William Coleman

William Coleman (July 2, 1934 – April 29, 1988) was an American historian of science with a core interest in the history of zoology and, later in life, the history of medicine. Coleman also studied the relationship between science and social and political schools of theory. The William Coleman Dissertation Fellowship of the University of Wisconsin–Madison is named in his honor.

Early life and education Coleman was born on July 2, 1934, in Peoria, Illinois. He was trained as a zoologist at Wabash College, Indiana, earning his B.A. degree in 1955. Next he became a teaching fellow in embryology and comparative anatomy at Yale University for one year before pursuing a history of science Ph.D. at Harvard University under the mentorship of I. Bernard Cohen and Ernst Mayr.

Career Coleman was a distinguished professor in his field. His first academic tenure was at Johns Hopkins University (1961–1971), during which he rose to the rank of full professor. and Victorian Science (1970, with George Basalla and Robert H. Kargon); and he wrote the textbook Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function, and Transformation (1971). linking his research interests to American social and political theory. a term cut short by illness, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1988. In 1989, his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Madison dedicated a memorial symposium to his memory, the William Coleman Memorial Symposium on "Epidemics and Their Social Impact."

Death and legacy William Coleman died April 29, 1988 The Coleman Dissertation Fellowship provides a one-semester stipend, assessed at $13,000 for 2024, a tuition waiver and health benefits, and additional printing, fax and photocopying privileges. The University of Wisconsin–Madison also has a William Coleman Professorship, as of 2024 held by Coleman's former doctoral student Gregg Mitman.

Publications George Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolutionary Theory (1964) "Science and Symbol in the Turner Frontier Hypothesis." (1966). The American Historical Review. 72 (1): 22-49 edited, Interpretations of Animal Form: Essays of Jeffries Wyman, Carl Gegenbaur, E. Ray Lankester, H. Lacaze-Duthiers, Wilhelm His, and H. Newell Martin (1968) edited with George Basalla and Robert H. Kargon, Victorian Science: A Self-Portrait from the Presidential Addresses of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1970) Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function and Transformation (1971) Death is a Social Disease: Public Health and Political Economy in Early Industrial France (1982) Yellow Fever in the North: The Methods of Early Epidemiology (1987)