| Authorised form of name | Osborn; Henry Fairfield (1857 - 1935); paleontologist, geologist, and eugenicist |
| Dates | 1857 - 1935 |
| Nationality | American |
| Place of birth | Fairfield, Connecticut, USA |
| Date of birth | 08 August 1857 |
| Place of death | Castle Rock, Garrison-on -Hudson, New York, USA |
| Date of death | 06/11/1935 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Place of marriage: Military chapel on Governors Island, New York, USA. |
| Occupation | paleontologist, geologist, and eugenicist |
| Research field | Comparative anatomy |
| Embryology |
| Geology |
| Eugenics |
| Palaeontology |
| Vertebrates |
| Activity | Education:
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 category | Foreign Member |
| Date of election | 29/04/1926 |
| Age at election | 69 |
| Proposer | Robert 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 |
| RSActivity | Medals and prizes:
Darwin Medal 1918 |
| Relationships | Parents: William Henry Osborn, shipping magnate, and Virginia Reed (née Sturges) Osborn.
Spouse: Lucretia Thatcher Perry (1881) |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 23735
RCN 57264
RCN 57265
RCN 57266
RCN 20007
RCN 15525
RCN 57267 |
| OtherInfo | Known 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 Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Source | Sources:
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 |
| Code | NA751 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1926/06 | Osborn, Henry Fairfield: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| MC/33/129 | Letter from Henry Fairfield Osborn, The American Museum of Natural History, New York, to Dr Arthur Schuster, Secretary of the Royal Society | 9 December 1918 |
| NLB/21/461 | Copy letter from Michael Foster, to Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, [Foreign Member of the Royal Society], Samsons-on-Hudson, New York | 22 November 1900 |
| NLB/56/108 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John W. Davis] the American Ambassador | 25 November 1918 |
| NLB/56/55 | Copy letter from Dr. Arthur Schuster, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. Henry [Fairfield] Osborn, FRS | 7 November 1918 |
| NLB/56/183 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [George Ellery] Hale, FRS | 9 December 1918 |
| NLB/56/235 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Henry Fairfield] Osborn, FRS; New York, U.S.A | 18 December 1918 |
| NLB/69/577 | Copy 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, SW1 | 11 June 1926 |
| NLB/72/317 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [Henry Fairfield] Osborn, ForMemRS | 3 July 1929 |
| IM/003390 | Osborn, Henry Fairfield | nd |
| NLB/56/57 | Copy letter from Dr. Arthur Schuster, Secretary of the Royal Society; to the Deputy Master of the [Royal] Mint | 7 November 1918 |
| NLB/69/277 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Prof. [James Hartley] Ashworth, FRS | 19 February 1926 |
| IM/003391 | Osborn, Henry Fairfield | 1933 |
| MC/34/140 | Letter from [Henry Fairfield] Osborn, Office of the President, The American Museum of Natural History, New York, to Robert Harrison, Royal Society, London | 11 February 1919 |