Cornelia Clapp

Cornelia Maria Clapp

Cornelia Maria Clapp (born March 17, 1849 in Montague , Massachusetts , † December 31, 1934 in Mount Dora , Florida ) was an American zoologist and marine biologist . She was one of the first female researchers to earn a PhD in the United States.

life and career

Early years

Clapp was born as the eldest of six or seven children to Richard and Eunice Amelia Clapp. Both parents had worked as teachers for a time, the father was also a successful farmer and long-time deacon of the Congregational Church , who attached great importance to the schooling of his children.

Clapp went to private and public schools in Montague before she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary , the forerunner of today 's college of the same name , in South Hadley from 1868 . Perhaps the decision to go to Mount Holyoke was influenced by the acquaintance of Clapp's mother with the missionary Fidelia Fiske , who was an alumna of the institution. In South Hadley, Clapp was particularly impressed by her botany professor Lydia Shattuck (1822–1889).

After graduating from Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1871 with a general degree in humanities, she spent a year teaching Latin at Potter Hall , a boarding school for boys in Andalusia , Pennsylvania . She then returned to Mount Holyoke, where she was employed as a teacher for various subjects. In her first year she taught mathematics, then natural history and biology. From 1876 to 1891 she was also a gymnastics teacher and in 1883 wrote a manual for gymnastics in which she recommended in particular suitable sportswear.

Establishment as a zoologist

After Lydia Shattuck, who was now her colleague, had already been there the previous year, Clapp was given the chance in 1874 to attend the Anderson School of Natural History founded by Louis Agassiz on Penikese , one of the Elizabeth Islands in Buzzards Bay . That same year, she established embryology as a major at Mount Holyoke. In 1875 she went on a study trip with a group of entomologists to the White Mountains of New Hampshire to collect insects.

In 1876, Clapp did research on molluscs . In the same year, Mount Holyoke received a new building, Williston Hall , which was used to put on a collection of zoological exhibits. Clapp himself helped expand this collection by hiring schoolgirls who were going on vacation to bring back local species. She later compared these with the species in the Museum of Comparative Zoology to ensure correct classification .

In the 1870s, Clapp undertook two further larger excursions under the direction of David Starr Jordan , who were also accompanied by Rosa Smith Eigenmann , among others . The first of these research trips took her to the American South and was devoted to the study of fish. On this trip, she had the opportunity to visit the new naval station at Johns Hopkins University in Beaufort , South Carolina and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC . The second excursion took her to Switzerland and northern Italy in 1879 , where she made many valuable acquaintances with European researchers.

In the early 1880s she studied chicken embryos under William Thompson Sedgwick at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and undertook studies on various earthworm species at Williams College with Edmund B. Wilson .

Cornelia Clapp at her desk

Doctorate and professorship

In 1888 she was awarded the Syracuse University the title of Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.) and the following year the doctoral degree ( Ph.D. ). She acquired both titles through oral exams and without having to write a written dissertation . While Mount Holyoke was transforming from seminary to college , she spent three years at the University of Chicago before earning a doctorate from that institution in 1896. Her doctoral thesis under Charles Otis Whitman on the lateral line organ of the frogfish appeared in the Journal of Morphology .

In 1888 the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) was founded in Woods Hole , Massachusetts , and Clapp began her studies there that same year. In the following years she would come every summer to the institute headed by her PhD supervisor Whitman. From 1893 to 1907 she headed the library of the MBL, from 1897 to 1903 she was a permanent member of the laboratory's embryologists. From 1902 to 1904 and from 1910 until her death in 1934 she was also trustee of the MBL. In 1917 she built herself a dwelling in Woods Hole, where she temporarily lived with two of her sisters.

In 1903 Clapp completed another study trip to Europe and visited Naples , the following year she appointed Mount Holyoke College as professor of zoology . Between 1908 and 1909 she made one last big excursion to the Far East before she retired in 1917.

In her final years, Clapp spent most of the winters with her sisters in Mount Dora, Florida, where she was involved in church and local politics. Here she died in December 1934 of complications from a cerebral vein thrombosis .

Views

Clapp always took the view that it is better to learn from nature itself, i.e. through experimentation and independent research, than from textbooks. For example, she taught the development of chicken embryos by providing her students with eggs in various stages of incubation, which were then allowed to dissect and examine them. Her aversion to written science was also reflected in the fact that she hardly published any work.

Under the influence of the Civil War , the aftermath of which she could still feel on her study trip through the southern states, a strong pacifist attitude developed at Clapp , which she also expressed several times during the First World War . In addition, she was attested to have a strong Christian faith.

Awards and honors

In the first 1906 edition of the American Men of Science , Clapp was ranked among the 150 most influential American zoologists.
In 1921, Mount Holyoke College awarded her an honorary doctorate ( D.Sc. ).
In 1923, a new building at Mount Holyoke College that housed biological laboratories was named Clapp Hall .
She has been accepted as a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , the American Society of Zoologists, and the Association of American Anatomists .

Fonts

Manual of gymnastics: prepared for the use of the students of Mt. Holyoke Seminary. Beacon Press, Boston 1883. (New edition: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge 2010, ISBN 1-154-57892-5 .)

Web links

Commons : Cornelia Clapp - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Publications by Cornelia Clapp in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Cornelia Maria Clapp, Encyclopædia Britannica

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Article on britannica.com (engl.) Accessed on August 31, 2015
↑ ^a ^b Pamela Clapp: Cornelia Clapp and the Earliest Years of the MBL Article on woodsholemuseum.org, accessed on August 31, 2015
^ ^A ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James , Paul S. Boyer : Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 1. Harvard University Press, Harvard 1971, pp 336-338. (engl.)
^ ^A ^b Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie : Women in Science: Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century: a Biographical Dictionary with Annotated Bibliography. MIT Press, 1986, p. 57. (Eng.)
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Moira Davison Reynolds : American Women Scientists: 23 Inspiring Biographies, 1900-2000. McFarland, Jefferson 2004, pp. 5-8. (engl.)
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Elizabeth H. Oakes : Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Infobase Publishing, 2007, pp. 138-139. (engl.)
↑ ^a ^b Biography at mtholyoke.edu , accessed on August 31, 2015
↑ Patricia Campbell Warner: When the Girls Came Out to Play: The Birth of American Sportswear. Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2006, p. 200. (Eng.)
↑ ^a ^b E.K. Balon, Michael N. Bruton , David LG Noakes: Women in ichthyology: an anthology in honor of ET, Ro and Genie. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012, p. 18. (Eng.)

personal data
SURNAME	Clapp, Cornelia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Clapp, Cornelia Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American zoologist and marine biologist
DATE OF BIRTH	March 17, 1849
PLACE OF BIRTH	Montague , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH	December 31, 1934
Place of death	Mount Dora , Florida

[britannica-1] Article on britannica.com (engl.) Accessed on August 31, 2015

[museum-2] Pamela Clapp: Cornelia Clapp and the Earliest Years of the MBL Article on woodsholemuseum.org, accessed on August 31, 2015

[notable-3] A ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James , Paul S. Boyer : Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 1. Harvard University Press, Harvard 1971, pp 336-338. (engl.)

[womeninscience-4] A ^b Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie : Women in Science: Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century: a Biographical Dictionary with Annotated Bibliography. MIT Press, 1986, p. 57. (Eng.)

[inspiring-5] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Moira Davison Reynolds : American Women Scientists: 23 Inspiring Biographies, 1900-2000. McFarland, Jefferson 2004, pp. 5-8. (engl.)

[worldscientists-6] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Elizabeth H. Oakes : Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Infobase Publishing, 2007, pp. 138-139. (engl.)

[holyoke-7] Biography at mtholyoke.edu , accessed on August 31, 2015

[8] Patricia Campbell Warner: When the Girls Came Out to Play: The Birth of American Sportswear. Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2006, p. 200. (Eng.)

[ichthy-9] E.K. Balon, Michael N. Bruton , David LG Noakes: Women in ichthyology: an anthology in honor of ET, Ro and Genie. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012, p. 18. (Eng.)