Page 11 - The Freshwater Mussels of Oklahoma

Berlin Hart Wright (1851-1940) of New York and Florida, described many new
species of unionids, almost all of which were already described and named. His
collection was sold to Bryant Walker and eventually became part of the University of
Michigan Collections.

Early 1900’s

During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, much of the writing about unionids dealt
with surveys of the mussel faunas of geographical regions, usually states. Needless to
say, some states received a great deal of attention while the faunas of others remained
virtually unknown until recent times. Some important individuals during this period
include:
Bryant Walker (1856-1936), a Michigan lawyer who amassed a huge collection of
unionids that were ultimately left to the University of Michigan. He published 155
papers on freshwater and land mollusks.
Charles Torrey Simpson (1846-1932) of the U. S. National Museum, made very
important contributions in his 1900 “Synopsis of the Naiades” and his 1914 “Catalogue.”
These publications summarized all the known species at the time and attempted to
develop complete synonomies. This was a very useful first step in clearing up some of
the taxonomic chaos that went on up until this time.
Richard Ellsworth Call (1856-1917) produced important surveys of mid-western
states, including Kansas (1885, 1887a and 1887b), Arkansas (1895) and Indiana (1900).
Loraine Screven Frierson (1861-1933) was a Louisiana cotton plantation owner
and published many papers on unionids, not only of the U. S. but worldwide.
John Kern Strecker (1875-1933) was a librarian and curator at Baylor University,
Waco, Texas. He published “The distribution of the naiads or pearly fresh-water mussels
of Texas” (1931).
F. B. Isely worked in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. He published “The fresh-
water mussel fauna of eastern Oklahoma” (1925) based on surveys of the eastern
Oklahoma rivers and streams carried out around 1910 to 1912.
Frank Collins Baker (1867-1942) produced the monumental work “The fresh
water mollusca of Wisconsin. Part II. Pelecypoda” (1928).
W. I. Utterback (1872-1949) wrote “The naiads of Missouri” (1915-1916).
Arnold Edward Ortmann (1863-1927) was born in Germany and was a student of
Ernst Haeckel. He worked at the Carnegie Museum and published the “Monograph of
the naiads of Pennsylvania” (1911 and 1919).
Other important names during this period include W. J. Clench, Calvin Goodrich,
Henry van der Schalie, R. E. Scammon, M. L. Winslow, V. Sterki and others.
During the early 1900’s there was also a great interest in mussel shell as a source
of buttons. Through much of the upper Mississippi drainage, button factories flourished
and along with it, the commercial harvest of mussel shell. Mussel beds were drastically
depleted in some areas and the government sponsored research (through fisheries) in an

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