At thirteen Davenport entered the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and soon was at the head of his class, despite his previous unorthodox schooling. He received a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1886.
Gallery of Charles Davenport
28 Fernald Dr, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
After nine months as rodman for a railroad survey in Michigan, Davenport entered Harvard College, partly supported by his mother’s independent income. Under the guidance of E. L. Mark he majored in zoology, receiving the Bachelor of Arts in 1889 and the Ph.D in 1892.
At thirteen Davenport entered the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and soon was at the head of his class, despite his previous unorthodox schooling. He received a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1886.
After nine months as rodman for a railroad survey in Michigan, Davenport entered Harvard College, partly supported by his mother’s independent income. Under the guidance of E. L. Mark he majored in zoology, receiving the Bachelor of Arts in 1889 and the Ph.D in 1892.
Charles Benedict Davenport was a prominent American biologist and eugenicist. He was one of the leaders of the American eugenics movement.
Background
Charles Benedict Davenport was born on June 1, 1866, in Stamford, Connecticut. A major influence on Davenport was the harsh and puritanical tyranny of his father, Amzi Benedict Davenport, a founder of and teacher in a private academy in Brooklyn, New York, who was later successful in real estate and insurance. The father taught his son to the age of thirteen, as well as demanding almost full-time work in his office. His mother, Jane Joralemon Dimon Davenport, was of more liberal religious views, enthusiastic about nature, and in favor of college.
Work each summer on the family farm near Stamford provided Charles with the opportunity to indulge in nature observation. Although mainly a solitary youth, he did enjoy organizing natural history groups among a few close friends.
Education
At thirteen Davenport entered the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and soon was at the head of his class, despite his previous unorthodox schooling. He received a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1886. After nine months as a rodman for a railroad survey in Michigan, Davenport entered Harvard College, partly supported by his mother’s independent income. Under the guidance of E. L. Mark he majored in zoology, receiving the Bachelor of Arts in 1889 and the Ph.D. in 1892.
In 1898 Davenport became director of the summer school of the Biological Laboratory of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, a commitment he kept until 1923. In 1899 he left Harvard to become an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, advancing to associate professor in 1901. Although enthusiastic about the plans of the department chairman, C. O. Whitman, to enlarge the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and turn it toward intensive study of heredity, Davenport, also keenly independent, in 1904 finally persuaded the Carnegie Institution to support the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, for which he left Chicago to become director. Constantly planning new research, he also established and directed the Eugenics Record Office are the same location from 1910; its funds were acquired from Mrs. E. H. Harriman. The Carnegie Institution assumed the office in 1918. Although the three organizations of which Davenport was director were all adjacent, there was little integration - and frequent confusion of direction. In 1934 Davenport retired from all his commitments but stayed at Cold Spring Harbor to continue research and writing.
Davenport was a member of sixty-four scientific societies and active in many of them. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. In 1923 he received the gold medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences, and in 1932 he was president of the Third International Congress of Eugenics.
Davenport’s research began in the 1890’s with statistical studies of populations. With students in his Harvard course in experimental morphology, he published several quantitative studies and pioneered in the use of biometric methods in the United States, especially through his manual, Statistical Methods With Special Reference to Biological Variation (1899), which introduced the methods of Karl Pearson to the United States. The rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s results in 1900 turned many toward similar genetic studies of a variety of organisms: and Davenport’s laboratory joined the trend, although he himself was not fully convinced of the validity of Mendelism until many completed experiments and the persuasion of its champion, William Bateson, satisfied him. His station conducted breeding experiments on a variety of animals: but techniques were not always satisfactory, and only the studies of canaries and of chickens produced significant results.
From 1907 Davenport’s interests turned to human heredity and eugenics, a shift sparked at least partly by his wife, Gertrude Crotty Davenport, who for several years was senior author on papers with him. Also, since 1897 Davenport had been acquainted with Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics. A major contribution to early eugenics was Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911), in which Davenport presented data on inheritance of a great variety of traits, from eye color and certain illnesses to criminality and pauperism, not all with convincing data. In 1918 Davenport analyzed the physical traits of recruits for the U.S. Army, and he continued along these lines with growth measurements of children in orphanages.
Achievements
Davenport contributed substantially to the study of eugenics (the improvement of populations through breeding) and heredity and who pioneered the use of statistical techniques in biological research.
His major contributions were the introduction of statistical methods into evolutionary studies and the initiation of projects in the laboratories he directed.
Charles Davenport was a staunch advocate of an improved race of man, he urged great care in the selection of marriage partners, large families for those who had thus selected, a ban on racial mixing, and the exclusion of undesirable immigrants from the United States.
Membership
National Academy of Sciences
,
United States
Personality
Davenport was a poor lecturer yet an infectiously enthusiastic conversationalist. He was careless and hasty in research and hypersensitive to criticism.
Connections
Davenport married Gertrude Anna Crotty on June 23, 1894, in Burlington, Kansas. She was a biologist and instructor at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. They had three children. The eldest daughter Millia was known for her work "The Book of Costume." She received the highest honor given by the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, for a lifetime of distinguished contribution to the performing arts.
