Lobdell, R. N. (Richard Nugent) | Tulane University Special Collections

Name: Lobdell, R. N. (Richard Nugent)

Historical Note: R.N. (Richard Nugent) Lobdell was a scientist specializing in destructive crawfish in Mississippi. He wrote his thesis at Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (which was renamed Mississippi State University) in 1912. He began his career as an assistant entomologist at Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College. He worked with the Agricultural Experiment Station as a troubleshooter in northern Mississippi at Palmyra between 1912 and 1917. After serving one year during World War I, he returned and focused on his study of the crawfish Cambarus hagenianus, which was devouring corn, cotton, and other crops in northeastern Mississippi. Between 1919 and 1921 he traveled to sites around Mississippi (Okalona, Aberdeen, Decatur, Yazoo City, Macon) helping farmers whose lands suffered from crop destruction by crawfish. By 1921 he was an associate professor of biology at Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College and began experimenting with carbon bisulphide to get rid of the destructive crawfish. He worked with scientists at the Smithsonian Institution to identify crawfish.

Sources: Manuscripts Collection 657

Note Author: LAC Group

Records or Manuscript Collections Created by Lobdell, R. N. (Richard Nugent)