Person

Bartsch, Paul, 1871-1960

1871-1960

Paul Bartsch was born on August 14, 1871, in Germany.

He was an American malacologist and carcinologist who emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1880. They initially settled in Missouri before moving to Burlington, Iowa. He developed a keen interest in nature early on, collecting birds and preparing their skins. To foster this passion, he established a natural history club in his home, which included a small museum and a workshop.

He graduated from the University of Iowa (B.Sc., 1896; M.Sc., 1899; Ph.D., 1905). In 1896, he began working as an assistant in the Division of Mollusks at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. By 1899, Bartsch had become an instructor in zoology at Columbian University, which later became George Washington University. In 1901, he took on the role of lecturer in histology at the Medical School of Howard University.

In 1914, Bartsch was appointed curator at the National Museum of Natural History. In 1922, he invented an underwater camera. After retiring from the Smithsonian Institution in 1956, he moved to his estate on the Potomac River shore at Mason's Neck, below Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he converted the estate into a wildlife sanctuary.

Throughout his career, he participated in various expeditions to locations such as the Bahamas, Florida Keys, West Indies, and Cuba, and he published numerous papers on land and freshwater shells, shipworms, and marine mollusks.

In 1939, he married Elizabeth Parker Bartsch (1904–). He died on April 24, 1960, in McLean, Fairfax, Virginia.