Ralph Vary Chamberlin

Ralph Vary Chamberlin (January 3, 1879 – October 31, 1967) was an American biologist, ethnographer, and historian from Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a faculty member of the University of Utah for over 25 years, where he helped establish the School of Medicine and served as its first dean, and later became head of the zoology department. He also taught at Brigham Young University and the University of Pennsylvania, and worked for over a decade at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, where he described species from around the world. Chamberlin was a prolific taxonomist who named over 4,000 new animal species in over 400 scientific publications. He specialized in arachnids (spiders, scorpions, and relatives) and myriapods (centipedes, millipedes, and relatives), ranking among the most prolific arachnologists and myriapodologists in history. He described over 1,400 species of spiders, 1,000 species of millipedes, and the majority of North American centipedes, although the quantity of his output was not always matched with quality, leaving a mixed legacy to his successors. He also did pioneering ethnobiological studies with the Goshute and other indigenous people of the Great Basin, cataloging indigenous names and cultural uses of plants and animals. Chamberlin was celebrated by his colleagues at the University of Utah, however he was disliked among some arachnologists, including some of his former students. After retirement he continued to write, publishing on the history of education in his home state, especially that of the University of Utah. Chamberlin was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). In the early twentieth century, Chamberlin was among a quartet of popular Mormon professors at Brigham Young University whose teaching of evolution and biblical criticism resulted in a 1911 controversy among University and Church officials, eventually resulting in the resignation of him and two other professors despite widespread support from the student body, an event described as Mormonism's "first brush with modernism".

Biography

Early life and education Ralph Vary Chamberlin was born on January 3, 1879, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to parents William Henry Chamberlin, a prominent builder and contractor, and Eliza Frances Chamberlin (née Brown). Chamberlin traced his paternal lineage to an English immigrant settling in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638, and his maternal lineage to an old Pennsylvania Dutch family. Born to Mormon parents, the young Chamberlin attended Latter-day Saints' High School, and although very interested in nature, initially decided to study mathematics and art before choosing biology. His brother William, the eldest of 12 children, also shared Ralph's scientific interests and would later teach alongside him. Ralph attended the University of Utah, graduating with a B.S. degree in 1898, and subsequently spent four years teaching high school and some college-level courses in biology as well as geology, chemistry, physics, Latin, and German at Latter-day Saints' University. By 1900 he had authored nine scientific publications. In the summer of 1902 Chamberlin studied at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, and from 1902 to 1904 studied at Cornell University under a Goldwin Smith Fellowship, and was a member of the Gamma Alpha fraternity and Sigma Xi honor society. He studied under entomologist John Henry Comstock and earned his doctorate in 1904. His dissertation was a taxonomic revision of the wolf spiders of North America, in which he reviewed all known species north of Mexico, recognizing 67 out of around 150 nominal species as distinct and recognizable. Zoologist Thomas H. Montgomery regarded Chamberlin's monograph as one of "decided importance" in using the structure of pedipalps (male reproductive organs) to help define genera, and in its detailed descriptions of species.

Early career: University of Utah

It is to Professor Chamberlin that credit should be given for starting medical training in the University of Utah. After returning from Cornell, Chamberlin was hired by the University of Utah, where he worked from 1904 to 1908, as an assistant professor (1904–1905) then full professor. He soon began improving biology courses, which at the time were only of high school grade, to collegiate standards, and introduced new courses in vertebrate histology and embryology. He was the first dean of University of Utah School of Medicine, serving from 1905 to 1907. During the summer of 1906, his plans to teach a summer course in embryology at the University of Chicago were cancelled when he suffered a serious accident in a fall, breaking two leg bones and severing an artery in his leg. In 1907, university officials decided to merge the medical school into an existing department, which made Chamberlin's deanship obsolete. He resigned as dean in May, 1907, although remained a faculty member. The medical students strongly objected, crediting the school's gains over the past few years largely to his efforts. In late 1907 and early 1908, Chamberlin became involved in a bitter lawsuit with fellow Utah professor Ira D. Cardiff that would cost them both their jobs. Cardiff, a botanist hired in spring of 1907, claimed Chamberlin offered him a professorship with a salary of $2,000 to $2,250 per year, but upon hiring was offered only $1,650 by the university regents. Cardiff filed suit for $350, which a court initially decided Chamberlin must pay, and Chamberlin's wages were garnished. The two became estranged and uncommunicative. There had been tension between them for some time—Chamberlin's supporters claimed Cardiff was involved in his dismissal as dean—and the Salt Lake Tribune noted "friction between the two men, of a different nature and not entirely due to financial matters, arose even before Professor Cardiff received his appointment". In March 1908 the university regents fired both Chamberlin and Cardiff, appointing a single new professor to head the departments of zoology and botany. In July, upon appeal, the suit was overturned and Cardiff ordered to pay costs. Chamberlin had by then secured a job at Brigham Young University.

Brigham Young University

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