US-RSE Black History Month Spotlight - Charles Henry Turner

Published: Feb 10, 2025 by Chad Dougherty

US-RSE’s DEI working group (DEI-WG) is proud to help US-RSE celebrate and participate in Black History Month. Each week during Black History Month, the US-RSE will spotlight Black/African Americans who have been involved in computing, science, engineering, and/or math, and have inspired our members through their accomplishments in their careers and their personal stories.

This week’s Black History Month spotlight features Charles Henry Turner

Recently, while reading Lars Chittka’s 2022 book, The Mind of a Bee, I became intrigued by the story of zoologist Charles Henry Turner. In recognition of Black History Month, I’d like to share a short summary of what I learned about this outstanding Black American scientist.

Charles Henry Turner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1867, just two years after the end of the Civil War. Turner excelled in school and was valedictorian of his graduating class at Woodard High School. He earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Cincinnati in 1891 and then went on to become the first African American to earn a graduate degree from that same University when he earned his M.S. in Biology in 1892. In 1907, he earned his Ph.D. in Zoology, magna cum laude, likely being the first African American to earn a doctorate from the University of Chicago and certainly among only a tiny handful of Black people to have done so anywhere in the United States at that time.¹

After receiving his doctorate, Turner faced problems finding a job in academia. He was considered for a professorship at the University of Chicago, but the professor who invited him to apply died and, according to sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, his replacement refused to hire a Black scientist.² At the Tuskegee Institute, Turner was turned down because president Booker T. Washington reportedly could not afford to pay the salaries of both Turner and another famous Black American scientist, George Washington Carver.³ Turner consequently worked as a high school teacher for the remainder of his career, spending most of it at Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri. He continued to pursue his research and publication throughout his career, even while teaching high school. I was amazed to learn that Turner used bees as teaching tools to demonstrate principles of complex behavior even in his high school biology classes. One of my favorite notes suggesting his effectiveness in this regard comes from one of his students:³

“The bees appeared at the table at all three meals. Then Dr. Turner put jam only at breakfast daily. They still came to each meal but found no jam at noon and night. Soon they stopped coming. This shows they have some idea of time.”

Turner’s work spanned such diverse areas as comparative neuroanatomy in both vertebrates and invertebrates, arthropod taxonomy, insect and spider behavior, audition in moths, leaf morphology in grapevines, and even civil rights.¹ The extent of his scientific works is too large to do justice to here, and fortunately extensive accounts do exist.⁴ Some of his notable academic publications include:³

• 1892: “Psychological notes upon the gallery spider”, making Turner the first African American Psychologist and the first African American Comparative Psychologist
• 1892: “A few characteristics of the avian brain”, establishing Turner as the first African American to publish in in the journal Science
• 1910: “Experiments on color-vision of the honey bee”, providing conclusive evidence that honey bees can see color
• 1911: “Experiments on the pattern vision of the honey bee”, providing conclusive evidence that honey bees can see patterns
• 1914: “Auditory Powers of the catocala moths: An experimental field study”, providing conclusive evidence that insects can hear airborne sounds
• 1914: “An experimental study of the auditory powers of the giant silkworm moths, Saturniidae”, considered to be the first classical conditioning experiment with insects

In addition to his scientific work, Turner also wrote on the social and educational issues of his day. In 1897, he published, “Reason for Teaching Biology in Negro Schools”, which was the first of a series of papers discussing the importance of education for both Caucasian and African American children. Turner was a leader in the civil rights movement in St. Louis and was instrumental in developing social services for African Americans in the St. Louis area.³

The philosophy of animal intelligence and cognition has a long and complex history, stretching back to the time of Aristotle, with varying levels of acceptance of the idea that animals can be considered autonomous, sentient beings.⁵ Recent research has provided new physical evidence supporting the arguments that many animals (and certainly a far wider range of species than we have ever even considered before) are indeed sentient, and have individual personalities and cognitive capabilities traditionally attributed only to humans and our immediate relatives.⁶⁷ Indeed, many of the scientists involved in these research efforts have cited Turner’s work as pioneering.²

Sadly, Turner died in 1923 at the relatively young age of 56 from an acute case of myocarditis which could’ve been exacerbated by his heavy teaching workload and relatively low pay. I cannot help but wonder how much more impact he could have had on the state of science education, particularly Black science education, and the burgeoning field of animal cognition if he had lived longer and been able to continue his work.

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