Tarleton Hoffman Bean | |
---|---|
Born |
Bainbridge, Pennsylvania |
October 8, 1846
Died | December 28, 1916 Albany, New York |
(aged 70)
Nationality | American |
Fields | Ichthyology |
Institutions | Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Fish Commission, New York Aquarium, American Museum of Natural History |
Alma mater | George Washington University |
Known for | Systematic Ichthyology |
Author abbrev. (zoology) | Bean |
Tarleton Hoffman Bean (October 8, 1846 – December 28, 1916) was an American ichthyologist.
Tarleton Hoffman Bean was born to George Bean and Mary Smith Bean in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania, on October 8, 1846. He attended State Normal School at nearby Millersport, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1866. He received an M.D. degree from Columbian University, now George Washington University, Washington, DC, 1876.
In 1883, he was awarded an M.S. degree from the Indiana University on the basis of his professional accomplishments, although he did not attend classes there. He married Laurette H. van Hook, daughter of John Welsh VanHook, a local Washington businessman, in 1878 in Washington, DC. They had one daughter, Caroline van Hook Bean (born in Washington on November 16, 1879), a noted artist who later married Bernardus Blommers, Jr.
His brother, Barton Appler Bean, also became an ichthyologist and worked under him at the National Museum.
Bean died in Albany, New York, on December 28, 1916.
In addition to his work in ichthyology, Bean was a forester, a fish culturist, a conservationist, an editor, an administrator, and an exhibitor. Growing up along the Susquehanna River in southern Pennsylvania, he presumably had an early introduction to fishes. His initial interest, however, was botany, perhaps stimulated by his acquaintance with Joseph Trimble Rothrock, a physician-scientist who had a medical practice in Wilkes-Barre, but also had taught botany at Pennsylvania State College.
His focus on ichthyology probably began in the summer of 1874, when he worked as a volunteer at the Fish Commission laboratory in Noank, Connecticut. There, he first met Spencer F. Baird and a number of the young scientists who had gathered around him. First among these was George Brown Goode, who with Bean would form one of the most famous collaborative teams in ichthyology. Bean spent the next two decades in Washington working for Baird’s two institutions, the National Museum and the Fish Commission, in a number of capacities. He left Washington in 1895 to become the Director of the New York Aquarium, but political problems led to his resignation in 1898. He spent most of the next eight years working on the fisheries and forestry exhibits at the world’s fairs in Paris (1900) and St. Louis (1904). In 1906, he became New York’s state fish culturist, a position he held until his death in 1916 following an automobile accident.