Pilsbry, Henry Augustus, 1862-

Henry A. Pilsbry (1862-1957), Dean of American Malacologists, was associated with the Academy of Natural Sciences for 70 years. At the Academy, he served as conservator, curator and head of the Department of Shells, but he was also the internationally recognized authority in the field of land mollusca. He wrote and edited many volumes of the Manual of Conchology and, from 1889 until his death, was an editor of the journal Nautilus, which he founded. A member of many scientific expeditions, he traveled all over the United States, to the Caribbean, South America, Mexico, Hawaii and other Pacific Islands, and to Australia.

Pilsbry was born on December 7, 1862 on a farm near Iowa City, Iowa to Dexter R. and Elizabeth Anderson Pilsbry. Pilsbry was “interested in animals and plants from an early age, and made collections of them as a boy,” (American Malacological Union, page 1). He obtained his education from the public schools of Iowa City and earned his bachelor’s of science degree from the University of Iowa in 1910. During his scholarship at the University of Iowa, his interest in geology, fossils, and zoology developed under the teaching of Professor Samuel Calvin. According to Pilsbry, “after his school days, [he] had to make a living and worked in newspaper and book printing houses in Iowa City and Davenport, Iowa, and finally New York, [but] all [his] spare time … was spent in country trips mainly after fossils and mollusks,” (Pilsbry, page 58).

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