George T. Scott Papers

George Taylor Scott was born in Troy, New York, on September 10, 1914. He was the son of Robert Winfeld (1880-1937) and Helen Denison Taylor Scott (1881-1968). He had two siblings - Margorie Louise (1916-2002) and Robert Winfield (1923-1989). Educated in Stillwater, New York, Scott received a bachelor’s degree from Union College in New York (1938), and a master’s degree (1941) and doctoral degree (1943) from Harvard University. He was an Austin Teaching Fellow at Harvard from 1940-42.

Scott joined the faculty of Oberlin College in 1943 as an instructor in the Department of Zoology, 1943-46 (Assistant Professor, 1946-48; Associate Professor, 1948-52; Professor, 1952-80). He served as the head of the Department of Zoology from 1956 to 1961.  He taught courses in physiology, biochemistry, and introductory biology. The Oberlin College Departments of Botany and Zoology merged to form the Department of Biology in 1961, and Scott was named department head from 1961 to 1967. He was instrumental in getting approval for the merger, discussing many of the positive benefits with Oberlin College President Robert Kenneth Carr (1908-1979). Despite opposition from professors at Oberlin College (specifically George Tallmon Jones, 1897-1998) and professors at other institutions (many of whom graduated from Oberlin), the new department was created. Scott also helped to secure a $375,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for the construction of Kettering Hall, which was built for the Departments of Biology and Chemistry.

George T. Scott spent considerable professional time researching at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. There he served on the board of trustees from 1956 to 1974. He also conducted research at the Bermuda Biological Station in St. Georges, Bermuda, where he served as president from 1967 to 1977.  On July 16, 1977, in honor of Scott’s commitment to biological research, the Bermuda Biological Station officially named the laboratory at the station after him. In addition to marine biology projects, Scott studied the physiological influences of psychoactive drugs, specifically their effects on the pigment-dispersing systems of frogs and flatfish, with many of the tests sponsored by the National Institute of Health, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The majority of his research papers dealt with ion distributions across cell membranes, and several of his articles were published in Science, Biological Bulletin, Archives of Biochemistry, and Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.

Scott served on the Health Service Committee at Oberlin College. However, the majority of his committee work was at the Bermuda Biological Station and Marine Biological Laboratory, where he served as Chairman of the Nominating Committee at each location. In 1962 and 1967, Scott participated in international conferences on Action Mechanism and Metabolism in Psychoactive Drugs in Paris. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Zoologists, the Society of General Physiologists, the Ohio Academy of Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the American Association of University Professors. Scott is listed in Who’s Who in Science, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World.

Scott retired from Oberlin College in 1980. That same year the college created the George T. Scott Marine Biology Scholarship in honor of his 37 years of teaching and research at Oberlin. After retirement, Scott and his wife, Elsie Mae Welling (1920-2009) moved to Massachusetts. They had two daughters, Helen and Georganne. George T. Scott died at the age of 73 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on September 17, 1987.

Sources Consulted

Faculty File of George T. Scott, Alumni and Development Records (RG 28).

George T. Scott Papers (RG 30/134).

Records of the Office of Communication (RG 18).

Who Was Who in America, Vol.IX, 1985-1989 (Wilmette, IL: Macmillan, 1989), p.320.

Note written by Colin Mack.