Biography
George Washington Tryon was the son of Edward K. Tryon and Adeline Savidt. In 1853 he attended the Friends Central School in Philadelphia.
In 1859, Tryon became a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He was largely responsible for the construction of new buildings for the Academy, especially, in 1866, a section for malacology. In 1869 he became the conservator in this malacological section.
In 1865, together with a group of American malacologists, he founded (and financed) the American Journal of Conchology. This ended in 1872.
In 1879 he started the Manual of Conchology; structural and systematic; with illustrations of the species, volume 1, series 1. When he died, nine volumes of the first series had been published. For two years, from 1887 until 1888, when he died, his assistant was Henry Augustus Pilsbry. Thereafter, Pilsbry continued as editor of the ongoing multi-volume Manual of Conchology. The work was continued until 1935. At that date, 45 volumes had been published.
Tryon named more than 5,600 new species, and can be considered as one of the most prolific malacologists. His important collection (more than 10,000 specimens) made the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia the center of malacological studies in the 19th century.
The freshwater snail genus Tryonia is named in his honor.
Read more about this topic: George Washington Tryon
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)