Charles Haskell Danforth

Charles Haskell Danforth

Charles Haskell Danforth (30 November 1883 – 10 January 1969) was an American naturalist, anatomist, researcher, and professor at Washington University Medical School, University of Montana, and Stanford University. He spent the majority of his life conducting research on the characteristics of a wide array of organisms and took a special interest in problems of heredity and comparative anatomy.

Early Life

Danforth was born in Oxford, Maine on November 30th, 1883 to James and Mary Haskell. His childhood years were spent working on the family farm and attending primary school in Norway, Maine. Growing up, he had developed an interest in botany and zoology, which only grew when his uncle, Frank Danforth, passed on two copies of Darwin's Animals and Plants under Domestication to him at the age of twelve. Within a year of receiving these books, Danforth had observed variation in the color of the anthers in plants of the saxifrage family, and later went on to publish "A Dimorphism in Tiarella cordifolia" in 1911, highlighting these observations made in his youth.

His father was close with members of the National Academy of Sciences, namely Professor Sidney I. Smith and the brother-in-law of Professor A.E. Verrill. Charles used this connection to his advantage and wrote to Professor Verrill, seeking advice about becoming a naturalist. He received a rather unexpected response: Verrill told him that he should not become a naturalist "unless you can't help it." In spite of this response, thirteen year-old Charles knew that he couldn't help it, and this decision to become a naturalist shaped the rest of his life.

Education

Danforth's strong interest in natural science was evident when he started his formal education at the Norway Liberal Institute in Maine. He flourished in biology and classical studies, and he became known for his observation abilities and meticulous note-taking, skills that would characterize his later scientific work.

Danforth originally planned to study medicine when he enrolled at Tufts College (now Tufts University) in 1904, but his passion for biology caused him to redirect his focus towards anatomy and zoology. While at Tufts, he studied under many renowned professors including Herbert E. Walker, who introduced Danforth to formal biological research and experimental methods. After earning his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in 1908, Danforth continued his education at Tufts, where he eventually earned his Master of Arts (M.A.) in 1910. During his pursuit of the Master's, shortly after the completion of his Bachelor's, Danforth received an offer from Washington University Medical School's anatomy department chair Professor Robert J. Terry to instruct for the Department of Anatomy for $800 per year. His interests in variation and morphology, topics that would define his academic career, were evident in his master's thesis. During his time at Tufts, he had published his first three scientific papers; one about a new type of pteropod, one about variation in daisies, and another about Spirogyra.

After graduating from Tufts, Danforth completed his doctoral studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, collaborating closely with Professor R. J. Terry. Danforth conducted an in-depth study of the comparative anatomy of Polyodon (paddlefish) under Terry's mentorship, culminating a dissertation that was rigorous in both morphology and phylogenetic analysis. He received his Ph.D. in 1912, and his research at the time combined more recent influences from evolutionary biology and heredity with more traditional anatomical training. This combination of topics would later be a defining feature of his work.

Danforth's education gave him a strong foundation in both the new techniques of experimental biology and the empirical traditions of descriptive anatomy. He was able to broaden the scope of his research and bridge disciplines, spanning the subjects of comparative zoology, genetics, human anatomy, and anthropometry.

Career

Over the course of his career, Charles's studies focused on comparative morphology, heredity, and anatomical variation, particularly in vertebrates, and published 125 scientific papers. To establish himself as a forward-thinking scientist at the intersection of multiple disciplines, he began to integrate genetics into his anatomical work, which was a relatively new science at the time.

After getting his doctorate at Washington University, Danforth married science teacher Florence Wenonah Garrison in 1914. She too was an academic and was a member of both the Society of Daughters of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the American Colonists. She also contributed to the Smithsonian Institution, writing historical articles for them to publish. They had three sons over the course of their marriage.

In 1917, Danforth decided to take on a temporary position teaching ornithology at the Flathead Lake Biological Station of the University of Montana. His lifelong passion for natural history and his connection to field-based biological research were strengthened by this brief but influential experience.

In 1921, Danforth relocated to Stanford University when he accepted Arthur W. Meyer's invitation to join the faculty. It didn't take long before he received a promotion to full professor in 1923. Danforth remained in this position until his retirement in 1949. He thrived as a researcher and teacher at Stanford as he was provided with a stable institutional home that supported his long-term independent research.

Danforth was well known for his precise and rigorous research, much of which was based on perceptive observations. While at a theater performance, he noticed the peculiar hair patterns on a man's hands, which led to one of his most well-known studies. This discovery led to decades of research into human hair distribution, which produced several influential papers that formed the field of human dermatoglyphics.

During World War II, in 1942, Danforth was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences, and in 1944, he was elected into the American Philosophical Society. After the war, he conducted a statistical analysis of physical measurements taken from more than 104,000 American soldiers. This sparked his interest in human anatomical variation and resulted in significant work. He made a substantial contribution to the field of human morphometrics by using this massive dataset to examine changes in stature and body proportions over time.

In order to investigate heredity, dominance dynamics, and developmental variation, Danforth also executed breeding experiments in rats, chickens, pheasants, and cats. His work was defined by an unusual balance of statistical rigor, laboratory experimentation, and field observation.

After his retirement, Danforth continued his research at Stanford for another twenty years. He remained involved in science until two years before his death. His lifelong commitment to biology is demonstrated by the 1967 publication of his final paper. While still having strong ties to the university, Charles Haskell Danforth passed away on January 10, 1969 at Stanford University Hospital.

Publications

Danforth published nearly 125 papers, many influenced by naturalistic observation. Sitting in a theatre, Danforth noticed the hairy hands of a person seated in front of him and after comparing his own hair distribution took up a study of hair growth patterning on the back of the hands and fingers. He also examined hair in greater detail. He also examined heredity using breeding experiments in rats, chickens, pheasants, and cats. At the end of World War II, Danforth examined the morphometrics of 104 thousand soldiers discharged from the American army, which has been used to compare physical stature changes over time.