Graham Bell Fairchild

Historic Images of the Smithsonian

Photograph included in the transcript of Graham Bell Fairchild Interview by Joel B. Hagen, June 7, 1989, in Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Graham Bell Fairchild (1906-1994) is at work in a laboratory. A microscope sits in front of him on a table. He was introduced to tropical biology in his youth when he visited the Barro Colorado Island (BCI) research station of the Canal Zone Biological Area with his father, David Grandison Fairchild. Fairchild began his career as an entomologist stationed in Brazil for the Yellow Fever Service of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1935 to 1937. He was an entomologist at the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory in Panama City, Panama, from 1938 to 1971, serving as Assistant Director from 1958 to 1971. At Gorgas, his research focused on the taxonomy of medically important insects, especially Tabanidae and Psychodidae. During his years in Panama, he observed the development of the Barro Colorado Island (BCI) research station, first as a small university consortium, and then under Smithsonian aegis as the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 9559, Graham Bell Fairchild Oral History Interview

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu