1891-1970
Geneticist

Meeting Morgan.

Alfred Henry Sturtevant, the youngest of six children, was born on 21 November 1891 in Jacksonville, Illinois. Sturtevant's grandfather was a founder and president of Illinois College, where his father taught. Sturtevant was seven when his family moved to a farm in Alabama. In 1908 Sturtevant entered Columbia University and moved in with his oldest brother, Edgar, who taught Greek and Latin at Barnard College. Encouraged by his brother, Sturtevant submitted a paper on the inheritance patterns of the coloring of horses — an interest inspired by his days on the family farm in Alabama — to the renowned geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan. Deeply impressed with the young undergraduate's enthusiasm for genetics, Morgan encouraged him to publish his findings in the Biological Bulletin in 1910.

Researcher.

Morgan invited Sturtevant to join his genetics research laboratory in the autumn of 1910. Dedicated to the study of fruit...