scientific discipline by the eighteenth century.' In Britain, an interest in local faunas, reflected in the work and popularity of Gilbert White, had been combined with the Linnaean tradition of cataloguing the products of nature to create a natural history tradition that eventually possessed its own institutions (natural history museums) and a wide range ofjournals, monographic works, and societies through which naturalists could pursue the study of the order in nature. As decades passed and the number of undescribed forms increased through the exploration of far-off regions, naturalists specialized in increasingly limited subsections of flora and fauna, and the idea of classifying all known forms became the endeavor of teams and entire museums rather than individuals. By the time Walter Rothschild formed the Tring Museum, naturalists had created disciplines based on the taxa of study. Communities of entomologists, ornithologists, botanists, ichthyologists, conchologists, and so on, worked within their own publishing venues, hierarchy of experts, and distinct rules regarding appropriate method andwork.2This specialization was manifested early in Britain by Paul Lawrence Farber, Finding Order in Nature: The Naturalist Tradition from Linnaeus to E. 0. Wilson (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2000),p. 20-21. On the naturalist tradition in Britain, see; David Allen, The Naturalist in Britain: a Social History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, orig. published 1976) and "On Parallel Lines: Natural History and Biology from the Late Victorian Period," Archives of Natural History 25(1 998):36 1-371. For other countries and more generallysee; N.J. Jardine, J.A. Secord, and E.C. Spary, eds., Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Farber, Finding Order in Nature; "The Transformation of Natural History in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of the History of Biology 15(1 982b): 145-152; and "The Naturalist Tradition: A Natural History," in Kurt Bayertz and Roy Porter, eds., From Physico-Theology to

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