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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT--John Otterbein Snyder (1867-1943) was an early student of David Starr Jordan at Stanford University and subsequently rose to become an assistant professor there. During his 34 years with the university he taught a wide variety of courses in various branches of zoology and advised numerous students. He eventually mentored 8 M.A. and 4 Ph.D. students to completion at Stanford. He also assisted in the collection of tens of thousands offish specimens from the western Pacific, central Pacific, and the West Coast of North America, part of the time while stationed as "Naturalist" aboard the U.S. Fish Commission's Steamer Albatross (1902-06). Although his early publications dealt mainly with fish groups and descriptions (often as a junior author with Jordan), after 1910 he became more autonomous and eventually rose to become one of the Pacific salmon, Oncorhynchus spp., experts on the West Coast. Throughout his career, he was especially esteemed by colleagues as "a stimulating teacher," "an excellent biologist," and "a fine man."
Introduction
For 80 years, beginning in 1891--the year that U.S. senator Leland Stanford's university opened under the leadership of its new president, David Staff Jordan (1851-1931)--there flourished such a productive and distinguished group of ichthyologists and fisheries biologists in the Department of Zoology, that they were known as the "Stanford School of Ichthyology." (Brittan, 1997). Many of his newly hired faculty, chief among them Charles Henry Gilbert (1859-1928) (Dunn, 1997), had been students and, later, colleagues of Jordan when he had been professor and president at Indiana University from 1885 to 1891.
Of the earliest Stanford students, two who soon became members of the Stanford zoology faculty were John Otterbein Snyder (1867-1943; Fig. 1) and Edwin Chapin Starks (1867-1932). Although a considerable amount has been written about Jordan and Gilbert and their students (Jordan, 1922; Myers, 1951; Brittan, 1997; Dunn, 1997), virtually nothing has been written about Snyder save three short obituaries in scientific journals that appeared soon after his death (Hubbs, 1943; Rich, 1943; Taft, 1944). In this paper, we describe some of Snyder's fisheries work, both in marine and freshwater environments, and his collaboration with Stanford faculty and students. In doing so, we hope to provide an idea of the mixing and exchange of people and ideas at Stanford University that provided the solid basis for our understanding of regional fish faunas in parts of the Pacific Ocean and the American West.
Biographical Overview
Snyder, like so many of Jordan's early students, was a native Indianan (born in Butler on 14 Aug. 1867) and received his early education in the state (Hubbs, 1943; Rich, 1943). Upon his graduation from high school in 1888, he taught public school for 2 years at Cedar Lake, Ind., but soon after decided to further his education (Anonymous, 1943). Thus, after a year as a student at the University of Indiana during 1890-91, he followed Jordan to Stanford as an undergraduate student (Rich, 1943). Snyder attended Stanford during 1892-93 (Fig. 2), was Superintendent of Schools at Pullman, Wash., from 1893 to 94 (to earn money for his undergraduate education), and again was a student at Stanford during 1894-97 (Anonymous, 1910; 1943). He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1897, and soon after, was awarded the Master of Arts degree in 1899, with Gilbert as his major professor (Brittan, 1997)....
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