 Oscar
Cartwright (standing) in
his office with Henry Howden at
the Smithsonian Institution,
July 1976.
Photo by B. Ratcliffe.
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Oscar L. Cartwright worked
for the South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station from
1925-1945 and conducted applied research on pests of corn as
well as basic research on scarab beetles. From 1945 through
1946 he worked on mosquito and rat borne diseases for the U.
S. Public Health Service. In 1948 he became an Associate Curator
in the Division of Insects at the U. S. National Museum (Smithsonian
Institution). He became Curator and Supervisor of the Division
of Coleoptera in 1963. While at the Smithsonian Institution,
he collected in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the
southeastern and southwestern United States. Cartwright stepped
down as Supervisor in 1967 so that he could devote his remaining
years before retirement to his systematics studies of scarabs.
Cartwright's career spanned 55 years from the appearance of
his first paper in 1926 to his last in 1981. He authored or
co-authored 86 publications in which 132 new taxa were described.
He was interested in all scarab beetles, but his research centered
on the Aphodiinae of the Western Hemisphere. Cartwright worked
for 11 years as an Emeritus Entomologist at the Smithsonian
after his retirement at age 70. Oscar Cartwright died on 21
March 1983.
Reference:
Spangler, P. J. 1985. Obituary. Oscar Ling Cartwright. Proceedings
of the Entomological Society of Washington 87: 690-698. |
