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George Williams Peckham was an American educator, librarian, entomologist and scientist.
Background
George Williams Peckham was born on March 23, 1845 in Albany, Albany County, New York, United States. He was the son of George Williams Peckham, a lawyer, and of Mary Perry (Watson) Peckham. He was a descendant of John Peckham who was in Rhode Island as early as 1638. In 1853 the family removed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Education
George Williams Peckham was placed in the Milwaukee Academy, but he never cared for Latin, Greek, and mathematics; in fact, he was not interested in any study until, in the early days of the Civil War, he came upon a book of tactics. Peckham and his friend Arthur MacArthur (afterwards a lieutenant-general) worked over this book and determined to enter the army and become great soldiers. His parents, however, did not allow him to enlist until 1863, when he was assigned to Company B, First Regiment, Wisconsin Heavy Artillery. He was mustered out with the rank of first lieutenant at the age of nineteen. At the earnest wish of his father, he entered the Albany (New York) Law School, living in the family of his uncle, Judge Rufus Wheeler Peckham.
After graduation, George Williams Peckham entered the law office of James T. Brown of Milwaukee. Not caring for the law, he became a student in the medical college of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In 1873 Peckham was called home by his father's death. The college granted him the degree of M. D. in 1881.
Career
Asked to take a temporary position as teacher of biology in what at that time was the only high school in Milwaukee (afterwards known as the Eastern High School), George Williams Peckham proved an inspiring teacher, and immediately introduced laboratory methods. It is said that he was the first to employ such methods in biological work in any high school in the United States. He immediately engaged in research and was the leading supporter of the so-called Darwinian theory in his community. Elizabeth Maria Gifford, recently graduated from Vassar (1876), came to work in his laboratory.
In 1888 George Williams Peckham was made principal of the high school, and in 1891 was appointed superintendent of public instruction for the city of Milwaukee. He held this post until 1897, when he was made director of the great public library, for which a beautiful building had just been erected. In this position he served until his retirement in 1910. He was a prominent publishing member of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, and was its president from 1890 to 1893. He had already been president of the Wisconsin Natural History Society. The Peckhams' scientific work (it is practically impossible to write of them individually in this connection) was largely confined to spiders and wasps. When Mrs. Peckham first joined the high school laboratory, they began a study of the jumping spiders. Commencing with taxonomic studies, they devoted evenings and holidays to the work and published a number of papers. For a time these were limited to descriptions of species and genera, but long vacations spent in the country gave opportunity for field work, and in December 1887 they published in the Journal of Morphology the results of a very interesting investigation of the mental powers of spiders.
In 1889 and 1890 George Williams Peckham and his wife published papers on sexual selection and protective resemblances in spiders (Occasional Papers of the Natural History Society of Wisconsin, vol. I). In the meantime they had been watching a ground nest of Vespa germanica close to their country cottage, and from this came their very important study of wasps, culminating in their great work entitled On the Instincts and Habits of Solitary Wasps (1898). It is a volume of 249 pages, with fifteen plates, and is not only a sound scientific treatise but an altogether charming book. It was based on years of patient, highly intelligent, and very laborious investigations, and ranks today as one of the most valuable books in that field. The somewhat earlier work of the Frenchmen, Fabre and Ferton, and the later work of Phil and Nellie Rau in the United States, together with that of the Peckhams, explored a fascinating field in comparative animal psychology.
In Bouvier's La Vie Psychique des Insectes (1918) the work of the Peckhams is considered as authoritative. Moreover, their book is a masterpiece of English writing in its clearness, aptness and simplicity. George Williams Peckham died on January 10, 1914.
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Membership
George Williams Peckham was a member of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, of the Wisconsin Natural History Society.
Connections
In 1880 George Williams Peckham married Elizabeth Maria Gifford. It was a most fortunate union, and together they carried on investigations almost until his death, publishing very many papers under a joint authorship. Three children were born to them, a son and two daughters.