Blackwelder, Richard E.

Richard Eliot Blackwelder (1909-2001), a zoologist, specialized in entomology and the principles of zoology. Educated at Stanford University (B.A. 1931, Ph.D. 1934), he began his career with the Smithsonian's Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholarship from 1935 to 1938. He worked briefly for the Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) before accepting an assistant curatorship at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in 1938. From 1940 to 1954, Blackwelder was on the curatorial staff of the Division of Insects of the United States National Museum (USNM), specializing in the morphology, classification, and nomenclature of the Staphylinidae. Blackwelder was very active in the Society of Systematic Zoology (SSZ), notably as Editor of Systematic Zoology. In 1954, he began a study of the principles of zoology. From 1956 to 1958, he was an Associate Professor at St. John Fisher College, and from 1965 to 1977 was Professor of Zoology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Smithsonian Institution Archives Field Book Project: Person : Description : rid_152_pid_EACP149