A zoologist and educator, Henry Baldwin Ward (1865-1945) is remembered as the "father of American parasitology." Born in Troy, New York, Ward was raised in a scientifically-inclined family that included his father, Richard Halsted Ward, a microscopist and physician, and aunt, Anna Lydia Ward, an explorer and lecturer. After receiving his A.B. from Williams College in 1885, and three years of teaching science in the local high school, Ward pursued postgraduate study in Germany, spending time at the Universities of Gottingen, Freiburg, and Leipzig, working as well at three of the most advanced marine biological stations in Europe at Naples, Ville-Franche-sur-Mer, and Helgoland. At Leipzig, Ward came particularly under the influence of Rudolph Leuckart, who is often credited as being the founder of the science of parasitology, and a noted expert on Pentastomium, Taenia, and Trichina spiralis. Resolving to establish a parasitological research facility in the United States to match Leuckart's, Ward returned home in 1890, and completed his doctorate at Harvard in 1892.

After a year as instructor at the University of Michigan, Ward moved to the University of Nebraska in 1893, earning promotion to become the first Dean of the College of Medicine in 1902 on the strength of a string of publications in parasitology. Ward's tenure at the medical school, however, came to an abrupt end in 1909, when political divisions over the decision to move the medical college at Lincoln to join the Omaha Medical College led his to resign. He quickly joined the faculty at the University of Illinois as head of the Department of Zoology, where he remained until his retirement in 1933. At Urbana, he was able to establish a full-fledged parasitological laboratory, and under his leadership, Illinois became the first school in the country to offer graduate education in the field.

Ward's influence on American parasitology is hard to overestimate. In 1914, he founded the Journal of Parasitology, serving as its editor until 1932, and with his colleagues Stephen A. Forbes and William Trelease, he initiated the important series of Illinois Biological Monographs. In his own research, Ward focussed on parasites of the human eye, the spread of the fish tapeworm, and parasitic diseases, but as an early student of ecology, he took a broad interest in limnology and ichthyology. Working on the biology of the Great Lakes for the Michigan Fish Commission, and spenduing his summers in the field studying the biology of Alaskan salmon beginning in 1906, Ward was co-author (with George Chandler Whipple) of Fresh-Water Biology (1918), the standard work in the field. He became an early advocate for wildlife and habitat conservation, warning against the effects of water pollution.

A member of a number of scientific societies and conservation groups, Ward was active in the National Wild Life Federation, Izaak Walton League of America (president, 1928-1930), the American Microscopical Society (president, 1905), the American Society of Zoologists (presidebnt, 1912-1914), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society of Sigma Xi. He was awarded four honorary doctorates, from the Universities of Cincinnati (1920), Oregon (1932), and Nebraska (1945), and from his alma mater, Williams College (1921). Since 1959, the highest medal awarded by the American Society of Parasitologists is named in his honor. Ward died of a heart attack at the age of 81 in Urbana, Illinois.

The Ward Papers consists of a small selection of the professional correspondence of the pioneering American parasitologist Henry Baldwin Ward. With correspondents scattered across the United States, Europe, and Japan, Ward maintained a regular round of exchanging publications, specimens, and scientific ideas, writing to colleagues including Alexander Agassiz, Max Braun, Theodore D. A. Cockerell, John M. Coulter, Charles B. Davenpiort, M. F. Guyer, Julian Huxley, Karl Mobius, G. H. F. Nuttall, C. C. Nutting, Arthur Shipley, Ernest Thompson Seton, August Weismann, and Casey A. Wood. The collection includes carbon copies of many of Ward's responses.

Among the miscellaneous items in the collection are a brief letter from John Muir, the early conservationist, thanking Ward for a publication, and a letter from the paleontology Joseph Leidy to Isaac Hayes, which was given by Joseph Leidy, Jr., for Ward's "collection" (presumably of autographs).

A small number of

Provenance

Acquired from Doris Harris Autographs, 1985 (accn. No,. 1985-811ms).

Preferred citation

Cite as: Henry Baldwin Ward Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Recatalogued 2003.

Separated material

Four engravings were transferred from the Ward Papers to the Graphics Collections: Herman Boerhaave, John Hunter, Isaac Newton, and Humprhey Davy.

Related material

The Henry B. Ward Papers at the University of Illinois Archives (RS 15/24/21; 3 cubic feet) contains materials that relate to parasitology, German scientific research, microscopy, salmon research, and marine pollution.

• Agassiz, Alexander, 1835-1910
• Braun, Max
• Cockerell, Theodore D. A. (Theodore Dru Alison), 1866-1948
• Coulter, John Merle, 1851-1928
• Davenport, Charles Benedict, 1866-1944
• Guyer, Michael F. (Michael Frederic)
• Huxley, Julian, 1887-1975
• Leidy, Joseph, 1866-1932
• Möbius, Karl August, 1825-1908
• Muir, John, 1838-1914
• Nuttall, George Henry Falkiner, 1862-1937
• Nutting, Charles Cleveland, 1858-1927
• Shipley, A.E., Sir (Arthur Everett), 1861-1927
• Ward, Henry Baldwin, 1865-1945
• Weismann, August, 1834-1914
• Wood, Casey A. (Casey Albert), 1856-1942

• Invertebrates -- Research
• Parasitology
• Zoology