While digitizing specimens in the collection, we gloss over thousands of
names of collectors worldwide. Although the main intention is to map and study the lives of the insects, we have wondered if we were also mapping the lives of
the collectors. This series is an opportunity to use the digitized collection to
map the lives of women who have contributed to the American Museum of
Natural History collection and the Tri-Trophic TCN project. Who were
they? What are their stories?  Like many entomologists at the time, Edith Marion Patch’s first recorded interest was butterflies. In her senior year of high school she wrote an essay about monarchs that won $25.00. With her prize money she purchased the Manual for the Study of Insects written by John Henry Comstock and illustrated by his wife, Anna Comstock. The Comstocks were entomologists at Cornell University whom Patch would later befriend. Edith Patch attended the University of Minnesota in 1897 and graduated in 1901 with a Bachelor in Science. Despite her qualifications, she couldn’t find a job in entomology so she took a position teaching English at a high school in Minnesota for two years. Finally, in 1903, she was invited by Dr. Charles D. Woods to organize a Department of Entomology in Orono, Maine. Today UCBs Department contains digitized plant bugs collected by E.M. Patch in Orono, Maine. Three specimens of Cryptomyzus (Cryptomonyzis) ribis and five of Eirosoma ulmi are currently in the database.  EM Patch 1916 - edithpatch.org Initially, she wasn’t offered a salary and Dr. Woods was “ridiculed for appointing a woman in a man’s field” (http://www.edithpatch.org/). To earn a living wage, he arranged for Patch to teach English in the area while she organized the Entomology department. Within a year, Patch had proven herself to her male coworkers, established the department and earned herself a salaried position. For her masters degree she attended the University of Maine in 1910. Although a few websites say that Patch earned her PhD from Columbia University, she actually attended Cornell University in 1911 for her doctorate. At Cornell she became colleagues with the Comstocks. In 1930, Patch
became the first female president elected to the Entomology Society of America. Check out her children’s literature: Hexapod Stories, Bird Stories, Dame Bug and her Babies and Elm Leaf Curl and Wooly Apple Aphid: http://amzn.to/1mf9OAc References & Suggested Further Reading: http://www.rachelcarson.org/Biography.aspx#.Uv0giEJdUck http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/patch-em.html Article by Becky Fisher: TTTCN Intern and Masters candidate at Columbia University in Museum Anthropology. |
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