HYMAN, LIBBIE HENRIETTA

(b. Des Moines, Iowa, 6 December 1888; d. New York, New York, 3 August 1969), invertebrate zoology. For the original article on Hyman see DSB, vol. 17, Supplement II.

The final decade of the twentieth century saw new interest among zoologists in the history and development of their discipline over the course of the century. Hyman’s life and work were the subjects of a symposium held at the 1991 meeting of the American Society of Zoologists and were a part of a symposium on twentieth-century zoology at the Eighteenth International Congress of Zoology, 2000. Evaluations of her scientific contributions by participants in those events firmly established her as a major contributor in the following areas:

Laboratory Manuals . Libbie Hyman’s earliest contributions to zoology as a whole came in graduate school, when she developed laboratory manuals for the zoology and vertebrate anatomy classes at the University of Chicago. The Zoology Department was switching the emphasis of its student laboratories from the old typological approach to the newer comparative method, and no suitable laboratory manuals were available. Those Hyman created as a graduate student assistant were so useful to Chicago students that they were published by the University of Chicago Press (1919 and 1922) and remained in print for many years, her efforts instructing and influencing generations of zoology students.

Experimental Work . Hyman’s second contribution was the body of experimental work she produced during her sixteen years as Charles Manning Child’s assistant in the Zoology Department at Chicago. The physiological papers she published, while contributing to Child’s gradient concept of the regulation of development, also placed her work in a broader context of morphology, natural history, and systematics.

Flatworm Taxonomy . The third contribution was her work on flatworm taxonomy, studies she continued through most of her life. Her publications put the taxonomy of the group on a solid basis by incorporating the histology of body structures and copulatory apparatus in taxonomic descriptions. Hyman described twenty-seven new species and two new genera of land planarians and, perhaps even more importantly, encouraged young workers to study and publish in the field. She also produced a large body of work on other marine and freshwater Turbellaria, more than sixty papers in all. The phylogenetic framework she presented in the second volume of The Invertebrates has been improved, but not abandoned, by incorporation of new ultrastructural and molecular characters and by application of cladistic paradigms.

Role Model . Because of her publications, her position, even though unpaid, at the American Museum of Natural History, and her teaching in the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole) summer courses, Hyman became a model for young women interested in invertebrate zoology at a time when there were few women professors to serve as role models. As early as 1943 her biography appeared in a book intended to interest girls in careers in science, American Women of Science, by Edna Yost. Although sometimes abrupt with adult visitors who interrupted her work, Hyman always responded to queries from students. In addition, she supported some deserving students financially.

The Invertebrates . Her most important contribution was undoubtedly The Invertebrates. The six volumes’ abundant illustrations and uniform format, incorporating historical background, general characteristics, classification, morphology, physiology, development, ecology, and phylogeny for each group, ensured their value to zoologists. Monolingual North American zoologists appreciated her work for its summary and interpretation of the European zoological literature. But zoologists worldwide, even those who could read French or German, relied on her interpretation of that literature. The Invertebrates was not merely a compilation: each volume included new observations and drawings of living organisms made by Hyman herself during summer stays at marine laboratories, new information obtained from experts on each group, and the author’s own synthesis of phylogenetic relationships. Hyman’s zoological education at Chicago under the direction of Child and Charles Otis Whitman, both educated at Leipzig, had rooted her firmly in the comparative tradition begun in the 1860s in Germany and culminated in the transformation of morphology by evolutionism in the late nineteenth century. Her opus carried this approach, the “Chicago Style” of biology, with its emphasis on functional and evolutionary morphology and whole organism research, forward into the era of the evolutionary developmental and systematic studies of the second half of the twentieth century.

The Invertebrates has become outdated because of the enormous amount of new information based on studies using scanning and transmission electron microscopy, molecular genetics, and other approaches unknown when the books were published. In the twenty-first century it is unlikely that one person could even attempt to accomplish such a review, but Hyman’s enthusiasm, intelligence, and tenacity in pursuing her goals continue to inspire biologists.

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jenner, Ronald A. “Libbie Henrietta Hyman (1888–1969): From Developmental Mechanics to the Evolution of Animal Body Plans.” Journal of Experimental Zoology302B (2004): 413–423.

Winston, Judith E. “Libbie Henrietta Hyman: Life and Contributions.” American Museum Novitates 3277 (1999): 1–66. Available from http://library.amnh.org/resources/ejournals.html.

———. “Libbie Hyman and Invertebrate Zoology in the 20th Century.” In The New Panorama of Animal Evolution, edited by Anastasio Legakis, et al. Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Congress of Zoology, Athens, Greece. Sofia, Bulgaria: Pensoft, 2003.

Yost, Edna. American Women of Science. New York: Stokes, 1943.

Judith E. Winston