David Starr Jordan, Ph.D., LL.D. (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was a leading
eugenicistEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
, ichthyologist, educator and
peace activistThis list of peace activists includes people who proactively advocate diplomatic, non-military resolution of political disputes, usually through nonviolent means.A peace activist is an activist of the peace movement.*Jane Addams*Martti Ahtisaari...
. He was president of Indiana University and
Stanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.
Early life and education
Jordan was born in Gainesville, New York, and studied at
Cornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
,
Butler UniversityButler University is a private university located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Founded in 1855 and named after founder Ovid Butler, the university offers 60 degree programs to 4,400 students through six colleges: business, communication, education, liberal Arts and sciences, pharmacy and health...
, and the Indiana University School of Medicine. While at Cornell University, Jordan joined the
Delta UpsilonDelta Upsilon is the sixth oldest international, all-male, college Greek-letter organization, and is the oldest non-secret fraternity in North America...
fraternity.
Career
In 1885, he was named President of Indiana University, becoming the nation's youngest university president at age 34 and the first Indiana University president that was not an ordained minister. In 1891, he became president of Stanford University, serving there as president until 1913 and chancellor until his retirement in 1916.
Jordan served as a Director of the
Sierra ClubThe Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...
from 1892 to 1903.
Although well regarded as an ichthyologist, Jordan was best known for being a peace activist. He argued that war was detrimental to the human species because it removed the strongest organisms from the gene pool. Jordan was president of the World Peace Foundation from 1910 to 1914 and president of the World Peace Conference in 1915, and opposed U.S. involvement in
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
In 1925, Jordan was an expert witness for the defense in the
Scopes TrialThe Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act which made it unlawful to...
. That same year, he was a listed member in the
Bohemian ClubThe Bohemian Club is a private men's club in San Francisco, California, United States.Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco...
and the University Club in San Francisco.
He served as a member of the initial board of trustees of the
Human Betterment FoundationThe Human Betterment Foundation was an American eugenics organization established in Pasadena, California in 1928 by E.S. Gosney with the aim "to foster and aid constructive and educational forces for the protection and betterment of the human family in body, mind, character, and citizenship"...
, a eugenics organization established in
Pasadena, CaliforniaPasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
in 1928 in order to compile and distribute information about
compulsory sterilizationCompulsory sterilization also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...
legislation in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, for the purposes of
eugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
.
Legacy
His son, Eric Knight Jordan (1903–1926) followed his father's footsteps into the sciences. He had taken part in a successful paleontological expedition to the
Revillagigedo IslandsThe Revillagigedo Islands or Revillagigedo Archipelago are a group of four volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, known for their unique ecosystem...
and was considered a rising star in the world of
paleontologyPaleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
when he was involved in a traffic accident near
Gilroy, CaliforniaGilroy is the southernmost city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 48,821 at the 2010 census. Gilroy is well-known for its garlic crop and for the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, featuring various garlicky foods, including garlic ice cream. Gilroy also produces...
, suffering fatal injuries and dying at the age of 22. His death was a severe blow to his father.
Jordan's files are housed at
Swarthmore CollegeSwarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
.
Monuments and memorials
- NOAA research vessel
A research vessel is a ship designed and equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel, others require a dedicated vessel...
David Starr Jordan
- David Starr Jordan High School in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
- David Starr Jordan High School
David Starr Jordan High School is a public high school in Long Beach, California. It is part of the Long Beach Unified School District-Overview:...
in Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
- David Starr Jordan Middle School in Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
- Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
- "Jordan River", a stream flowing through the Indiana University campus
- Legionella jordanis, a bacterium isolated from the "Jordan River"
- Jordan Avenue in Bloomington
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....
- Jordan Hall, home of the Indiana University Department of Biology located in Bloomington Indiana.
- Jordan Hall, home of the Psychology Department at Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
Notable works
- Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States (1876)
- Science sketches (1887)
- Fishes of North and Middle America (four volumes, 1896–1900)
- Animal Life: A First Book of Zoölogy (1900), with Vernon L. Kellog
- The Philosophy of Despair (1901)
- Food and Game Fishes of North America (1902), with B. W. Evermann
Barton Warren Evermann was an American ichthyologist. He was born in Monroe County, Iowa, and graduated from Indiana University in 1886. For 10 years, he served as teacher and superintendent of schools in Indiana and California. He was professor of biology at the Indiana State University in...
- Guide to the Study of Fishes (1905)
- Life's Enthusiasms (1906)
- The Blood of the Nation
The Blood of the Nation: A Study in the Decay of Races by the Survival of the Unfit was the title of a number of publications by the American eugenicist David Starr Jordan one time president of Stanford University . Jordan's thesis under this name first appeared in the May 1901 edition of Popular...
(1901 & 1910, expanded)
- California and the Californians (1911)
- War and Waste (1913)
- War's Aftermath (1914), with H. E. Jordan
- Days of a Man (1922) - autobiography
- Ways of Lasting Peace
- Democracy and World Relations
- Imperial Democracy
- Shore Fishes of Hawaii
- The Fish Fauna of the Tortugas Archipelago (with Dr. Joseph Cheesman Thompson) published for the US Bureau of Fisheries
Eponymy
The genera
JordaniaJordânia is a Brazilian municipality located in the northeast of the state of Minas Gerais. The city belongs to the mesoregion of Jequitinhonha and to the microregion of Almenara. As of 2007 the population was 10,751 in a total area of 549 km²....
Starks, 1895,
Davidijordania Popov, 1931, and
Jordanella GoodeGeorge Brown Goode , was an ichthyologist, although most of his time was spent as a museum administrator and he was very interested in the history of science, especially the history of the development of science in America. Goode graduated from Wesleyan University and studied at Harvard University...
& BeanTarleton Hoffman Bean was an American ichthyologist, born at Bainbridge, Pennsylvania on 8 October 1846. He died in Albany, New York on 28 December 1916.-FAMILY AND EDUCATION :...
, 1879 are named after him.
Species named after him include:
- Agonomalus jordani Jordan & Starks, 1904.
- Agonomalus jordani Schmidt, 1904.
- Allocareproctus jordani (Burke, 1930).
- Astyanax jordani
Astyanax jordani is a freshwater fishof the characin family oforder Characiformes, native to Mexico.. It is called Cave Tetra , or by its local Spanish name Sardina Ciega.A blind cave fish, A. jordani is recently evolved from the Mexican tetra...
(Hubbs & Innes, 1936).
- Caelorinchus jordani Smith & Pope, 1906.
- Caulophryne jordani Goode
George Brown Goode , was an ichthyologist, although most of his time was spent as a museum administrator and he was very interested in the history of science, especially the history of the development of science in America. Goode graduated from Wesleyan University and studied at Harvard University...
& BeanTarleton Hoffman Bean was an American ichthyologist, born at Bainbridge, Pennsylvania on 8 October 1846. He died in Albany, New York on 28 December 1916.-FAMILY AND EDUCATION :...
, 1896.
- Chimaera jordani Tanaka, 1905.
- Charal, Chirostoma jordani Woolman, 1894.
- Jordan's tuskfish, Choerodon jordani (Snyder, 1908).
- Flame wrasse, Cirrhilabrus jordani Snyder, 1904.
- Smooth lumpfish, Cyclopteropsis jordani Soldatov, 1929.
- Diplacanthopoma jordani Garman, 1899.
- Mimic triplefin, Enneanectes jordani (Evermann & Marsh, 1899).
- Petrale sole
The Petrale sole, Eopsetta jordani, is an edible flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae. It is a demersal fish that lives on sandy bottoms, usually in deep water, down to depths of about . Males can grow to in length, females to , and they can weigh up to...
, Eopsetta jordani (Lockington, 1879).
- Greenbreast darter, Etheostoma jordani Gilbert, 1891.
- Gadella jordani (Böhlke & Mead, 1951).
- Yellow Irish lord, Hemilepidotus jordani Bean
Tarleton Hoffman Bean was an American ichthyologist, born at Bainbridge, Pennsylvania on 8 October 1846. He died in Albany, New York on 28 December 1916.-FAMILY AND EDUCATION :...
, 1881.
- Brokenline lanternfish, Lampanyctus jordani Gilbert, 1913.
- Jordan's snapper, Lutjanus jordani (Gilbert, 1898).
- Shortjaw eelpout, Lycenchelys jordani (Evermann & Goldsborough, 1907).
- Malthopsis jordani Gilbert, 1905.
- Gulf grouper
The gulf grouper is a species of fish in the Serranidae family. It is endemic to Mexico.-Source:* Roberts, C. 1996. . Downloaded on 4 August 2007....
, Mycteroperca jordani (Jenkins & Evermann, 1889).
- Neosalanx jordani Wakiya & Takahashi, 1937.
- Patagonotothen jordani (Thompson, 1916).
- Ptychidio jordani Myers, 1930.
- Northern ronquil, Ronquilus jordani (Gilbert, 1889).
- Shortbelly rockfish, Sebastes jordani (Gilbert, 1896).
- Jordan's damsel, Teixeirichthys jordani (Rutter, 1897).
- Jordan's sculpin, Triglops jordani (Schmidt, 1903).
External links