Clara Southmayd Ludlow
| Clara Southmayd Ludlow | |
|---|---|
Dr. Clara Southmayd Ludlow, B.S., M.A., Ph.D., ca. 1920; see [1] for a photograph of her in her youth.
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| Born |
26 December 1852 Easton, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | 28 September 1924 (aged 71) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Residence | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | B.S., M.A., Mississippi State University, Ph.D. George Washington University |
| Years active | 1889-1924 |
| Known for | Scientist, Entomologist |
| Parent(s) | Jacob Rapalje Ludlow, Anna Mary Hunt |
Dr. Clara Southmayd Ludlow, the first woman known to publish extensively on the taxonomy of mosquitoes and their occurrence in relation to the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases, forged a notable career in medical entomology during a time when women were rare among the ranks of entomologists, and she did so in association with the military, where the presence of women was even more rare. Details of her life have been addressed in two publications, from which the following summary is drawn.
Clara Southmayd Ludlow was born on December 26, 1852 at Easton, Pennsylvania, the eldest child of Jacob Rapalje and Anna Mary (Hunt) Ludlow. Her childhood was disrupted significantly by the American Civil War, in which her father served as Surgeon of the 1st Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, United States Army.
In 1877, she enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music, from which she graduated in 1879. In 1880 she was enumerated by the federal census at the Monticello Female Seminary near Alton, Illinois, her occupation listed as "Music [Teacher]." Her entry in the 1925 edition of the Biographical Cyclopedia of American Women states that "for many years she made music her profession, teaching and doing a certain amount of concert work." Her professional records, deposited at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., begin with the year 1889, suggesting that at some point in the late 1880s, she began to turn to science as an avocation or perhaps vocation.
By 1897, she was a student at Mississippi Agricultural & Mechanical College (now Mississippi State University) in Starkville, Mississippi. She graduated from Mississippi A&M in 1900 with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. In 1901, she was awarded the Master of Arts degree in Botany by Mississippi A&M, reportedly 31 years before a graduate program was formally offered by that institution. One of her preserved works is a folder of drawings of Viola species (the violets) in the Edward L. Greene Papers of the University of Notre Dame Archives, perhaps obtained by Professor Greene when he worked in the Washington, D.C., area as a faculty member of the Botany Department of the Catholic University of America from 1885-1904, or in his capacity as an associate in botany at the Smithsonian Institution from 1904-1909, either of which positions might have brought him into professional correspondence with Ludlow.
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