Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
Jordan entered Cornell University, to which he had received a scholarship in March 1869. Because of undergraduate work as an instructor in botany, he was awarded the Master of Science degree instead of the Bachelor of Science in 1872.
Career
Gallery of David Jordan
1874
David Starr Jordan in 1874.
Gallery of David Jordan
1891
Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States
David Starr Jordan after he became Stanford University's first President.
Gallery of David Jordan
1896
Joint British-American comission for fur-seal investigation, Unalaska, 1896. From left to right : Jordan, Clark, Murray, Moser, Lucas, Townsend, Thompson, Macoun and Stejneger.
Gallery of David Jordan
1897
Joint British-American diplomatic commission, 1897-1898. From left to right: Venning, Foster, Thompson, Laurier, Hamlin, Jordan, Davies, Macoun, Adam and Clark.
Gallery of David Jordan
1912
David Starr Jordan at the Provo railroad station, April 1912.
Gallery of David Jordan
1917
David Starr Jordan in 1917.
Gallery of David Jordan
1917
David Starr Jordan in 1917.
Gallery of David Jordan
1920
David Starr Jordan and a group of young children in 1920.
Gallery of David Jordan
1923
David Starr Jordan, March 1923.
Gallery of David Jordan
Photo of David Starr Jordan.
Gallery of David Jordan
David Starr Jordan and Eric Knight Jordan.
Gallery of David Jordan
David Starr Jordan and wife talking with White House picket.
Gallery of David Jordan
David Starr Jordan in 1880.
Gallery of David Jordan
Group of Scientific Lecturers. Front row: J.G. Hagen, Carl Beck, Wilhelm Waldeyer, Simon Newcomb, Oscar Backlund, Ormond Stone and David Starr Jordan.
Gallery of David Jordan
Lummis-Jordan party on top of Enchanted Mesa.
Gallery of David Jordan
David Starr Jordan, August 1868.
Gallery of David Jordan
Portrait of David Starr Jordan by Emma Curtis Richardson
Gallery of David Jordan
Portrait of David Starr Jordan by E. Spencer Macky.
Joint British-American comission for fur-seal investigation, Unalaska, 1896. From left to right : Jordan, Clark, Murray, Moser, Lucas, Townsend, Thompson, Macoun and Stejneger.
Joint British-American diplomatic commission, 1897-1898. From left to right: Venning, Foster, Thompson, Laurier, Hamlin, Jordan, Davies, Macoun, Adam and Clark.
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
Jordan entered Cornell University, to which he had received a scholarship in March 1869. Because of undergraduate work as an instructor in botany, he was awarded the Master of Science degree instead of the Bachelor of Science in 1872.
David Starr Jordan was an American scientist, peace activist, and one of the foremost American ichthyologist of his time. His efforts led to the naming of a total of 1,085 genera and more than 2,500 species of fishes, together with broader classifications of them. He also served as president of Indiana University and was the founding president of Stanford University.
Background
David Starr Jordan was born on January 19, 1851, in Gainesville, New York, United States. A childhood in rural New York State provided young Jordan ample opportunity to indulge his early interests in plants, stars, maps, and reading. His parents, Hiram Jordan and the former Huldah Lake Hawley, had both been teachers and owners of a prosperous farm, where Jordan, the fourth of five children, took charge of a flock of sheep and later the making of maple sugar.
Education
Jordan's pre-college schooling was, by special exemption, at the nearby Gainesville Female Seminary. Intending to specialize in botany or animal husbandry, he entered Cornell University, to which he had received a scholarship in March 1869. Of the staff he was most impressed by C. Frederick Hartt in geology, Burt G. Wilder in zoology, and Albert N. Prentiss in botany. Because of undergraduate work as an instructor in botany, he was awarded the Master of Science degree instead of the Bachelor of Science in 1872.
Jordan entered the field of education by teaching natural science for one year at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois, and the next year he was principal and teacher at Appleton Collegiate Institute in Wisconsin. He moved on to teach science at Indianapolis High School (1874-1875) and then became a professor of biology at Butler University, Indianapolis (1875-1879). That position led to his becoming professor of natural history at Indiana University (1879) and later president of the university (1885-1891).
Always ahead of his time, Jordan instituted electives and a major field at Indiana, on the premise that “the duty of real teachers is to adapt the work to the student, not the student to the work.” His successful theories of education attracted the attention of Leland Stanford, and in 1891 Jordan became the first president of Leland Stanford Junior University. In 1913, in order to devote more time to outside interests, Jordan became chancellor.
Jordan was inspired to enter ichthyology by Louis Agassiz in the summer of 1873, at the Anderson School of Natural History on Penikese Island, Massachusetts. At Butler University he turned to local fish fauna as the most rewarding undeveloped field in which a young scientist could distinguish himself. He chose well, for from his first paper on fishes in 1874 he dominated ichthyology and drew the best science students to it.
Descriptive ichthyology was then in its infancy in the United States. The eccentric Constantine Samuel Rafinesque essentially founded it with his descriptions of fishes of the Ohio River frontier country (1820), which were modified by Jared Potter Kirtland twenty years later. In 1850 David Humphries Storer published a Synopsis of the Fishes of North America, and government explorations of the western territories provided a wealth of new material, the fishes of which were mostly described by Charles Frederic Girard and his coauthor Spencer Fullerton Baird. Individual regions were under study by various workers, one of the most significant investigations being Louis Agassiz’s 1850 report on Lake Superior.
Jordan began in Indiana but soon went farther afield. From 1876 he customarily spent each summer collecting, the earliest trips being largely along the rivers of the Allegheny Mountains and in much of the South. He spent three summers on extensive walking and collecting tours in Europe. In 1876 he studied the fishes of Ohio for that state’s fish commission. Later, for the U.S. Fish Commission he collected and presented taxonomic monographs on fishes of the Pacific coast, the Gulf coast, Florida, and Cuba, and the fish faunas of the major American rivers. While at Stanford, besides making many trips within California, Jordan visited Mazatlan, Mexico; the Bering Sea, while investigating the fur seal dispute between the United States and Great Britain (1896); the interior of Mexico; Japan; Hawaii; Samoa; Alaska; and Europe. From 1908 to 1910 he served as the U.S. International Commissioner of Fisheries for the conservation of fisheries along the Canadian border.
A prolific writer, in addition to his many papers on fish collections and areal faunas, Jordan published thirteen editions of Manual of Vertebrates (1876-1929); several valuable manuals on fish classification; with C. H. Gilbert the useful “Synopsis of the Fishes of North America” (1883), which gave the first great impetus to American ichthyology; and with B. W. Evermann the indispensable “Fishes of North and Middle America” (1896-1900), which for many years almost ended the study, since he and many others considered the subject largely completed.
Jordan's teaching included his version of eugenics, which "sought to prevent the decay of the Anglo-Saxon/Nordic race by limiting racial mixing and by preventing the reproduction of those he deemed unfit."
He made a eugenics-based argument against warfare, contending that war was detrimental to the human species because it removed the strongest men from the gene pool. In 1910, Jordan asserted "Future war is impossible because the nations cannot afford it" and the war debt in Europe amounts to 26 billion US dollars, "all owed to the unseen vampire, and which the nations will never pay and which taxes poor people 95 million dollars a year." He thought burdens of militarism in time of peace are exhausting the strength of the leading nations, already overloaded with debts and the certain result of a great war would be overwhelming bankruptcy.
Membership
Jordan was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1909-1910; president of the California Academy of Sciences three times; and a member of the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature from 1904 until his death. Among other societies, he was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Zoological Society of London. He was also president of the World Peace Foundation from 1910 to 1914 and president of the World Peace Conference in 1915. The Smithsonian Institution made him an honorary associate in zoology in 1921.
Connections
Jordan married Susan Bowen in 1875, and she died in 1885 after 10 years of marriage. They had three children, Edith Monica, Harold Bowen, and Thora. Jordan later married Jessie Knight in 1887. He and his second wife had three additional children, Knight Starr, Barbara, and Eric Knight.