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Female Firsts: Dr. Margaret S. Collins · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Smantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I've never told you productive iHeartRadio,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: and once again we are so happy to do another
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: female first, and that.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Means we are happy to welcome back Eves.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Welcome Eve. Hey, Hey, I'm so happy to have you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I didn't do my introduction like I normally do. I
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: was gonna say intrepid international Eaves. I had already planned it.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate that. Well, thank you. But you have been
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: doing a lot of traveling. What's been going on with you?
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  Speaker 1: Eves? Yeah? I just.
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  Speaker 3: Twenty four hours ago, maybe somewhere between twenty four hours
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  Speaker 3: and forty eight hours ago go I left New Delhi, India,
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  Speaker 3: and now I am in Cape Town, South Africa. And honestly,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I was thinking that I haven't gotten the
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  Speaker 3: chance to mourn leaving India, because I haven't gotten a
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  Speaker 3: chance to feel sad about not being in India anymore,
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  Speaker 3: because truly I loved India. I'm not good at picking favorites.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: I don't really care to pick favorites because I like
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  Speaker 3: different things for different reasons and it's just really hard
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  Speaker 3: for me to make those decisions. But I do like
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  Speaker 3: India's really up there. For me, like, I had a
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  Speaker 3: great experience there because I felt like, I feel like
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  Speaker 3: I got to experience so many different parts of the spectrum,
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  Speaker 3: and I got to experience it with people who lived
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  Speaker 3: in the places that I was in, which was in
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  Speaker 3: Utra Khand, which is in the northeast. It's a state
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  Speaker 3: in the northeast. I was very near the Himalayas. And
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  Speaker 3: I also got to experience New Delhi, which is a huge, huge, huge,
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  Speaker 3: huge city. Twenty something million people there, I believe, or
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  Speaker 3: like thirty million people something like that. And I got
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  Speaker 3: to meet people who lived in those that place too,
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  Speaker 3: and people who were there from other parts of Indian
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  Speaker 3: than people who were there from outside of India who
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  Speaker 3: had you know, Indian ethnic origins. So I like, I
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  Speaker 3: feel like I got to experience a huge breath of it.
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  Speaker 3: And I was fed a lot of food, and I
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  Speaker 3: learned a lot about hospitality in cooking and sharing meals
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  Speaker 3: and like serving during my time there, because there was
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  Speaker 3: a period when I was at a religious spiritual philosophical
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  Speaker 3: retreat basically, and I was fed three meals a day,
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  Speaker 3: and I was that food was prepared by some of
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  Speaker 3: the other people who were there, and I shared these
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  Speaker 3: meals with the other the nuns basically who lived there.
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  Speaker 3: And there is a lot, there's so much. Anytime I
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  Speaker 3: go somewhere, I learned I take something about hospitality with me,
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  Speaker 3: like the way people treat their guests, the way they
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  Speaker 3: serve them. And I mean, I couldn't do anything on
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  Speaker 3: my own. The moment I started sniffling, I like, all
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  Speaker 3: of the remedies were suggested to me, given to me.
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  Speaker 3: I was given this thing of clothes. Put these clothes
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  Speaker 3: in your mouth, hold it here. I was given more milk,
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  Speaker 3: don't come, don't wake up this early, don't worry about
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  Speaker 3: doing this. Do you want this? Do you need this?
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  Speaker 3: Are you okay? Given this arivedic remedy I was giving?
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  Speaker 3: Do you want these pills? I was like, oh my,
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  Speaker 3: do you know the feeling of being overwhelmed with care?
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  Speaker 1: It's like it's a great feeling because it makes you feel.
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  Speaker 3: So special and important. And then it's also like, oh
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  Speaker 3: my God, like, am I like this to people?
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  Speaker 1: Can I be like this to you know? Am I
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  Speaker 1: this helpful? I want to be like that?
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  Speaker 3: Because you know, I was talking to them about it,
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  Speaker 3: and they were saying one of the other people who
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  Speaker 3: was there, who was Indian, was like, yeah, like I
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  Speaker 3: do this and my child is like, they hate, they
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  Speaker 3: hate how She was like, I'm sorry for how you
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  Speaker 3: know how how much we were trying to take care
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  Speaker 3: of you, but it's just like how how I do things,
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  Speaker 3: how we do things. She was like, my child doesn't
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  Speaker 3: like it at all, That's what she said. She's like,
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  Speaker 3: my child doesn't love it. So you know, I had
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  Speaker 3: a great experience in all ways. And I got the nice, chill,
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  Speaker 3: tranquil side of meditating and looking at the mountains, and
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  Speaker 3: I got the other side being in the hectic chaos
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  Speaker 3: of New Delhi traffic with getting into accidents and nobody
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  Speaker 3: saying anything.
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  Speaker 1: It's like just another day, didn't matter.
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  Speaker 4: It's all yellow to each other and move on.
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  Speaker 3: Even if that like one of our drivers just like
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  Speaker 3: barely glanced in the rear view mirror and didn't say
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  Speaker 3: anything at all.
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  Speaker 1: This is just normal. So yeah, loved it, honestly loved it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, and I do really relate to the
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  Speaker 2: I experienced that a lot when I leave a place
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  Speaker 2: and you're just so sad to have left it because
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  Speaker 2: it was so beautiful. And you know, there was so
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  Speaker 2: much more to see and do, so I get mourning
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  Speaker 2: a place. And I also when I was in China,
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  Speaker 2: I had a I wasn't good with chopsticks in the beginning.
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  Speaker 2: I'm great with them now listeners, but in the beginning,
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  Speaker 2: and people.
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  Speaker 1: Were concerned for me that I wouldn't eat enough.
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  Speaker 2: So this older Chinese woman took me to a bakery,
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  Speaker 2: an American style bakery, and was like, you need cake.
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  Speaker 1: It was so sweet.
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  Speaker 2: It was like such a such a funny she can't
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  Speaker 2: use chip, Let's get her American cake, Like thank you,
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  Speaker 2: thank you.
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  Speaker 1: It's nice.
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  Speaker 2: It is nice to see that kind of hospitality and
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  Speaker 2: people wanting to take care of you.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, we're so.
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  Speaker 2: Glad you could make this workout as you all through
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  Speaker 2: all your travels. And I am extremely excited about who
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  Speaker 2: we're talking about today because we have said before we've
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  Speaker 2: shared our thoughts on bugs, and I mentioned that maybe
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  Speaker 2: we should have somebody and I would like to talk
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  Speaker 2: about some insects some more. And here we go.
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  Speaker 1: So who are we talking about today? Eves?
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  Speaker 3: Today we're talking about doctor Margaret S. Collins and the
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  Speaker 3: insect that we were talking about today that she largely
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  Speaker 3: focused on was one you might not expect.
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  Speaker 1: I'll save it for later.
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  Speaker 3: You'll get the nice surprise of which bug it is
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  Speaker 3: that she focused on.
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  Speaker 1: But yes, I had that in mind.
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  Speaker 3: How we previously talked about how it would be cool
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  Speaker 3: to talk about an entomologist, and I had never thought
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  Speaker 3: about bringing one onto the show, So I appreciate that
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  Speaker 3: you gave that suggestion. So, doctor Margaret S. Collins was
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  Speaker 3: the first black American woman to be awarded a PhD
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  Speaker 3: that involved entomology at a major university. She was the
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  Speaker 3: first entomologist at Florida A and M University, and she
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  Speaker 3: was the third Black American woman zoologist. But she herself
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  Speaker 3: described herself as an ecologist, and her story is really fascinating.
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  Speaker 3: And I really liked the way that she arrived at
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  Speaker 3: her work in the field.
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  Speaker 1: So excited to talk about it. Who I am too?
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  Speaker 1: So shall I get into the history? Yes? Yes, yes.
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  Speaker 3: So she was born Margaret James in Institute, West Virginia,
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  Speaker 3: on September fourth, nineteen twenty two, and her parents were
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  Speaker 3: Luella and Rollins James, and she was the fourth of
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  Speaker 3: five children. Her dad got his bachelor's and master's degree
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  Speaker 3: from West Virginia State College and Tuskegee Institute, and he
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  Speaker 3: worked at Tuskegee for a period, then he went to
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  Speaker 3: teach vocational agriculture at West Virginia State. And Luella, Margaret's mother,
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  Speaker 3: she wanted to become an archaeologist, but there weren't a
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  Speaker 3: ton of opportunities for education, and she went to West
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  Speaker 3: Virginia State but she didn't finish to get her degree.
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  Speaker 3: But Luella was a big reader. And here's a quote
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  Speaker 3: from Margaret. She said, quote, My parents collected an impressive
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  Speaker 3: library for their income level, and a regular feature of
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  Speaker 3: the evenings would be one member reading aloud to the
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  Speaker 3: rest of the family, with the youngest on the lap
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  Speaker 3: of the reader. In my case, I learned to read
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  Speaker 3: by following the of the reader.
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  Speaker 1: Just the end of the quote.
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  Speaker 3: When Margaret was six years old, she was allowed to
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  Speaker 3: check out books from the West Virginia State College library.
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  Speaker 3: And according to Margaret, she grew up in the woods
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  Speaker 3: in the barn. Two of her favorite books in her
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  Speaker 3: childhood were Two Little Savages and Rolf in the Woods
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  Speaker 3: by Ernest Thompson CN. And she would go outside and
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  Speaker 3: collect interesting critters, what she called interesting critters, and when
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  Speaker 3: she started bringing home these creatures, her dad would encourage
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  Speaker 3: her to identify them in his books. And here's another
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  Speaker 3: quote from Margaret. I had access to an array of
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  Speaker 3: books on natural history, including the massive volumes of the
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  Speaker 3: Nature Library. My favorite books in the series were Rogers
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  Speaker 3: The Shell Book, dip Mars The Reptile Book, and Jordan
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  Speaker 3: and Everman's The Fish Book, each of which contained English
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  Speaker 3: technical terms as well as Latin names. She also learned
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  Speaker 3: from her neighbors. There was a doctor named doctor Sinclair
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  Speaker 3: who let her come to his house and read as
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  Speaker 3: much as she wanted to, and his mother was previously enslaved,
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  Speaker 3: and she talked to Margaret about things like making soap
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  Speaker 3: and how to use medicinal plants. Margaret also spent time
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  Speaker 3: with John Matthews, who was a scholar of patient and
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  Speaker 3: African literature, and Margaret later talked about the importance of
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  Speaker 3: her experience with books and how much she read them
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  Speaker 3: when she was young. Early on, she said this, I
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  Speaker 3: suspect that plenty of books in early unrestricted reading were
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  Speaker 3: quite important. Hearing about scientists doing adventurous things and reading
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  Speaker 3: the works of naturalists William Beebe were probably important. Perhaps
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  Speaker 3: the biggest influence of all was contact with individuals who
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  Speaker 3: found the discipline of biology fulfilling. Enthusiasm sometimes behaves like
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  Speaker 3: an infectious agent. So I really loved this part of
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  Speaker 3: her story of how her outside time is interacting with
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  Speaker 3: her reading selfishly because of my own personal interests, like
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  Speaker 3: I love outdoors things, I also love books, and both
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  Speaker 3: of those things were very formative in my childhood. And
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  Speaker 3: I think it's really cool that she had access to
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  Speaker 3: those books like so at such a young age, and
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  Speaker 3: that her parents encouraged her to do it, because I
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  Speaker 3: could see one seeing these things in a book but
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  Speaker 3: being totally out of touch with how that showed up
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  Speaker 3: in the real world, or like going outside and playing
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  Speaker 3: with things but not necessarily knowing how they worked, not
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  Speaker 3: knowing about ecology, you know, not knowing about environments or ecosystems,
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  Speaker 3: and things like this, like the reality of things not
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  Speaker 3: touching the academics of things. And it seems like, very
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  Speaker 3: early on, even if it wasn't in a super formalized way,
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  Speaker 3: she was able to weave those two worlds together, and
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  Speaker 3: so her world in books was very alive to her,
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  Speaker 3: in her world in nature was very alive to her
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  Speaker 3: as well. And I think that's cool because you know,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of the time you can you can read
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  Speaker 3: something in books, but then that can you can get
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  Speaker 3: excited about it. Then when you're young, but then that
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  Speaker 3: can that can fade away, like some of your interests
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  Speaker 3: or enthusiasm, some of the excitement and fun around a
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  Speaker 3: thing can really start to fade and dissipate.
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  Speaker 1: And so I think these two things being weaved.
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  Speaker 3: Together is a part of her story that I, you know,
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  Speaker 3: can gather a lot of inspiration from and I'm happy
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  Speaker 3: to learn about. So she did really well in school too,
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  Speaker 3: and she ended up skipping two or three grades. So
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  Speaker 3: I saw two grades in one place, but I also
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  Speaker 3: saw that she skipped three grades. So she skipped like
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  Speaker 3: two at first, and then later on she skipped another,
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  Speaker 3: so that she was eleven years old in her freshman
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  Speaker 3: class in high school. But the specifics, the particulars of
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  Speaker 3: that aren't even really that important. The important part is
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  Speaker 3: that she was pretty She did pretty well in school.
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  Speaker 3: She was good at school, and some of the titles
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  Speaker 3: you'll see in some of the articles about her, you'll
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  Speaker 3: see child prodigy. So she was very good at school. However,
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  Speaker 3: her social life wasn't the greatest. Of course, there was
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  Speaker 3: a huge age difference between her and her classmates, but
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  Speaker 3: she did say later on that she didn't necessarily regret
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  Speaker 3: how her social life panned out at the time because
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  Speaker 3: it reinforced her self sufficiency. I feel like this is
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  Speaker 3: one of those sentiments that often comes in hindsight, because
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  Speaker 3: it's like in the struggle, you don't necessarily think the
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  Speaker 3: same way, and you know, your experience of having the
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  Speaker 3: struggle when you're in the struggle is still very real.
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  Speaker 3: Probably wasn't that great for her, as I would imagine,
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  Speaker 3: but clearly she did feel like she gained some grit
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  Speaker 3: through it. She ended up graduating from West Virginia State
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  Speaker 3: College's Laboratory High School in nineteen thirty seven when she
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  Speaker 3: was fourteen years old, and she enrolled at West Virginia
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  Speaker 3: State College on an academic scholarship. So she didn't really
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  Speaker 3: want to go to West Virginia State, but her family
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  Speaker 3: was already paying for her older sister's education at Hampton Institute,
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  Speaker 3: and they couldn't afford for her to go to another school.
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  Speaker 3: So this is kind of like what I was talking about.
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  Speaker 3: She said that at first, she lost interest in science
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  Speaker 3: because she had a teacher who made it boring, and
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  Speaker 3: that cost her the scholarship. I think that can happen
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  Speaker 3: a lot as you get older, because I mean the
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  Speaker 3: world becomes more jury in general, a lot more grey.
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  Speaker 1: Tones on things as you start to get older.
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  Speaker 3: So that can happen a lot, like a lot more
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  Speaker 3: gray tones on things, and that cost her the scholarship.
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  Speaker 3: So her parents started trying trying to help her pay
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  Speaker 3: for her tuition during her second year, but they had
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: trouble paying for her tuition, so she started doing domestic
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  Speaker 3: work over the summers to help pay for her own tuition.
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  Speaker 3: So financially challenging, also academically challenging a difficult period for her,
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  Speaker 3: but regardless, she did eventually find two mentors, Toy Davis
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: I think that's how you pronounce it, tye and Frederick Lanner.
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  Speaker 3: So Davis was a black biologist with a PhD from Harvard,
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  Speaker 3: and she had sent a sample of a colony of
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  Speaker 3: marine animals to him for identification, and he had to
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  Speaker 3: send it off to a lab. There was a waiting process,
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  Speaker 3: and during that time he made sure that she had
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  Speaker 3: a microscope that she could use and then he showed
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  Speaker 3: her how to use a taxonomic key. And then he
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  Speaker 3: also introduced her to a book that was pretty important
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  Speaker 3: in bology called Freshwater Biology by Ward and Whipple. And he, however,
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  Speaker 3: was soon drafted into World War two. And there was
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  Speaker 3: another professor that Margaret had already been talking to who
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  Speaker 3: had come over, and he was a professor of German.
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  Speaker 3: He's a white professor named Frederick Lehner. He became her
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  Speaker 3: mentor upon Davis's suggestion after Davis left. So Margaret majored
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  Speaker 3: in bology with minors and physics and German. And she
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: ended up marrying Howard. University pre met student named Bernard E.
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  Speaker 3: Strickland in July nineteen forty two, but he was also
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  Speaker 3: soon drafted into the war. She graduated with her Bachelor
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  Speaker 3: of Science in nineteen forty three. So I'm not so
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  Speaker 3: much sure about their personal life, her life married to Bernard,
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  Speaker 3: I don't really know much about their relationship, about how
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: they got along, but I do know that because he
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  Speaker 3: was drafted, she didn't really spend a lot of personal
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  Speaker 3: time with him, so he was pretty far away during
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  Speaker 3: this time. And while she was studying either way, she
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: had planned to start a business collecting specimens for biological
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  Speaker 3: supply houses. So she enrolled for a few classes at
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  Speaker 3: the University of Chicago and her plan was just to
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: take enough courses in field zoology and ecology so she
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: could start her business. But as often happens, we plan
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: things with that isn't necessarily how they pan out, and
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: during registration her advisor had turned out to be the
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  Speaker 3: zoologist Alfred Emerson, who was the grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: He drum Roe please was a termite expert, and he
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  Speaker 3: managed the largest turmite collection and related looking.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Reprint library in the world.
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  Speaker 3: Introduction of the insect of the hour termites. So, yes,
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  Speaker 3: are you a fan of termites?
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  Speaker 1: Annie? Yeah, I just was not expect this was a twist.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, termites, I haven't given them much thought, luckily,
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  Speaker 2: because it's never been a problem for me.
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  Speaker 1: And now I'm really curious.
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  Speaker 4: As a homeowner, I have good and much thought and
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I'm like, but why.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like why yeah, yeah? So you know I did
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: wonder this in learning about Margaret's story, not so sure
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I even know now about what her draw to turmites was.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: I know a little bit, as we'll learn about how
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: she got into studying termites, but I'm not fully sure
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: why she continued to learn about them. What was it
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  Speaker 3: about the insects specifically that made her fall in love
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: with this specific topic. But she did start taking his
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: course and she became intoxicated by zoology. Even though she
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: was really interested in zoology, she still had trouble keeping
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: up with expenses. At the time, black people couldn't go
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: to the University of West Virginia, so the state would
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: offer one hundred and twenty five dollars per year towards
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: an out of state tuition, but that still wasn't enough
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  Speaker 3: to cover the money that she needed. She ended up
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: getting a night job at a defense plant because she
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: was only eating about ten meals a week. But her
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: professors noticed her interest in the field of zoology, and
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Emerson found out somehow that she was struggling financially, and
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: he offered her an assistantship and she was assigned to
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: look after the termite collection. So over the next years.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: She's still an avid reader. She reads all the books
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: in Emerson's offers office library except for one that is
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: mentioned in the article I was reading about her, which
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: was like apparently very dull and boring. I can't remember
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: right now what the subject of that book was, but
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: I'm like, that's interesting. Out of how many books in
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: his library, she determined that this single was dull and boring,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: because I'm sure a lot of them were also very
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: dense and academic, but she read a lot of them,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: and even after all of that, she still hadn't chosen
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: her specialty. But then she found a book in his
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: library called Termite City, and it reminded her of the
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: books that she read in her childhood. So I love
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: that link back to her thinking of this as something
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: that has more like I guess, heart to it, Like
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: there's an emotional connection there that makes that reminds her
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: of why she's interested in why she loves it so much.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Is it's very heartwarming and wholesome to think about that connection.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: But when her second year at the university was over
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: World War two and ended, her husband, Bernard came back
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: and he started going back to Howard for pre med.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: So because Bernard came back, a few things changed.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: She gave up.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Doing full time classes at grad school. She ended up
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: getting a job as an instructor in the biology department
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: at Howard, and she wanted to make more money for
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: the family and to help support Bernard's studies, and she
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: also wanted to be with him because he had been
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: away for so long. So she spent the next three
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: summers in Chicago. She finished her coursework and did her research,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: and Emerson was still a mentor to her, and he
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: was for decades. But when he was building a team
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: to go on an expedition the Marshall Islands, he did
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: not invite her and he said that he thought young
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: women should not go on expeditions, and he insisted that
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Margaret take her finals and finish her thesis instead. But
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: their you know, professional relationship continued even after that, but
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: this was a point that he stood on. Margaret's thesis
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: was titled Differences in Toleration of drying among species of
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: termites reticular terms, and she this is her a seminal
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: work in her career. So doctor Margaret left her marriage
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: in nineteen forty nine. That year she got her PhD
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: in zoology from the University of Chicago, leading to her
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: first So there were other black American female zoologists before her,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: but she was a pioneer in her field. Still during
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties, Emerson gave Margaret termite specimens he collected
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: on his research trips to Guyana, and this his research
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: in Guyana would really pan out to be something that
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: was important for doctor Margaret in her lifetime too. So
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: she was promoted from instructor to an assistant professor at Howard,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: but Howard wasn't really quick to promote women to higher positions.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: There were also problems that she herself had with Howard
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: at the time, like she didn't really care for the
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: president of Howard, who was Mordecai Johnson. She thought that
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: the zoology department was geared too much toward medical training.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: There's a quote where she said it was a place
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: of entrenched chauvinism. She said that Mordecai Johnson didn't like
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: independence of thought, and when she was at Howard, she
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: said that he said he didn't want her to wear trousers.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: But all of these reasons led her to quit at
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Howard and in nineteen fifty one she became a professor
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: at Florida Agricultural Mechanical College, which is n HBCU, and
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty one she married Herbert L. Collins. Her
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: second marriage she had gotten divorced from Bernard, and so
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: she and Herbert had two sons, and she ended up
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: becoming the chair of Florida A and M's biology department
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty three. So that year she continued her
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: field studies. She began collecting specimens in the Everglades and
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: in Highlands State Park for a study of Florida termites.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: And she would even take her family on collecting trips
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: where she was collecting sp vestments in the Everglades. So
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: this was her her career in zoology and ecology, but
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: she also did things outside of that. So there was
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: one time where she was invited to lecture on her
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: research at a university. It was a predominantly white university
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: and at the time the school got a bomb threat
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: and so her invitation was rescinded. Margaret was black, of course,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: so it doesn't take much, you know, for violence to
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: be meeted upon you or threatened against you when you're
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: black at time like this. But she was also involved
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: in activism, So when Florida A and M called for
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: a bus boycott in Tallahassee, she offered to drive people
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: to work, and her involvement and her and that kind
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: of civil rights activism did lead to more surveillance by
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: state and local police as well as the FBI. And
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: there was a period between nineteen fifty two and nineteen
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: fifty seven where she didn't publish any scientific papers, although
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: she had been publishing I think like one or two
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: a year up until that time. It seems like her
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: civil rights efforts took priority. But in nineteen fifty eight
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: she did start publishing again. However, she had fallen behind
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: and keeping up with the science. So while she was
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: at Florida A and M. I believe, she wrote a
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: book and there was a quote where she talked about
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: how she had gotten sent back in illustration with the
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: when she was writing the book, and she didn't really
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: understand the illustration, and she realized that she had she
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: had fallen behind in her own personal work of keeping
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: up with the field, and so she wanted to stop working.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: And she was like, if you don't let me go
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: and take some time off, then I'm just I'm just
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: going to leave. So I let her take time I'm
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: off And she got a National Science Foundation Summer Research
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Fellowship to study new developments in genetics and in a
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: molecular biology at New York's Cold Spring Harbor Lab and
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: from sixty one nineteen sixty one. In nineteen sixty two,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: she took her leave of absence from Florida A and M,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: and she got another grant from the National Science Foundation.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: She ended up studying for a year at the University
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: of Minnesota, where she was a research associate and at
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: the Minnesota Agricultural Experimental Station, and when she was there
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: she worked on studies of North American termites. While she
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: was in Minnesota, unfortunately, she was injured in a lab
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: accident and her lungs were permanently damaged from that, so
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: she divorced her second husband in nineteen sixty three. The
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: next year after that, she moved back to DC. She
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: became a full professor at Howard and she took a
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: tenured position at Federal City College, and she also became
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: a research associate at the Smithsonian. So a couple of
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: her students from Guyana encouraged her to reopen a field
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: station that Alfred Emerson had opened in Guyana and that
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: had been closed in the late nineteen fifties. But because
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: these students encouraged her, then doctor Margaret was.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Into the idea.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: So from nineteen seventy five, around nineteen seventy five nineteen
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: seventy six, she started getting in talks with the government
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: of Guyana, and in January of nineteen seventy eight she
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: got official government sponsorship in Guyana and from the Guyana
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Department of the Army. She began rebuilding that field station
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: in Cartabo. With support from the government, travel grants from Howard,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: and some funding from the Smithsonian, she was able to
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: move forward with the rebuilding of that station. She also
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: began researching defense mechanisms and termites, so basically the chemicals
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: that termites used to defend themselves from predators, and she
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: was studying and collecting in a lot of places. She
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: studying and collected termites in Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Barbados, Belize, Surinam,
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: the Cayman Islands, Guatemala, Panama, and a lot of parts
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: of the United States. So she basically said that like,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: termites are tropical, which I didn't know. She's like, yeah,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: the termites in the United States are fine and everything,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: but like the real ones are the ones elsewhere. So
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: she's had to study in a lot of different places
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: to do her collecting. She led conditions in the nineteen eighties,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: and here's an excerpt from a letter that she wrote
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: to members of her group on one of the Earthwatch
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: expeditions that she went to in eighty three to eighty four.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: This is what she said.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: More than thirteen thousand insects specimens were taken, plus the
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: ectoparasite stuff. Samples of about a dozen identifiable medicinal plants,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: along with photographs and data on their utilization were taken,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: and the plants are now in the hands of specialists
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: at the US National Museum. So in the late seventies
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: to the nineties she researched termites and Guyana through the
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Smithsonian's Department of Entomology, and throughout all her expeditions she
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: would inform Guyana's military ways to build that would avoid
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: termite damage and inform them of how to use termite
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: excretions to make stronger building materials. And the specimens that
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: she collected became part of the Collins Collection at the
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. So she retired from
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Howard in nineteen eighty three. She ended up taking an
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: unpaid senior research position at the Smithsonian as well, But
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: during her trip to Guyana in eighty three to eighty four,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: she had gotten d in gay fever and the issues
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: that she had resulting from that kept her out of
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: the field. During this time, she worked on updating and
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: preserving the Smithsonian's termite collection, and really she recognized how
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: important that work in the museum was, but she really
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: considered her herself like a field of colleges. She really
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: wanted to be back out in the field, and eventually
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: she did get back out into the field. In December
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: of nineteen ninety four, when she was seventy two years old,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: she returned to Guyana with Matthew Kane, who was a
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: staff member at the Smithsonian who specialized in termite gut microbes,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: and for a few weeks she collected specimens she needed
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: to describe a new termite species, and I think there
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: is a termite species that is named after her. So
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: she died in April nineteen ninety six when she was
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: doing field research in the Cayman Islands. And here's I'll
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: just read you a quote from there's a text called
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Black Women's Scientists in the United States that has a
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: bio on her. And here's a quote from that bio.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Collins's research spanned five decades and encompassed nearly the entire
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: field of termite zoology, the evolution of desiccation resistance and termites,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: various termite species, tolerance of high temperatures, defensive behavior in
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: South American termites including chemical defenses, termite ecology, species abundance
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: in virgin and disturbed tropical rainforest, and behavioral ecology, taxonomy
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: and entomology.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: End quote.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: And I just wanted to read that quote from that
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: bio because they encapsulated the breath for termite research a
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: lot better than I would have been able to, not
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: being a termite expert myself. But that just goes to
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: show you how wide ranging her research was in that
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: specific field and how much of an impact it did
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: have on later research and researchers that came after her.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: She's remembered as a great world authority on the termite
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: diversity in the Caribbean and in Guyana. And that's the
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: story of doctor Margaret S.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Colin.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I love this. Okay, First of all, thank you, as always, Eves.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I'm so happy to learn about this. Second of all, listeners,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I'm really sorry we don't have videos sometimes because Samantha
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and I were having very different reactions to the termite terms.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I was very excited. Samantha was not excited at all.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: There's atentive disgust. I mean, come on, yeah, well, more confusion.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: The confusion was more so more prominent than the disgust.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: But because I'm like, really digest the systems of termites
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: and we're using this for buildings.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: What is happening? What is happening? How big are these termites?
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's the other question, Like these are like the
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: swarms of what I think of, and like when they
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: built colonies. When we're talking about colonies, I'm like, yeah,
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: they've destroyed an entire building or forest, Like what what
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: are these things?
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: In my mind, So also again a lot of confusion.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: I just imagine that anything that I've seen, if it
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: also exists in the tropics, that it's astronomically larger. Like
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I just feel like everything there is
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: bigger because it has more more space to grow, it's
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: more undisturbed. So I just imagine anything that's here that
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I know I'm small. If there's a species of spider
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: it was, there's like three times.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Bigger that is a nightmare. That's a horror movie. To me,
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: that's a horror movie.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: I wonder if there is a termite based horror movie.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: There must be any question out now I'm gonna have
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: to look that up. But yeah, no, I thought this
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: was really cool because the specificity kind of delights me of.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: It of like, this is what I'm gonna do.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And I again, I hadn't really thought about how termites are. Yeah,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: they are really damaging, and I now I want to
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: look into how they work more, which is annoying everything.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: They destroy everything.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want to look into I do love
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: what you were talking about Eves, of her just curiosity
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: even as a young child, and being able to connect
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: those concepts of these kind of the outside world, the
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: outdoors world, and in the books she read.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I desperately want to know what one the one book
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: that she said was too boring.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: But I just think that is that when you can
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: have that curiosity and you do get so excited about
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: these things that maybe no one else really thinks about.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: And I just I really enjoy when we get to
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: learn about people like that.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: I think it's also an amazing story about understanding when
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: someone is passionate about something, how that feels contagious and
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: when you really dig into it, and how easily it
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: could also be stamped out like that. For a second
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: she was like, h this is bory. I don't like you.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: You're being racist or discriminatory, or this issue is happening.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: I'm off, I'm gone, But then finding someone else come
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: in and being like, no, but here, this is again
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: like having one boring professor who doesn't make it interesting,
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: and then having that next professor who is like highlighting everything,
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: resparking what you already had a passion for, but growing
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: that and what that actually looks like and why that's
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: so important for so many people, young women, especially especially
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: for those who have been told they couldn't do it
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: all along or who didn't think about it. It sounds
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: like she did not have that problem. She knew the
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: young age. She's like, I can do this, Like teaching
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: herself to read a bout following someone's fingers while they're
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: reading is a phenomenal testament to her ability to learn
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: and quickly catch on. If you know, titling her a prodigy.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: But with that, growing in the passion and loving and
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: finding out something that you do care about, and then
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: having people along the way to grow that passion with you, well.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: It just goes to show you how much a single
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: tiny moment in somebody's life can define the course of
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: the rest of their life. And how much nurture interest
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: that a child shows and in whatever way are allowing
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: them giving them the room to explore that interest. How
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: that matters so much because you can have a spark,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: there can be a flame when you when you relate
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: to something, but if it's not like if you don't
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: blow air onto it, if you don't if you don't
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: allow it to grow, then it can just be extinguished,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: you know, by the drop of rain that comes through
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: that next boring professor. So yeah, I think that matters
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: a lot, And that could happen to us so many,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: so many for so many different things in our lives.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: You know, we don't follow every single thread that starts
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: to unspool. But I think it's nice to see how
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: there was a spark and then maybe it went away,
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: but that it was still there and it was still
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: there's still an ember of it to continue the metaphor
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: at some point that was able to spark back up
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: later on when she did have that professor so and
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: it just got more. She just honed in on it
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: over time. At first it was just you know, natch,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: it was the natural world. And then eventually down the
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: line it got too specifically termites, and you know what,
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: like I was thinking any too, like about you were
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: talking about termites being cool and not thinking about them
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: in that way. My when I think of termites, I
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: think about learning about like the elementary level version of biology,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: whatever that was, and we would just see these big
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: pictures of termite mounds, or we would go to like
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: a natural history museum and they would have a big
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: plastic replica of a termite mound, and I that's what
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: I thought about when I thought about termites. But it's
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: interesting because I never, as a person who was conditioned
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: more into like householder world later on and being an
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: adult and doing it all things and being a homeowner,
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: I only thought about termites. I no longer thought about
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: termite mounts. I only thought about termites destruction of my
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: personal property. It's very American. So so it now in
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: reading about doctor Margaret, it made me think about how
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: when I think about ants, I think about their colonies
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: and how much they work together and how they build.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Why don't I think about termites the same way. They
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: seem to have this also very connected community that works
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: together to build a thing. They're building this thing that's
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: so much bigger than each individual one of their them is,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: and that they have to work together to build. And
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: I can appreciate antswer that way people keep their own
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: small ant colonies, but I've never thought about termites in
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: that way. So it definitely helped me reframe that.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: I'm still not a bug person in general. I have
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: to say that I shouldn't have gave that given that
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: disclaimer at the top, but I do recognize how much usefulness,
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: like how good they are and them being themselves of course,
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: but then there are so many things that humans have
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: because of insects that we learn from them, products that
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: are derived from from from the work that they do. Essentially,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: so shout out to doctor Margaret for studying them. Yeah,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: I still have the mindset that they're trying to destroy
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: my world.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Well, see, this is what I think is cool.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Though, I honestly like respect the termite because we have
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: had they can instill that fear in you. Yeah, and
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: they had to have all this research done on them,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: and they're so small, but they can cause so much damage.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: I just feel like I have not respected the termite
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: properly before this, and I appreciate doctor Margaret are helping
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: me to realize, Yeah, there's no joke.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: There's no joke.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: There are no they are no joke, as the past
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: control people will tell you. I also want to add here,
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: I can definitely see ease that you've been taking time
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: to connect with your creativity. With all the metaphors we
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: just got, which were amazing, like one right after another,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh, yeah, she is on her vibing
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: creativity self right now with her adventures and fun I
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: love it.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Know it's funny because I mean metaphor and parable is
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: a big part of religious and philosophical storytelling, and so
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: I have been noticing so much, so many good metaphors
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: and religious study essentially, I'm like, wow, like that was
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: that was really good? That helped me understand that better
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: I connect me to that.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate that.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, and we appreciate you taking the time and your
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: wild schedule in your different time zones to share this
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: story with us, because I for one loved it. It
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: was awesome. I'm so excited.
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: I won't forget it anytime soon.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Oh man, Well, thank you, thank you, thank you for
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: being here, and as always, we can't wait till next time.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime, where can the good listeners find you?
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Y'all can just go to my website, which is eves
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: Jeffcote dot com. That is y V E S J
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: E F F C A T dot com. You can
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: get to all the things from there. You can sign
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: up for my newsletter if you want to keep up
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: with me that way. You can also go to my
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: instagram if Instagram is your thing. I'm at not apologizing,
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: and you can find me on many, many, many other
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: episodes of Stuff Mom Never Told You, So dig deep
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: into the archives find all the episodes of other women
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: in history who had great firsts. We're pioneering in their fields.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, absolutely go check out all of those things.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: If you haven't already, Listeners, if you would like to
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: contact us, you can. You can email us at Hello
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: A stuff When Never Told You. You can find us
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: a blue Skype, Mom Stuff podcast or instagrament to talk
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: at stuff when Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: We have some new merchandise at Cotton Bureau, and we
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: have a book you can get wherever you get your books.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina or executive
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: producer My and your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: you for listening. Stuff Never Told You is production by
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: can check out the Art Radio app, Apple Podcast, or
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.