Edith Marion Patch

Edith Marion Patch (27 July 1876 – 28 September 1954) was an American entomologist and writer. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, she received a degree from the University of Minnesota in 1901 and originally embarked on a career as an English teacher before receiving the opportunity to organize the entomology department at the University of Maine. She became the head of the entomology department in 1904, and, despite misgivings from several male colleagues about having a female department head, she remained in this post until her retirement in 1937. Patch is recognized as the first truly successful professional woman entomologist in the United States.

Patch earned her master's degree from the university of Maine in 1910 and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1911. During her career, she was recognized as an expert on aphids and published Food Plant Catalogue of the Aphids in 1938. She was elected president of the American Nature Study Society and in 1930 became the first female president of the Entomological Society of America. Patch's residence in Old Town, Maine, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Early life Edith Marion Patch was the youngest of six children of William Whipple Patch Jr. and Salome Jenks. Patch went to the University of Minnesota, graduating with a BSc in 1901. At first she was unable to find suitable employment as an entomologist and spent two years teaching English at a high school, but she got her chance when Dr. Charles D. Woods offered her an unpaid post. The job was at the University of Maine in the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station to start up an entomology department. Woods decision to appoint based on merit and not gender was vindicated when she was granted a full-time job the following year.

Career Patch and other staff at the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station c. 1915 Patch was always concerned with the practical applications of entomology and wrote bulletins about the pests of agricultural and horticultural crops of Maine and forest trees. Her specialism was the aphid family with their complex life histories, their capacity to transmit viruses and their alternating host plants. She may have been influenced in this choice by the fact that she had worked with Professor Oestlund, an expert on aphids, in Minnesota before going to University. She remained at the University of Maine throughout her career, obtaining her master's degree in 1911 and her doctorate from Cornell University a year later. The same year, she also became the first female president of the Entomological Society of America at a time when this male-dominated society admitted few women. Toward the end of her career, the University of Maine awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1937, and in 1940 she was inducted into the honorary scientific fraternity Sigma Delta Epsilon.

Writing career

After acquiring her PhD, Patch embarked on writing books and magazine articles on natural history for children, designed to stimulate their interest and enthusiasm for the natural world. They were published at first by the Pine Cone Publishing Company in Orono, which seems to have been her own enterprise. In 1913, Patch published Dame Bug and her Babies, a collection of 18 stories about insect mothers and their young. This invoked a passion in Patch to continue to educate young minds about nature through her writings. An additional publishing, Little Gateways to Science, told the story of 12 birds and the unpropitious effects human activity can have on the natural world. Later, after her reputation as a natural history writer for children was established, she was taken on by the better known Macmillan Publishers. With them she produced the Holiday Series, on the wildlife and plants found in various habitats, the Neighbor Series, with information on wild animals in their natural settings, and the Science Readers for schools, covering scientific topics for children up to eighth grade.

Patch House In 1913, Patch purchased an old farmhouse with fifty acres of land at Old Town, Maine and lived there for the rest of her life. She called the house "Braeside" but it later became known as "Patch House". Built in the 1840s, "Braeside" is a derivative of the Scottish word brae meaning bank, which refers to its location alongside the Stillwater River. The property consists of 50 acres of wild garden, home to bustling societies of insects where Patch spent most of her free time studying and writing about the natural world. In 2001 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.