Richard Lynch Garner

Richard Lynch Garner (February 19, 1848 – January 22, 1920) was an American researcher who studied the vocalizations of nonhuman primates, especially chimpanzees. He pioneered the use of phonographs, a new technology at the time, to record and examine the speech of monkeys and apes. Though his work was controversial at the time, recent research has generally supported his views that animals communicate vocally with one another. His work and explorations into the evolution of human language inspired scientists such as Robert Yerkes and John Peabody Harrington.

Education Richard Lynch Garner was born in Abingdon, Virginia on February 19, 1848, the son of a businessman. Garner next raised funds for a trip to study chimpanzees in Gabon; among his donors were such prominent figures as Edison, Alexander Melville Bell, and Grover Cleveland. Garner was hospitalized with Bright's disease in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and died several days later, Rich's book Missing Links: The African and American Worlds of R. L. Garner, Primate Collector (2012) describes, for example, Garner's arguments that chimpanzees were more loving than Africans, and that colonialism constituted a threat to the separation of the races.