Thread by @MorehouseLab

Sing the unsung #BlackInSTEM heroes, whose recognition is so long overdue!

Let me introduce you to Charles Henry Turner, pioneer of comparative animal behavior studies, groundbreaking sensory ecologist, dedicated and compassionate teacher.

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@uofcincy @uc_artsci @BiologyUC

Born in 1867 in Cincinnati, OH, 2 years after the Civil War, son of a church custodian and a nurse, Charles graduated valedictorian from Woodward HS (@ItsBlue_AllDay) and went on to attend the University of Cincinnati (@uofcincy).

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He graduated from @uofcincy with his BA in 1891, and his MS in 1892, becoming the FIRST African American to receive a graduate degree from the University of Cincinnati. During this time, he also spent a year doing research at the Cincinnati Observatory (@CinObservatory).

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While at UC, he worked with Clarence Luther Herrick, a pioneering neurobiologist and the founder of developmental psychobiology.

Turner's undergraduate work on the avian brain was published, in part, in @ScienceMagazine in 1892: science.sciencemag.org/content/ns-19/…

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But this wasn't the only thing he published in @ScienceMagazine that year! He also published a dispatch on leaf production in grape vines (science.sciencemag.org/content/ns-20/…).

Also in 1892, he published 2 articles on spider behavior in the J of Comparative Neurology (@wileyneurosci).

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His intellectual vibrancy and scientific breadth are astounding. In the years between graduating with his MS from @uofcincy and graduating as the first African American PhD recipient from @UChicago, magna cum laude, in 1907, Turner would publish 28 peer-reviewed articles...

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...on subjects ranging from neurobiology (mushroom bodies of inverts, comp anatomy of avian brains) to ant behavior to a 500 page monograph on the Entomostraca of Minnesota to educational and social justice issues ("Reason for teaching Biology in Negro Schools").

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During this same period, he held positions at @uofcincy (1892-93, thought to be the only African American instructor at UC at the time), at Clark College (@CAU, Professor of Biology, 1893-1905), and at high schools in Cincinnati and Cleveland, TN.

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He also became the father of 3 (Louisa, Henry, & Darwin) with his wife Leontine, only to suffer her passing in 1905.

And this was all before being awarded his PhD, and while dedicating himself to the education of African Americans at all-Black HS and HBCUs around the US.

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At this point, his career path is not entirely clear. Some sources indicate that he was unable to gain employment at @uchicago, whereas others claim that he received an offer, but turned it down in favor of teaching biology at all Black high schools.

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Either way, Turner would spend the rest of his life dedicated to innovative biology instruction in all-Black high schools, first in August, GA at Haines Normal and Industrial Institute (georgiahistory.com/ghmi_marker_up…), and then in St. Louis at Sumner HS (@SumnerSpartans).

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In this context of dedicated service to the scientific education of African American youth, self-funded, and with no access to the resources of a research institution, Turner made a number of key scientific breakthroughs that many do not know should be credited to him...

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These include:

1. The first experimental evidence that honeybees can see color:

"Experiments on the color-vision of the honey bee" (1910)
@BiolBulletin
, 19:257-259 (journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.230…)

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2. Some of the earliest evidence that honeybees see patterns:

"Experiments on the pattern-vision of the honey bee" (1911) @BiolBulletin, 21:249-264

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3. The first experimental evidence that insects can hear:

"Auditory powers of the catocala moths: An experimental field study" (1914) @BiolBulletin, 27:275-293 (journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/15…)

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4. Some of the earliest work to show that insects are not simply guided by unthinking tropisms, but rather can learn and make sophisticated decisions, e.g.:

"Do ants form practical judgements?" (1907) @BiolBulletin, 13: 333-342 (journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10…)

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Many of the latter insights were provided by ingenious and deceptively simple apparatuses developed by Turner on his limited budget. For example, this clever floating maze for investigations of learning and decision making in cockroaches:

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5. Turner also did extensive work on homing behavior and navigation in the Hymenoptera, work that would predate (and not be cited by) by 40 yrs the famous work of Nikolaas Tinbergen, despite Tinbergen's work being in many ways a re-discovery of Turner's insights.

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Turner's work on the homing behavior of ants would later be recognized by Cornetz, who would name the exploratory circling that ants do when they return to their nests the "tournoiement de Turner" (Turner circling).
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Alongside these scientific breakthroughs, Turner regularly published arguments for the value of educating African Americans in the sciences, and would use what we call today "inquiry-based" scientific instruction to enrich the education of Black HS students until his death.

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All in all, Turner published 70 works of scholarship, and more firsts than are worth counting on Twitter. First African American to be awarded graduate degrees at @uofcincy and @UChicago, first African American to publish in @ScienceMagazine, @ASNAmNat, and many others.

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His legacy of brilliant scholarship, albiet unsung in the scientific community, continued on through his family. His niece, Laura Knight Turner, would go on to be the youngest person to gain enrollment @uofcincy at the age of 15, and UC’s youngest graduate at 18 years-old.

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Laura's achievement would soon be outdone by Charles Henry Turner’s grandson, Darwin T. Turner, who enrolled at 13 and graduated at 16. Darwin is still the youngest graduate of @uofcincy and namesake for an outstanding minority-supporting program (uc.edu/campus-life/ep…)

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Darwin T. would also go on to get his MS from @UC_English (and PhD from @UChicago). Apparently he completed the work for his MS by the age of 17, but was not awarded it until 18 because the instructors deemed him too young to be ready to teach at the college level.

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What a life! What a man! What a pioneer! Speak of #BlackInSTEM, #BlackinIvory, and #BlackAFinSTEM! Part of our role as scientists is to revisit the cannons and legacies that we accept as true history to see how so many have been marginalized, forgotten, excluded.

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For they are often the best amongst us!

A huge shout out to Charles Abramson at @okstate who edited a book on Charles Henry Turner's life and work (charlesabramson.wixsite.com/abramsonlab)
(mellenpress.com/book/Selected-…) from which much of this information is derived.

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And also to @DNLee5 for her excellent recent piece in Animal Behaviour on "Diversity and inclusion activisms in animal behaviour and the @AnimBehSociety: a historical view from the U.S.A."(sciencedirect.com/science/articl…), which includes an wonderful section on Turner and others.

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Also, please RT the start of this thread (and any parts you are particularly moved by) to help raise awareness of Charles Henry Turner! Thanks!!

Shoutout 2 relevant scientific socs. Please read thread 👆, RT, consider how you might elevate the legacy of this pioneer!

@EntsocAmerica
@AnimBehSociety
@neuroethology
@SICB_DNNSB
@ISArachnology
@AAS_arachnology
@IUSSI_NAS
@BehavEcol
@SfNtweets
@SICB_
@systbiol
@Hymenopterists

Second shoutout to relevant scientific socs. Please read thread 👆, RT, consider how you might elevate the legacy of this pioneer!

@xercessociety
@Pollinators
@anat_soc
@APA
@BxNeuroCompPsy
@ESA_org
@IJCPsychology
@appliedethology

Also @NSF.

Would also like to recognize that @AnimBehSociety DOES have a wonderful program in honor of Charles Henry Turner:

animalbehaviorsociety.org/web/awards-tur…

Way to go, ABS!!