Charles Haskell Danforth

Charles Haskell Danforth (30 November 1883 – 10 January 1969) was an American naturalist, anatomist, researcher, and professor at Washington University Medical School, University of Montana, and Stanford University. He spent the majority of his life conducting research on the characteristics of a wide array of organisms and took a special interest in problems of heredity and comparative anatomy.

Early life Danforth was born in Oxford, Maine on November 30, 1883 to James and Mary Haskell. His childhood years were spent working on the family farm and attending primary school in Norway, Maine.

After graduating from Tufts, Danforth completed his doctoral studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, collaborating closely with Professor R. J. Terry. Danforth conducted an in-depth study of the comparative anatomy of Polyodon (paddlefish) under Terry's mentorship, culminating a dissertation that was rigorous in both morphology and phylogenetic analysis. He received his Ph.D. in 1912, and his research at the time combined more recent influences from evolutionary biology and heredity with more traditional anatomical training. This combination of topics would later be a defining feature of his work.

Danforth's education gave him a strong foundation in both the new techniques of experimental biology and the empirical traditions of descriptive anatomy. After comparing his own hair distribution to the other person's, Danforth took up a study of hair growth patterning on the back of the hands and fingers and published a number of papers on this topic. He thrived as a researcher and teacher at Stanford as he was provided with a stable institutional home that supported his long-term independent research. After the war, he conducted a statistical analysis of physical measurements taken from more than 104,000 American soldiers. This sparked his interest in human anatomical variation and resulted in significant work. He made a substantial contribution to the field of human morphometrics by using this massive dataset to examine changes in stature and body proportions over time.

After his retirement in 1949, Danforth continued his research at Stanford for another twenty years. He remained involved in his research until two years before his death. His lifelong commitment to biology is demonstrated by the 1967 publication of his final paper. While still having strong ties to the university, Charles Haskell Danforth died on January 10, 1969, at Stanford University Hospital.

Charles Haskell Danforth worked in fields that overlapped with the eugenics movement. He focused mainly on human heredity, human evolution, and the frequency of mutations in humans. Some of his research concerned variation in the musculus palmaris longus in different races, variation of hair characteristics in different races, and traits revealed by skin transplants in different races. He also conducted research on different races of domestic fowl and the variation in their plumage. His work was scientific as opposed to being ideological, and there is no indication that he used his research to promote discriminatory practices. He participated in the American Eugenics Society along with a number of other professional societies, such as the American Philosophical Society, the American Society of Naturalists (president, 1941-1943), the American Society of Zoologists, the California Academy of Sciences, the California Academy of Medicine, the Genetics Society of America, the Society for Developmental Biology, and the Society for the Study of Evolution. Additionally, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1942.