Caroline Burling Thompson

For the American writer with a similar name, see Caroline Thompson.

Caroline Burling Thompson
Caroline Burling Thompson, from the 1922 yearbook of Wellesley College
Born(1869-07-27)July 27, 1869
Germantown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedDecember 5, 1921(1921-12-05) (aged 52)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
OccupationsEntomologist, college professor

Caroline Burling Thompson (July 27, 1869 – December 5, 1921) was an American entomologist and a professor of zoology at Wellesley College. She studied the brains of ants and termites, and was the first woman scientist to publish a study of ribbon worms.

Early life and education

Thompson was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on July 27, 1869, the daughter of Lucius Peters Thompson and Caroline Jones Burling Thompson.[1][2] She attended the Drexel Institute,[3] and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1898, one of the first two women to earn a Bachelor of Science degree from Penn (the other was her classmate, Louise Hortense Snowden).[4] She completed a Ph.D. at Penn in 1901;[5] her doctoral advisor was Edwin Conklin.[3]

Career

Thompson taught zoology at Wellesley College beginning in 1901; she became a full professor in 1916.[5] She was the first woman to publish research on nemerteans, or ribbon worms.[6] She was a delegate to an international zoological congress in Graz in 1910. She worked with the USDA's Bureau of Entomology from 1917.[5]

Publications

Thompson's articles appeared in scholarly journals including Science,[7] Journal of Comparative Neurology,[8] Journal of Morphology,[9][10] and The Biological Bulletin.[11][12]

  • Preliminary Description of Zygeupolia Littoralis: A New Genus and New Species of Heteronemertean (1900)[13]
  • Zygeupolia Litoralis, a New Heteronemertean (1901)[14]
  • The Commissures and the Neurocord Cells of the Brain of Cerebratulus Lacteus (1908)[15]
  • "The Wellesley College Fire" (1914)[7]
  • "The brain and the frontal gland of the castes of the 'White Ant,'leucotermes flavipes, kollar" (1916)[8]
  • "Origin of the Castes of the Common Termite, Leucotermes flavipes Kol" (1917)[9]
  • "The development of the castes of nine genera and thirteen species of termites" (1919)[11]
  • "The Question of the Phylogenetic Origin of Termite Castes" (1919, with Thomas Elliott Snyder)[12]
  • "The ‘third form,’the wingless reproductive type of termites: Reticulitermes and Prorhinotermes" (1920, with Thomas Elliott Snyder)[10]
  • "The castes of Termopsis" (1922, published posthumously)[16]

Personal life

Thompson died after a surgery in 1921, at a hospital in Boston,[17] at the age of 52.[3][18]

References

  1. ^ Birthdate as given in Thompson's 1898 application for a United States passport, via Ancestry.
  2. ^ MacFarlane, John M. (June 1901). "Higher Degrees Conferred at Commencement". Proceedings of Commencement, June 12, 1901. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. p. 62. Retrieved September 27, 2025 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ a b c "A Professor at Wellesley". Transcript-Telegram. December 8, 1921. p. 7. Retrieved September 26, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "'Adviser' of Girls Not an Extremist; Miss Snowden Plans to Make Careful Study of Conditions at Penn". Evening Public Ledger. September 21, 1920. p. 2. Retrieved September 26, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b c "Caroline Burling Thompson" Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Harvard University.
  6. ^ Schwartz, Megan L. (September 22, 2010). "Women in nemertean biology". Journal of Natural History. 44 (37–40): 2379–2394. doi:10.1080/00222933.2010.504896. ISSN 0022-2933.
  7. ^ a b Thompson, Caroline Burling (April 3, 1914). "The Wellesley College Fire". Science. 39 (1005): 500–501. doi:10.1126/science.39.1005.500. ISSN 0036-8075.
  8. ^ a b Thompson, Caroline Burling. "The brain and the frontal gland of the castes of the ‘White Ant,’leucotermes flavipes, kollar" Journal of Comparative Neurology 26, no. 5 (1916): 553-603.
  9. ^ a b Thompson, Caroline Burling. "Origin of the castes of the common termite, Leucotermes flavipes Kol" Journal of Morphology 30, no. 1 (1917): 83-153.
  10. ^ a b Thompson, Caroline Burling, and Thomas Elliott Snyder. "The ‘third form,’the wingless reproductive type of termites: Reticulitermes and Prorhinotermes" Journal of Morphology 34, no. 3 (1920): 590-633.
  11. ^ a b Thompson, Caroline Burling. "The development of the castes of nine genera and thirteen species of termites" The Biological Bulletin 36, no. 6 (1919): 379-398.
  12. ^ a b Thompson, Caroline Burling, and Thomas Elliott Snyder, "The question of the phylogenetic origin of termite castes" The Biological Bulletin 36, no. 2 (1919): 115-132.
  13. ^ Thompson, Caroline Burling (1900). Preliminary Description of Zygeupolia Littoralis: A New Genus and New Species of Heteronemertean.
  14. ^ Thompson, Caroline Burling (1901). Zygeupolia Litoralis, a New Heteronemertean. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania.
  15. ^ Thompson, Caroline Burling (1908). The Commissures and the Neurocord Cells of the Brain of Cerebratulus Lacteus. publisher not identified.
  16. ^ Thompson, Caroline Burling (September 1922). "The castes of termopsis". Journal of Morphology. 36 (4): 495–535. doi:10.1002/jmor.1050360402. ISSN 0362-2525.
  17. ^ "Funeral of Prof Thompson of Wellesley Tomorrow". The Boston Globe. December 7, 1921. p. 16. Retrieved September 26, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ Snyder, Thomas Elliott (January 13, 1922). "Caroline Burling Thompson 1869-1921". Science. 55 (1411): 40–41. doi:10.1126/science.55.1411.40. ISSN 0036-8075.
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