David Crockett Graham

Who was David Crockett Graham?

David Crockett Graham, D.Sc., Ph.D., B.D., F.R.G.S. was a polymath American Baptist minister and missionary, educator, author, archeologist, anthropologist, naturalist and field collector in Szechuan Province, West China from 1911 to 1948. From 1921 to 1942, Graham collected and sent to the Smithsonian Institution nearly 400,000 zoological specimens, including more than 230 new species and 9 new genera, of which 29 were named after him. From 1932 to 1942 he was curator of the Museum of Art, Archeology and Ethnology at the West China Union University, which still stands as part of Sichuan University, in Chengtu. There, he taught comparative religions at the Theological College, and archeology and anthropology at the University. He wrote extensively and spent his retirement years, from 1950 to 1961, in Englewood, Colorado compiling his writings and research into three books that were published by the Smithsonian Institution. McKhann refers to Graham as "One of a handful of Western missionaries whose scientific work was respected by other scientists—and of even fewer scientists whose religious work was respected by other missionaries."