Mildred Stratton Wilson Explained

Field:Zoology, Copepoda
Academic Advisors:S. F. Light
Known For:Invertebrate Zoology
Awards:Guggenheim Fellowship
Spouse:Charles Sawyer Wilson
Children:1
Workplaces:United States National Museum, University of Alaska
Alma Mater:University of California at Berkeley
Mildred S. Wilson
Birth Name:Mildred Stratton
Birth Date:25 April 1909
Birth Place:Seaside, Oregon, US
Death Date:6 August 1973

Mildred Stratton Wilson (April 25, 1909 – August 6, 1973) was an American zoologist, whose work on copepods was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955.[1]

Early life and education

Mildred Evelyn Stratton was born in Seaside, Oregon, the daughter of Clark Stratton and Ella Bock Stratton. Her father ran a confectionery shop and pool room; her mother was a Danish immigrant. She was raised there and in Everett, Washington. Stratton graduated from Marysville High School in 1925 at 16 years old. She earned a two-year teaching certificate in 1927 at Western Washington Teachers College in Bellingham, Washington, and taught in Marysville from 1927 to 1934; meanwhile she attended summer plant biology courses at Puget Sound Biological Station (PSBS).[2] During her teaching in the 1932–1933 school year, the Depression caused teachers to be paid in "warrants" which were not worth much. So after getting married, and after the 1933–1934 school year, she stopped teaching. In 1936, she enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1937 she was nominated for the Phi Beta Kappa society. She earned a B. A. there in 1938. She was a research assistant for S. F. Light in the spring of 1938.[3] She was a research assistant at Berkeley until 1940.

Career

Mildred Stratton Wilson established a solid record of scientific research without an advanced degree and without any official university affiliation. In 1938 Mildred Stratton Wilson started research, mostly as a volunteer, in the copepod collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., with her research continuing the work of Light on copepods. She was appointed assistant curator of marine invertebrate zoology in 1944 during World War II. She kept this title until 1946. In 1946 she was named a Collaborator in Copepod Crustaceans of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1948, she remained a collaborator at NMNH, but her work took her to Alaska, where she was the Territorial Entomologist with the United States Army Corps of Engineers. She became consulting biologist for the Arctic Health Research Center in 1951. She was affiliated with them until 1967, when they moved the center to Fairbanks, Alaska. While she was there she did not receive a salary but did get a new microscope, postal privileges, and support to make collections in Alaska. In 1955, Wilson was the first Alaskan resident to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She published her research regularly in scientific journals, including Freshwater Biology, Canadian Journal of Zoology, and Crustaceana.[4] In the 1960s she was appointed of "Research Associate, Division of Crustacea, USNM", a title that she had for the rest of her life.

She was also the first Alaskan to receive funding from the National Science Foundation,[5] which she held from 1957 to 1967 for her work on freshwater copepods. Wilson became an Associate in Marine Science of the University of Alaska's Institute of Marine Science in 1968, to keep her NSF funding. Wilson wanted to create a monograph of the genus Diaptomus in North America, but was unable to complete it before her death.

Personal life

Wilson was the second oldest child of Clark Stratton (–1928) and Ella Bock Stratton (–1954, with five sisters and one brother. She lived in Seaside, Oregon until the family business was burnt down, and the family moved to a farm around Everett, Washington.

The first day that Wilson was to begin student teaching her brother died of diabetes. In the fall of 1927 she started fully teaching at Marysville Grade School and became the head of the Stratton family. The family physician Dr. J. W. Rose gave her moral and financial support and helped to fund her classes at PSBS.

Mildred Stratton married Charles Sawyer Wilson (not to be confused with Charles Branch Wilson, who was also a copepodologist but no relation), whom she met at Puget Sound Biological Station, on June 25, 1934, in San Anselmo, California. Their daughter Linda was born in 1939, and died in a car accident in 1972, a few months before Mildred died. Mildred had three grandsons.

Mildred Stratton Wilson died in 1973, aged 64 years. She had had a number of illnesses over her last twenty years, including cancer and arthritis. In around 1971 she needed spinal surgery and a second one in the spring of 1973, and she died on the 6 August 1973. Her papers are archived at the University of Alaska at Anchorage.

Publications

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/mildred-stratton-wilson/ Mildred Stratton Wilson
  2. News: Guide to the Mildred Stratton Wilson papers - Archives and Special Collections. Archives and Special Collections. 2018-07-17. en-US.
  3. David M. Damkaer, "Mildred Stratton Wilson, Copepodologist (1909-1973)" Journal of Crustacean Biology 8(1)(February 1988): 131-146.
  4. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gopPFIAAAAAJ&hl=en Mildred Stratton Wilson
  5. https://consortiumlibrary.org/archives/FindingAids/hmc-0417.html Guide to the Mildred Stratton Wilson papers, 1925-1987

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