The American zoologist Charles Benedict Davenport is best known for pioneering work on the use of statistical techniques in biological research and for his contributions to eugenics (improvement of populations through breeding).

Charles Davenport was one of eleven children. His strict and puritanical father, Amzi Benedict Davenport, was the founder of a private school in Brooklyn, New York, and a successful businessman. For his first 13 years, Davenport was tutored by his father, who also made him work almost full-time in his office. During the summers, Davenport worked on the family farm near Stamford, Connecticut, where he developed and interest in natural history as well as engineering. When he was 13, Davenport enrolled in the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He obtained his B.S. in civil engineering in 1886. Before entering Harvard College, where he majored in zoology, Davenport worked for a company conducting a railroad survey in Michigan. He earned...