Following the Great Depression and shortly before World War II, a powerful new chemical insecticide was being discovered by Swiss chemist Paul Müller: DDT (chemically, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane). However, it was not just farmers who were excited about this pesticide - the United States military as well as other governments quickly became interested in the discovery. DDT powder could prevent typhus spread by fleas, malaria spread by mosquitoes and it could control lice and other pests. Many professed it to be a miracle; DDT was saving lives. The insecticide business grew not only in popularity, but also in its use for farm productivity and as a multi-million dollar industry following the war.
{Use of DDT sprayed during WWII - photo credit}
During this time, a young woman from Michigan named Lucille Farrier was pursuing her passion for the environment at Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan. Prior to completing her doctorate, she married William Henson Stickel in 1941 who would become her lifelong research partner. Dr. Lucille Farrier Stickel and her husband moved to Washington, DC in the early 1940s where they worked as wildlife biologists at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.
{Dr. Lucille Farrier Stickel - photo credit}
In 1946, following the war and with the growing popularity of DDT and lack of government regulations, Dr. Stickel published her first contaminant paper reporting the results of a study in which mice were exposed to an area treated with DDT. Not only was this Dr. Stickel's first publication, but her publication was one of the first to date discussing the harmful effects of pesticides. Among other discoveries, Dr. Stickel developed a method still used today to determine chemical residues in animal brain tissue. Dr. Stickel's research became the basis for her contemporary and fellow environmentalist Rachel Carson's famous book, Silent Spring, which exposed the dangers of pesticides on wildlife. Dr. Stickel went on to publish more than 25 publications on environmental pollution and 16 publications on population biology. She remained at the Patuxent Wildlife research Center until her retirement in 1982, serving as the Director from 1973 to 1981 - the first woman to direct a major fish and wildlife laboratory.
{Silent Spring by Rachel Carson - photo credit}
Dr. Stickel participated in other wildlife toxicology research with her husband including the investigation of pesticides in birds and bald eagles. While at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Dr. Stickel was one of an elite group of women who made significant contributions to the field of mammalogy including box turtle research - research which continues today and is one of the longest continuous studies of a wildife species (PWRC Journal of Wildlife Management). In addition, the approximately 40 research scientists that she hired during her tenure at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center have published over 1,000 scientific papers and books and gone onto leadership positions throughout the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the USGS.
Although she faced adversity from the media about her research, Dr. Stickel's work did not go unnoticed by the scientific community; she received several awards throughout her career. In 1968, Dr. Stickel received the Federal Women's Award and the Interior Department's Distinguished Service Award. In 1974, she not only the first, but also the only woman to receive the Wildlife Society's Aldo Leopold Memorial Award for "distinguished service to wildlife conservation." Dr. Stickel received the prestigious Rachel Carson Award in 1998 and was known as the "first lady" of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Dr. Stickel retired to North Carolina with her husband to pursue their love for botany. She passed away in 2007 at 92 years old.
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