Copyright (c) 1974 Cambridge Entomological Club.
Reproduced from Psyche 81:3-37, 1974.

HISTORY OF THE CAMBRIDGE ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB*

The Beginnings of the Cambridge Entomological Club

On a Friday evening, January 9, 1874, Dr. Hermann A. Hagen, Professor of Entomology at Harvard College and Curator at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, invited a group of twelve men to his home at 7 Putnam Street in Cambridge, to consider the question of forming an entomological society. Most of them had been meeting informally for several years as a section of the Boston Society of Natural History, but some had more ambitious plans. Wanting to publish a journal, to meet outside of Boston, and to have members from all over the country, they desired to form "an organization independent of any other" -- which was to be the Cambridge Entomological Club.

Among the twelve present, probably the two most influential that first evening were Dr. Hagen and Samuel Scudder [1,2]. Dr. Hagen was the first professor of entomology in the United States; he had left Germany in I867 at the invitation of Louis Agassiz to take charge of the entomological department of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, and had been appointed to his professorship at Harvard in 1870, at the age of 53.† But although Dr. Hagen had held his professorial position for four years now, his first course of lectures had been given only the previous summer, and its enrollment had been but one student, J. H. Comstock; when he did formally teach, Dr. Hagen's courses consisted of "lectures, given at rare intervals to advanced students." As this might indicate, Dr. Hagen's pvincipal work and real devotion were centered about the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and to him other interests were secondary. So although most influential in the formation of the Entomological Club, and an enthusiastic supporter of its activities, Dr. Hagen did not wish any responsibility toward running it. Thus, when at this first meeting Dr. Hagen declined to take the chair (as he declined, or resigned from every office for which he was ever proposed in the Club), Samuel Scudder was chosen as chairman.

A graduate of Williams College and Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School, Samuel Scudder had been an assistant to Agassiz, and at the time of the Club's founding was nearly 38 years old. Once considered "the greatest Orthopterist America has produced," he also worked on the diurnal Lepidoptera and, as the foremost American student of fossil insects in his time, served as paleontologist to the U.S. Geological Survey from 1886 to 1892 [2]. Scudder was also a competent editor and a bibliophile; he served as assistant librarian of Harvard College and librarian of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Yet despite these and many other time consuming activities and before illness finally forced his withdrawal from active participation in 1903, he held various formal offices in the Cambridge Entomological Club for a total of eighteen years.

Samuel Scudder having been appointed to the chair, the meeting moved on to the first order of business-- the establishment of some guidelines for the new organization. Voting to keep it as informal as possible, "no more rules being made than are necessary," the members decided that the new Cambridge Entomological Club should have only one permanent officer, a secretary; to fill this position, they wisely chose 26 year old Benjamin Pickman Mann [5]. The son of Horace Mann, well known as a teacher and advocate of public schools, Benjamin had graduated from Harvard College only four years previously. He was a conscientious researcher, a specialist in entomological literature and bibliography, who for many years to come would not only keep careful record of all Club proceedings, but serve as treasurer, librarian, and editor of the Club's publication.

After Mann's appointment and the decision to hold the next meeting at Scudder's home, the Scientific Communications of the evening began. Dr. Hagen commented on the discovery of fossil galls, apparently caused by insects, preserved on a twig in amber from Maryland; this was of special interest to Hagen, since he had published extensively on Baltic amber insects while he was still in Germany. There then ensued a general discussion of "the senses by which insects are caused to assembly for sexual or other purposes." This must have been a particularly interesting discussion because of the varied backgrounds represented. For example, there was Dr. A. S. Packard, who had been one of Agassiz's students and who had just finished his third year as State Entomologist of Massachusetts [6]. He and Scudder were nearly the same age and they had been close friends since their undergraduate days, but Packard's experiences had been more varied: he had been a surgeon in the Civil War, a Custodian of the Boston Society of Natural History, a lecturer on entomology at Massachusetts Agricultural College and Bowdoin College; and he had studied marine life along the southeastern coast, and had published his well-known "Guide to the Study of Insects." However, his active association with the Entomological Club was to be very brief, for he was appointed to a professorship at Brown University in 1878, a position which he held until his death in 1909.

Then, in contrast, there was Edward Burgess, at the age of 26, a recent graduate of Harvard College and a former assistant in the Museum of Comparative Zoology; he was currently Instructor in Entomology at the College, giving the "course of elementary instruction in the study of insects." Although he became known in entomological circles for his published accounts of insect morphology, Burgess later won renown for his contributions to naval architecture [7]. At about the same age, there was James H. Emerton, who had aready foretold his life interest by collecting spiders at over a hundred localities in New England [8]. A skilled artist, he had recently finished the first of innumerable illustrations he would make for A. S. Packard, S. H. Scudder, and many other zoologists. A trip to Europe and a position as curator in the museum of the Peabody Academy of Science at Salem soon removed him from the Cambridge scene for a few years but he continued to publish extensively on spiders and to take an active part in the Entomological Club until his death in 1931. Another member was Samuel Henshaw; at the age of 22 and without college training, he was at the time beginning to work on the insect collection at the Boston Society of Natural Nistory; he subsequently became an assistant in entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology and later (1912-1927) its director.

Of nearly identical age was George Dimmock, a Harvard freshman who had a strong inttrrest in insects, especially Coleoptera and Lepidoptera. Although on graduating from college he spent several years at the University of Leipzig in Germany, from which he received his doctorate, he later returned to Cambridge and for many years continued to be active in the Entomological Club [10]. Youngest of all the founders of the Club was Herbert K. Morrison, only 19 years old, an energetic and serious student of noctuid moths. His experience on the first of the Club's excursions to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, a few months later, induced him to become a professional insect collector. During the next decade, he collected extensively in the United States, especially in such little-known regions as Washington Territory, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada, and he furnished countless specimens of many orders to specialists in this country and Europe. His death at the early age of 31 terminated a brilliant entomological career [11].

Also at this first meeting there was a European coleopterist, Eugene A. Schwarz. Born in Germany, he received his training at the Universities of Breslau and Leipzig. In 1872, at the age of 28, he came to the Museum of Comparative Zoology as an assistant to Hagen. He was to stay in Cambridge only a few years, however, leaving in 1875 on several collecting trips and finally joining other entomologists in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, where he remained until his death in 1928 [12]. Very little can be said about the two remaining members present at the meeting. E. P. Austin, who was in the mining business, was an amateur coleopterist and published several papers on beetles in the course of the next few years, but he was not active in the Club after 1882. Even less is known of J. C. Munro, who lived in Lexington; he appears not to have attended any other meetings of the Club.

One individual, George R. Crotch, although not present at the first meeting, or in fact any other meeting of the Club, was regarded by all as one of the founders. He had become interested in insects, especially Coleoptera, while an undergraduate at Cambridge University in England. He had collected extensively in Europe and in late 1872 he had come to this country to collect insects in the western states. He was a very energetic and enthusiastic entomologist and a prolific writer [13]. In late 1873, at the age of 3I, he accepted a position as assistant at the Museum with Hagen. By the end of that

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*This article is based on a term paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Arts in Teaching from Harvard University, 1967. The secretaries' records, minutes of the Club meetings, and other pertinent idocuments were placed at my disposal by the officers of the Club. In the present account, quoted passages without specific references are taken directly from the minutes of the meetings.

The original manuscript has been placed on permanent file with other Cambridge Entomological Club historical documents in the Museum of COmparative Zoology; it was revised and updated for publication here by the editor, F. M. Carpenter.

†Entomology had been recognized in America as a serious branch of science since the latter part of the eighteenth century, however. William Dandridge Peck [3], the first native born American entomologist, initiated the scientific study of insects at Harvard as that institution's first professor of natural history; as early as 1837 his student, Thaddeus W. Harris, while acting as librarian of Harvard College, gave a course in entomology that included brief field excursions [3,4]. Following Hagen's arrival in Cambridge, Harvard became a center of entomological activity, involving undergraiduate and graduate students as well as more mature investigators.