Paul Bartsch (14 August 1871 Tuntschendorf, Silesia – 24 April 1960 McLean, Virginia) was an American malacologist and carcinologist. He was named the last of those belonging to the "Descriptive Age of Malacology".
Early life
Bartsch emigrated with his parents to the US in 1880, first to Missouri and then to Burlington, Iowa. As a child, he took up jobs in his spare time in several employments. He soon took an interest in nature, first by keeping a small menagerie at home, and during his high school years, collecting birds and preparing skins. He established a natural-history club in his home with a little museum and a workshop. By the time he went to the University of Iowa in 1893, he had collected 2,000 skins.
Among his professors at the university were the University of Iowa were the geologist Samuel Calvin, botanists Thomas H. Macbride and Bohumil Shimek, and the zoologist Charles C. Nutting. He graduated from the university with a B.S. in 1896, and M.S. in 1899, and PhD in 1905.
In 1896 he was invited by William H. Dall to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to serve as his assistant in the Division of Mollusks. At that time, Bartsch knew little about mollusks and expected more to make ornithology his life work.
In 1899 he became an instructor in zoology at the Columbian University (later George Washington University), but declined the next year a full-time professorship as he was more devoted to scientific research. Nevertheless, he was later given the title of professor, as he continued to teach in the evening and in the weekends. He was joined a few years later by W.H. Dall in directing graduate students. Bartsch continued teaching zoology until he retired in 1945 with the rank of professor emeritus.
In 1901 Bartsch became lecturer on histology at the Medical School of Howard University. His workload became heavier as the next year he was promoted to professor on Histology and became director of the histology laboratory. The next year he became Director of the Physiology Laboratory and Lecturer in Medical Zoology. he continued in this capacity for 37 years.
In October 1932 Eldridge R. Johnson equipped and offered for use his yacht Caroline to the Smithsonian Institution in what was to be known as the Johnson-Smithsonian Deep-Sea Expedition to the Puerto Rico Trench. The Smithsonian chose Bartsch to direct the expedition. Caroline sailed from New York on 21 January 1933 and returned to the Washington Navy Yard on 14 March 1933. The expedition included investigators from several disciplines and government agencies and institutions interested in oceanographic work. Those included the Naval Research Laboratory, Agriculture and Commerce Departments as well as The American Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Institution and the Oceanographic Institution of Woods Hole. In addition to the scientific party Johnson and his son, E. R. Fenimore Johnson who had helped prepare the yacht, and invited guest went with the expedition. Aside from description and addition of new species to collections three lines of echo soundings were gathered across the trench with the Navy echo sounding device operated by Thomas Townsend Brown and water samples at various depths.
In 1956 he retired from the Smithsonian Institution after more than fifty years of service. He retreated into his estate on the Potomac shore at Mason's Neck, below Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He spent his time in turning this estate into a wildlife sanctuary.
In 1902, he started systematic scientific bird banding, the first to do so in modern times.
In 1914 he became curator at the National Museum of Natural History of the combined divisions of Mollusks and Marine Invertebrates. He continued in this function until 1945. As his workload became too heavy, the two divisions were separated again in 1920.
Paul Bartsch invented, in 1922, an underwater camera.
His papers are held at George Washington University.