Person

Barbour, Thomas, 1884-1946

1884-1946

Thomas Barbour was born on August 19, 1884, on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts but grew up in Monmouth, New Jersey.

He was an American herpetologist. At the age of fifteen, he visited Harvard University and fell in love with its Museum of Comparative Zoology. He studied at Harvard University under Prof. Alexander Agassiz (B.A., 1906; M.A., 1908 and Ph.D., 1910). Barbour joined the faculty in 1911 as a Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and in 1927, he became Director of the Museum. His scientific travels took him through Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and Central America. He particularly enjoyed Panama, Costa Rica, and Cuba, which he visited on at least thirty occasions, generally staying in Soledad at the Harvard Botanical Gardens, now known as the Jardin Botanico de Cienfuegos. Barbour served as custodian of these gardens from 1927 until he died in 1946. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1916. In 1923 and 1924, he was one of the scientists and financial benefactors who founded the Barro Colorado Island Laboratory in Panama, the location of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. In 1931, Barbour organized The Harvard Australian Expedition (1931–1932). In 1934 and 1935, accompanied by his wife and his two youngest daughters, he made two journeys to Africa. He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1933 and the American Philosophical Society in 1937. Along with more than 400 scholarly articles, Barbour wrote several books, including the autobiographical “Naturalist at Large” (1943), “Naturalist in Cuba” (1945), “A Naturalist's Scrapbook” (1946), and “That Vanishing Eden” (1944), which explores the natural world of a remote, undeveloped Florida. He is commemorated in the scientific names of many species and subspecies of reptiles, including Amphisbaena barbouri, an amphisbaenian, Anolis barbouri, a lizard, Aristelliger barbouri, a gecko, and Atheris barbouri, a venomous snake.

In 1906, he married Rosamond Pierce (1886–1953). He died on January 8, 1946, Boston, Massachusetts.