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Authorised form of nameOsborn; Henry Fairfield (1857 - 1935); paleontologist, geologist, and eugenicist
Dates1857 - 1935
NationalityAmerican
Place of birthFairfield, Connecticut, USA
Date of birth08 August 1857
Place of deathCastle Rock, Garrison-on -Hudson, New York, USA
Date of death06/11/1935
DatesAndPlacesPlace of marriage: Military chapel on Governors Island, New York, USA.
Occupationpaleontologist, geologist, and eugenicist
Research fieldComparative anatomy
Embryology
Geology
Eugenics
Palaeontology
Vertebrates
ActivityEducation:
Princeton University BA, PhD; College of Physicians and Surgeons; Bellevue Medical School of New York; Cambridge University
Career:
Lecturer in Biology and Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Princeton (1883-1890); professor of zoology at Columbia University and simultaneously curator of the Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology, at the American Museum of Natural History (1891).
Memberships:
Boone and Crockett Club (1897)
New York Zoological Society (President 1909-1925)
Medals/Awards:
Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1929)
Membership categoryForeign Member
Date of election29/04/1926
Age at election69
ProposerRobert Robertson; Frederick George Donnan; Edmund Johnston Garwood; Frederick Orpen Bower; John Charles Grant Ledingham; Thomas Lewis; Charles Scott Sherrington; James Peter Hill
Ernest Rutherford; David Prain; James Hopwood Jeans; Henry Hallett Dale; Richard Tetley Glazebrook; George Clarke Simpson; Sydney Chapman; Leonard Bairstow; Frederick Alexander Lindemann; William Cecil Dampier Whetham
RSActivityMedals and prizes:
Darwin Medal 1918
RelationshipsParents: William Henry Osborn, shipping magnate, and Virginia Reed (née Sturges) Osborn.
Spouse: Lucretia Thatcher Perry (1881)
PublishedWorksRCN 23735
RCN 57264
RCN 57265
RCN 57266
RCN 20007
RCN 15525
RCN 57267
OtherInfoKnown for his work on vertebrate palaeontology.
Developed his own evolutionary theory of human origins named "Dawn Man Theory".
Co-founded the American Eugenics Society in 1922.
Supported eugenics for the preservation of “good racial stock” and endorsed Madison Grant’s “The Passing of the Great Race”, contributing the second and fourth prefaces of the book, expressing his views.
Royal Society Obituary or MemoirClick to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices)
SourceSources:
Bulloch's Roll; DSB
Obituaries:
Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1936-1938 vol 2 pp 67-71, plate, by A Smith Woodward
CodeNA751
Archives associated with this Fellow
RefNoTitleDate
EC/1926/06Osborn, Henry Fairfield: certificate of election to the Royal Society
MC/33/129Letter from Henry Fairfield Osborn, The American Museum of Natural History, New York, to Dr Arthur Schuster, Secretary of the Royal Society9 December 1918
NLB/21/461Copy letter from Michael Foster, to Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, [Foreign Member of the Royal Society], Samsons-on-Hudson, New York22 November 1900
NLB/56/108Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John W. Davis] the American Ambassador25 November 1918
NLB/56/55Copy letter from Dr. Arthur Schuster, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. Henry [Fairfield] Osborn, FRS7 November 1918
NLB/56/183Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [George Ellery] Hale, FRS9 December 1918
NLB/56/235Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Henry Fairfield] Osborn, FRS; New York, U.S.A18 December 1918
NLB/69/577Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Prof. [Henry Fairfield] Osborn, Foreign Member of the Royal Society., Stafford Hotel, St. James's Place, SW111 June 1926
NLB/72/317Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [Henry Fairfield] Osborn, ForMemRS3 July 1929
IM/003390Osborn, Henry Fairfieldnd
NLB/56/57Copy letter from Dr. Arthur Schuster, Secretary of the Royal Society; to the Deputy Master of the [Royal] Mint7 November 1918
NLB/69/277Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Prof. [James Hartley] Ashworth, FRS19 February 1926
IM/003391Osborn, Henry Fairfield1933
MC/34/140Letter from [Henry Fairfield] Osborn, Office of the President, The American Museum of Natural History, New York, to Robert Harrison, Royal Society, London11 February 1919
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