Edith Marion Patch

Edith Marion Patch (1876–1954) was an American entomologist and writer. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, she received a degree from the University of Minnesota in 1901 and originally embarked on a career as an English teacher before receiving the opportunity to organize the entomology department at the University of Maine. She became the head of the entomology department in 1904, despite misgivings from several male colleagues about having a female department head, and she remained in this post until her 1937 retirement.

Patch subsequently earned her master's degree from the university in 1910 and later received a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1911. During her career, she was recognized as an expert in the study of aphids and published Food Plant Catalogue of the Aphids in 1938. She was elected president of the American Nature Study Society and in 1930 became the first female president of the Entomological Society of America. Patch's residence in Old Town, Maine, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Edith Marion Patch was the youngest of six children and was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1876. Her interest in natural history became evident at an early age and she used to ramble near her home, studying the animals, flowers and plants she saw there. The family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, when she was eight and then out into the countryside again two years later, when she was able to resume her interests in natural history. She was sufficiently knowledgeable while still at school to write an essay on the monarch butterfly which won her a prize in a competition. She invested her $25 reward in a copy of 's "Manual for the Study of Insects" with illustrations by . After graduating from Minneapolis's South High School in 1896, Patch went to the University of Minnesota, graduating with a BSc in 1901. At first she was unable to find suitable employment as an entomologist and spent two years teaching English at a high school, but she got her chance when Dr. Charles D. Woods offered her an unpaid post. The job was at the University of Maine in the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station to start up an entomology department. Woods decision to appoint based on merit and not gender was vindicated when she was granted a full-time job the following year.

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