Robert C. Stauffer

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University of Wisconsin-Madison Faculty Document 971
5 October 1992

MEMORIAL RESOLUTION OF THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

ON THE DEATH OF EMERITUS PROFESSOR ROBERT CLINTON STAUFFER

Robert C. Stauffer, a member of the History of Science faculty since 1947, died on April 30, 1992 in Madison. He had been retired since 1978. He was born on May 26, 1913, in Cleveland, Ohio, the only child of Raymond Clinton Stauffer, who had a long and distinguished career as a geologist at the University of Minnesota, and Eva Grace Webb Stauffer. Robert received his B.A. in biology at Dartmouth College in 1934, his M.A. at Harvard in 1939, and his Ph.D. in history at Harvard in 1948, after service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Robert Stauffer is survived by his former wife, Velma Mekeel Stauffer of Madison.

Stauffer joined the Wisconsin faculty in January 1947 to reactivate the history of science department which had been created in 1941, but had remained unstaffed throughout most of World War II. Stauffer was joined in January 1948 by Marshall Clagett and together they proceeded to make Wisconsin a leading center for study of history of science, Stauffer focusing on the biological sciences, Clagett on the physical sciences.

During the University of Wisconsin Centennial Year (1949), Stauffer chaired a committee which brought to Madison a symposium which included a panel of leaders who focused their attention on the role of science in modern civilization. The papers presented at the symposium were edited by Stauffer and published as Science and Civilizations by the UW Press in 1952.

The climax of Stauffer's career was the publication in 1975 of Charles Darwin's Natural Selection. This work was Darwin's uncompleted draft of a much larger version of what became the famous Origin of the Species, published in 1859. The existence of this larger manuscript was well known and its editing and publication had long been a desideratum of Darwinian scholars, but the size and complexity of the task daunted scholars for more than a century. The successful completion of this work attests Stauffer's characteristic qualities of patience, deliberate thoroughness, and meticulous attention to detail. One reviewer labeled the book as “probably the publishing event of the decade in the history of science.”

Robert Stauffer's dedication to the history of science will continue to be felt through the annual purchase of distinguished books and manuscripts in that field for the University Library, thanks to his substantial bequest to the University Foundation for that purpose.

MEMORIAL COMMITTEE
Victor Hilts
Aaron J. Ihde, Chair
John Neu
Robert Siegfried
Glenn Sonnedecker

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