A Hidden Life of Research

By Charles I. Abramson

Charles Henry Turner’s research on animal behavior remains relevant a century after his death, yet his name is largely absent from textbooks and history books.

Biology Environment Ethics Evolution Animal Behavior Botany Social Science Zoology

This Article From Issue

January-February 2024

Volume 112, Number 1

Page 24

DOI: 10.1511/2024.112.1.24

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One of three boxes in front of the honeybees contains a reward, if the bees can figure out which one. After a few tries, the bees learn to immediately go to the box with the pattern that contains the treat. But then the experimenter, Charles Henry Turner, changes which box holds the food, and the bees relearn where to go. In his makeshift laboratory at the high school where he taught biology, Turner performed 19 different careful and meticulous experiments for this one study, which showed that bees could learn using visual patterns. Turner published this study in 1911, in the middle of a remarkable scientific career that spanned from 1891 to 1923.

Charles Henry Turner was born two years after the end of the Civil War, and although he was able to complete his PhD in 1907, as well as publish more than 70 papers during his lifetime, he was unable to secure a permanent academic appointment largely because of racist hiring practices of the time.

**Wikimedia Commons/photo restored by Adam Cuerden**

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