Gertrude Anna Crotty was born 28 February 1866, in Asequa, Colorado, to parents William and Millie Crotty. She graduated from University of Kansas in 1889 where she stayed as an instructor for three years until she went to pursue a higher degree. She then became a graduate student at Radcliffe College. There are conflicting facts about her time at Radcliffe. According to Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, she was there for two years but did not complete her degree. According to Nicole Hahn Rafter, she was there for five years doing graduate work in zoology and wrote her book The Primitive Streak and Notochordal Canal in Chelonia. Tamsen Wolff said that she did earn her PhD in zoology. While attending Radcliffe, she met Charles Davenport, who was one of her zoology instructors. She married Charles in Burlington, Kansas on June 23, 1894 and went on to have three children. The eldest child was Millia Crotty Davenport, who was born on 30 March 1895. The middle child, Jane Joralemon Davenport, was born on 11 September 1897. The youngest, Charles Benedict Davenport Jr., was born on 8 January 1911. Gertrude died on 8 March 1946, in Upper Nyack, New York at the age of 80.
Scientific Work
Davenport worked alongside her husband in the field of eugenics. Together they went to Cold Spring Harbor, New York in 1893 and stayed there working in a biology lab with microscopic methods until 1903. Afterwards she took on an unpaid position to work alongside Charles and assisted him in his research. This was research on experimental evolution and she collaborated with him on the books that he published. She also co-authored with him on a number of other of his works. While in Cold Spring Harbor, they bought a house with 6 acres on the coast. This residency was used for the laboratory staff to rent out while they did research on the heredity of humans. Gertrude later added 19 acres of land and it was named after her. Gertrude and Charles did work on heredity which included studying eye, hair, and skin color of humans. She also did research on embryology using turtles, studied the differences between Sargatia and starfish as well the variations on other organisms. She encouraged her husband to continue working on Sir Francis Galton’s work on eugenics using Mendelian genetics. Together they worked on eugenics to breed better humans. They claimed that this type of eugenics, called negative eugenics, was a necessity. She was worried that people who were feeble-minded, would hide their heredity.
Published Work
Gertrude and Charles Davenport had a productive working relationship which yielded many scientific works through the years. They produced two textbooks, the first of which was written for secondary students titled Introduction to Zoology. The second textbook was titled Elements of Zoology: To Accompany the Field and Laboratory Study of Animals and was to be used as a guide for zoology studies and experimentation. Charles and Gertrude's studies on genetics included Heredity of Skin Pigmentation in Man, Heredity of Eye Color in Man, and Heredity of Hair-Form in Man. During the course of these studies and publications, the Davenports explored how human traits, specifically skin pigmentation, eye color, and hair characteristics, were passed on to the next generation with Mendelian genetics. Each study also included a "practical application" statement on how the marriage of two individuals with certain traits influences the passing of said traits. Gertrude also individually authored the monographs The Primitive Streak and Notochordal Canal in Chelonia and Variation in the Number of Stripes on the Sea-anemone, Sagartia luciae. In the former study, the notochordal canal in turtle embryos was observed as the embryos developed. This study produces a series of descriptions of how the notochordal canal develops and some implications based off its development. In the latter study, samples of Sargatia were taken from Cold Spring Harbor and examined in a laboratory. Under a microscope, the sea anemones' cell division was examined in both natural conditions and artificially placed strain. During and after the division processes, the various stripe characteristics were noted and recorded from different samples.
