Dissertation Research: The Many Varieties of the Naturalist: a life history of Karl Jordan

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Abstract

In an effort to redress the dominance of the evolutionary synthesis on histories of natural history between 1890 and 1940, this dissertation research project will examine the life and work of Karl Jordan (1861-1959), a German-born naturalist who worked during the first half of the twentieth century as curator of insects for Walter Rothschild's Tring Museum, in Britain. It will investigate the context and influence of Jordan's contributions to the development of biology and the discipline of entomology, his experience as a German national living and working Britain during a series of tumultuous decades, and his constant endeavor to increase international cooperation between zoologists through both the International Entomological Congresses and the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature. Jordan consistently corresponded with major entomologists for a period of six decades, organizing international cooperation, working on tedious insect systematics, and driving research into evolutionary theory. In its most general sense, this study is part of a broader aim to illustrate the various, dynamic contexts within which naturalists have worked, from the idealistic internationalism of the turn of the century to the post-World War world, and from the taxa-bound disciplines of the nineteenth century to the problem-based biology of the twentieth. In examining Jordan in a number of contexts, from the museum desk to the international stage, the research will examine the multifaceted variation in naturalists' activities. Research has already been completed at the archives in the Eastern U.S., including the National Research Council, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Philosophical Society for correspondence between Jordan and American entomologists. In addition entomological journals and the proceedings of the International Congresses of Entomology (ICE) have been surveyed. This funding supports archival work based predominantly in Britain (particularly at the Natural History Museum, London), with brief trips to continental Europe.