Edward Sturtevant Hathaway was born in Maryville, Tennessee, on October 17, 1886, to William Evans Hathaway (a homeopathic physician) and Martha Ashley Hathaway. He was a descendent of Mayflower pilgrims, including a governor of the Plymouth colony. Interestingly, the French and English basis of his middle name, "Sturtevant," is loosely translated as "going forth with enthusiasm," which was characteristic of his personality and energetic work habit.
His family moved to Ohio, where he graduated from Woodward High School in Cincinnati and attended the University of Cincinnati, receiving an A. B. degree in 1909 majoring in the classics and sciences. Following graduation, academic vacancies in colleges were scarce. However, interim employment as an intrepid salesman of aluminum cookware helped meet living expenses. His experience as a salesman would pay subsequent dividends in years to come when he served as a fund raiser for research projects in the fledgling Louisiana Mosquito Control Association (LMCA).
He did secure a natural science professorship at Tusculum College in Greeneville, Tennessee, in 1911. Hathaway took a leave of absence from Tusculum in 1917 and was commissioned in the infantry of the U. S. Army. During W. W. I, he was promoted to the rank of captain. After serving two years in the military, he returned to Tusculum in 1919 to resume his teaching duties.
Continuing his postgraduate studies on a part time basis at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), Hathaway obtained the M.S. degree in 1921, specializing in field zoology. Later he received a teaching fellowship at the University of Wisconsin to continue toward the Ph.D. in zoology, which he earned in 1925 focusing on ichthyology and herpetology.
Dr. Hathaway was hired in 1925 as an associate professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Within two years he was promoted to departmental chairman and later was named to the W. R. Irby Chair in the Zoology Department. He was promoted again in 1947 to the Director of the Division of Biological Sciences at Tulane. He taught several demanding courses to pre-medical and other pre-professional students, including a mosquito biology and taxonomy course.
His obituary from the Mosquito News can be seen here.
Anderson Basil Ritter was born in 1904 in Aberdeen, Mississippi, but his family moved to Durant, located in central Mississippi, where he was reared and finished high school. At the age of 27 he graduated from Mississippi State University (MSU) in 1931 with a bachelor of science in bacteriology and chemistry.
Following graduation, he worked at several jobs, primarily with the U.S. Geodetic Survey. In 1935, he joined the U.S. Corps of Engineers located in New Orleans, where he met his future wife, Melba Platzer. They were married in 1938, and he continued to work for the Corps until he decided to go back to school at Tulane. He received a bachelor of engineering (civil engineering) in 1946 and a master of science in public health from Tulane in 1953.
Although Ritter and Hathaway were to develop a fraternal friendship, they were unlike in physical stature, formal educational background, and personality. Ritter was tall at 6'2" when compared with 5'5" Hathaway. Dr. E. S. Hathaway and Mr. A. B. Ritter merged in a common goal and developed an unselfish, professional camaraderie, and a unity of purpose in combating "les maringouins du meche," the mosquitoes of the marsh, notably Aedes sollicitans (Walker). It took stubborn persistence and hard work to educate governmental officials and Louisiana citizens to understand that mosquitoes could be controlled based on scientific understanding of mosquito bionomics, involvement of trained personnel, and availability of sufficient funds.
Between 1931-44, Hathaway devoted a considerable effort to studying the ecology of marshland plant communities and mosquito species. However, by the 1940's, national priorities were being directed toward Aedes aegypt i (L.), known as the yellow fever mosquito, and Anopheles quadrimaculatus (Say), known as the malaria mosquito. MCWA began in late 1941 and lasted until 1944. The Extended Malarial Control Program was initiated and remained in effect from 1945-46 with primary responsibilities of residual adulticide spraying and larviciding. From 1947 until 1954 the Malarial Eradication Program was in force with larviciding activities being focused in the communities along with residual spraying in rural areas. These programs were cooperative efforts between the various southern states and the USPHS. The MCWA program was the genesis of the federal government agency responsible for public health (formerly called the Communicable Disease Center but currently known as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and hereafter referred to as CDC).
Dr. Hathaway retired as an emeritus professor from Tulane in 1952 after 27 years of teaching and research only to take up a second career - establishing organized mosquito control programs in Louisiana in collaboration with A. B. Ritter.
Several years prior to his retirement, a series of events initiated by angry citizens began to demonstrate a grassroots support for mosquito control. In the mid- 1940's, the employees of Freeport Sulphur Company in Plaquemines Parish (a coastal southeastern parish) were expressing their discomfort caused by marsh mosquitoes. The company's management contracted with Hathaway to conduct a survey of mosquito larval habitats in and around Port Sulphur, Louisiana. Assisted by Fred Andrews, a Tulane University student, Hathaway identified mosquitoes, described their larval habitats, and pointed out that the problem was not confined to the Port Sulphur area. He advised that the parish government, assisted by Freeport McMoran, Inc. (formerly known as Freeport Sulphur Company), begin efforts to resolve the problem. Fred Deiler, the company's biologist, would later assist Hathaway in resolving the salt marsh mosquito problem.
Mr. A. B. Ritter, through his increased job responsibilities with the Louisiana Department of Health, became involved with mosquito control activities, coupled with his association with the State Public Health Entomologist E. B. Johnson. Johnson was a Department of Health supervisor located at Monroe (Ouachita Parish).
In 1953, angry citizens of Orleans Parish met with Mayor Delesseps S. Morrison and complained about the ferocious marsh mosquitoes in their neighborhoods. They demanded that the nearby marshes and swamps be sprayed with DDT. That year the "Little Woods" swamp next to New Orleans East was sprayed by helicopter for mosquitoes; however, the effort was not successful. Another large population of marsh mosquitoes infested the New Orleans area again in 1955 causing Mayor Morrison to form the Metropolitan Mosquito Control Commission (MMCC) composed of interested citizens and mosquito control experts.
MMCC realized soon that individual parishes could not meet the mosquito control needs of the state and subsequently appointed a steering committee to establish a statewide organization. Ritter was appointed as chairman, and the City of New Orleans supplied the steering committee with office space, clerical help, and publication capabilities in lieu of money. Other parishes donated support funds. On December 2, 1957, the Louisiana Mosquito Control Association was incorporated in Pleasant Hall on the Baton Rouge campus of Louisiana State University. The dues were set T $5.00 per member and remained so for 30 years.
Ritter wanted an enabling legislative act for Louisiana that permitted parishes to set up their own tax to support mosquito control districts. For advice he contacted Roy Hayes, who co-authored an enabling act for mosquito control in Arkansas. Ritter prepared and promoted the initial draft of the document. The Louisiana Legislature subsequently passed the bill and placed it on the 1958 ballot. It passed statewide elections by a favorable 52% vote (94% approval in Plaquemines Parish, 60% approval in Orleans Parish). However, it would be another six years before any parish actually implemented and organized mosquito control district.
Prior to the inception of the pilot experiments in 1961 until their completion in 1967, Hathaway and Ritter sought the advice and assistance of mosquito control experts across the country: New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, Florida, Utah, and California. In fact, Dr. A.J. Rogers and James S. Haeger of the Entomology Research Center in Vero Beach, Florida, and Dr. Thomas F. Hall, Jr., of the Tennessee Valley Authority at Wilson Dam, Alabama, actively participated in the establishment of the pilot experiments. Hathaway and these men, also including other LMCA representatives, made a two-week tour of the coastal parishes to study and select research sites.
Regional field stations were established along southern Louisiana, and supervisory personnel were hired by Hathaway to monitor the field experiments. The New Orleans field station was administered by Charles H. Anderson. The office in Lafayette was housed in facilities at the University Of Southwestern Louisiana and jointly supervised by A. G. Owens, Jr. and Sam S. Riche. In Lake Charles, the office was located on the campus of McNeese State College and was directed by Wayne Harris and later by Norman Thompson.
By 1964, Hathaway's and Ritter's "anti-mosquito war" and the LMCA were seven years old. The primary goal had been to educate and convince Louisiana citizens that mosquito control was possible. With that goal seemingly accomplished, Hathaway now declared that the second phase of the program would begin in 1965. He outlined the plan in his paper titled "Mosquito Control and Wildlife Problems in Louisiana" at the First Annual Conference on Mosquito Suppression and Wildlife Management in Lafayette, Louisiana (Hathaway 1964). This phase attempted to cut the cost of a district operation so that the financially deprived parishes could not only participate but also develop economic stability. He suggested that the landowners of marshlands produce valuable crops (e.g., rice, grasslands for cattle and food plants for water fowl), thereby reducing the nuisance mosquito populations. It would require collaborative efforts from agriculture, wildlife and fisheries officials, and engineers (hydrologists), to include mosquito control specialists. National authorities in agriculture, wildlife, and fisheries endorsed the plan.
As the pilot experiments were getting underway in the early 1960's, mosquito control was about to reach a new plateau. In 1963, Judge Leander Perez of Plaquemines Parish contracted with a local spray company to treat hordes of mosquitoes that were tormenting the parish citizens. The first spraying was moderately successful, the second was a failure. Judge Perez summoned County Agent Murphy McEachern and Fred Deiler. Deiler contacted Hathaway again. As the executive director of the LMCA, Hathaway made a crucial decision that was to provide the impetus for the start of organized mosquito control in Louisiana. He recommended that E. John Beidler be hired by Plaquemines Parish as a consultant to make a thorough survey of the parish and recommend a control program. At the time, Beidler was serving as the director of the Indian River Mosquito Control District in Vero Beach, Florida. Beidler completed the study and submitted his report in November of 1963. In April, 1964, Plaquemines Parish formed a district, the first in the state. Robert E. Barnett of St. John's Mosquito Control District in St. Augustine, Florida, was hired as Plaquemines Parish first director.
Orleans Parish also was in the process of developing an organized mosquito control program. From the Chatham County (Georgia) Mosquito Control Commission, George T. Carmichael was hired in May, 1964, as the director in Orleans Parish. Other parishes began to realize the benefits of professional mosquito control and were soon to establish their own districts. Currently, Louisiana has 16 mosquito control district, the majority of which are located in the lower third of the state.
Edward Sturtevant Hathaway was born in Maryville, Tennessee, on October 17, 1886, to William Evans Hathaway (a homeopathic physician) and Martha Ashley Hathaway. He was a descendent of Mayflower pilgrims, including a governor of the Plymouth colony. Interestingly, the French and English basis of his middle name, "Sturtevant," is loosely translated as "going forth with enthusiasm," which was characteristic of his personality and energetic work habit.
Anderson Basil Ritter was born in 1904 in Aberdeen, Mississippi, but his family moved to Durant, located in central Mississippi, where he was reared and finished high school. At the age of 27 he graduated from Mississippi State University (MSU) in 1931 with a bachelor of science in bacteriology and chemistry.