Graham Fairchild

Who was Graham Fairchild?

Alexander Graham Bell Fairchild was an American entomologist, and a member of the Fairchild family, descendants of Thomas Fairchild of Stratford, Connecticut and one of two grandsons of the scientist and inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, whom he was named after.

Fairchild was born in 1906 in Washington, D.C. As most entomologists do, Fairchild began his lifelong love affair with nature collecting butterflies in the fields and forests where he lived. At the age of 15, as an avid butterfly collector, Fairchild was introduced to the intense, complex world of the American tropical forests by his father, David Fairchild, the famous botanist and plant explorer. Young Fairchild was given a week in Juan Mina, a long canoe ride up from civilization on the Chagres River in Panama, in 1921. The experience hooked Fairchild on tropical America for good. After several more years travelling with his father on plant collecting expeditions, Fairchild realized he needed to focus on something likely to provide a paying job.

In 1932, during the Great Depression, Fairchild began working toward a Ph.D. in biology at Harvard. Encouraged by his faculty advisor, Professor Joseph Bequaert, Fairchild chose the Tabanidae, a family of insects known as "horse flies". Tabanids are worldwide, numerous, and taxonomically complex. Since some bite humans and thus carry disease, Fairchild realized they would allow him to spend his life studying nature in the tropics. His thesis, naturally, was on the Tabanidae of Panama.