Sol Felty Light (May 5, 1886 – June 21, 1947) was an American zoologist, entomologist, and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for his research on tropical marine invertebrates and caste development in termites. From 1913 to 1947, he published approximately 70 papers, mainly on the subject of entomology. In the 1920s, he began teaching invertebrate zoology, expanding class field trips in the 1930s with five-week summer sessions at Moss Beach and Dillon Beach.
His class syllabus on zoology was originally designed for students at Berkeley, but were later published as an invertebrate zoology textbook and field guide, becoming the first compendium of marine invertebrates in the north central California coastal region for specialists working in the area between Hopkins Marine Station and Bodega Marine Laboratory. After Light's death, the book was edited, revised, and expanded by Ralph I. Smith and other contributors, becoming known as Light's Manual. After Smith himself died, the book was renamed the Light and Smith Manual in his honor.
Biography Light was born in Elm Mills, Kansas, on May 5, 1886.Mallis, Arnold. (1971). American Entomologists. Rutgers University Press. pp. 473-474. . His father was Samuel Light, a Presbyterian minister, and his mother was Edith Frances McDill, the daughter of United States Senator James W. McDill (1834–1894) from Iowa.Woods, Robert McDill; Iva Godfrey Woods. (1940). McDills in America. Edwards Brothers, Inc. pp. 80-82.. Other details about his early life are unknown.Essig, E. O. (April 1948). "Sol Felty Light 1886-1947" . The Pan-Pacific Entomologist. 24 (2): 49-53. Retrieved November 22, 2023. Light attended Park College, Missouri (AB, 1908).Visher, Stephen Sargent (1947). Scientists Starred, 1903-1943, in "American Men of Science": A Study of Collegiate and Doctoral Training, Birthplace, Distribution, Backgrounds, and Developmental Influences. Johns Hopkins Press. . After graduating, he spent time abroad in Asia, where he taught for two years in Japan and two years at Manila High School in the Philippines.Bullock, Theodore H. (November 21, 1947). "Obituary". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 106 (2760): 483-484. . . He went on to spend two years teaching zoology at the University of the Philippines, where he attended graduate school (MA, 1913) and participated in a marine survey at the harbor of Puerto Galera, Mindoro."University and Educational News". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 35 (903): 618. April 19, 1912. From March to June 1912, Light and a team of researchers, including ichthyologist Alvin Seale (1871–1958), set up a temporary site, collecting samples for the department of zoology. They discovered that the site would be ideal for a permanent station.Roxas, Hilario A. (1930). "The Puerto Galera Marine Biological Laboratory of the University of the Philippines". University of the Philippines. pp. 1-32. Bullock notes that Light's early, productive work on coelenterates, octocorals, and true jellyfish arose out of his time in the Philippines.
Light became a full professor at the University of the Philippines, and finally chairman of the department until 1922. He took a leave of absence and obtained a second masters at Princeton University (MS, 1915). From 1922 until 1924, he chaired the zoology department at the University of Amoy (now Xiamen University) in China. While there, he published an article in Science about lancelet (amphioxus) fisheries,Light, S. F. (July 27, 1923). "Amphioxus Fisheries near the University of Amoy, China". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 58 (1491): 57-60. surprising scientists who had previously believed the fish to be rare in the region. According to science historian Christine Yi Lai Luk, George Sarton (1884–1956), the founder of the history of science discipline, was so impressed by Light's paper that he cited it in his 1924 critical bibliography.Yi Lai Luk, Christine (2020). "The First Marine Biological Station in Modern China: Amoy University and Amphioxus". In Karl S. Matlin, Jane Maienschein, Rachel A. Ankeny (Eds). Why Study Biology by the Sea?. University of Chicago Press. pp. 68-86. . . That same year, Light returned to the U.S. to study termites, becoming a James M. Goewey Fellow two years later at the University of California, Berkeley,"One Fellowship, Six Scholarships are Awarded". The California Aggie. 13 (21): 4. February 24, 1926. Retrieved September 18, 2024. where he received his doctorate under professor Charles Atwood Kofoid on termite flagellates (PhD, 1926). In 1928, he worked with the Termite Investigations Committee, a joint University of California and private industry project working to control the insect's impact.Light, S. F. (April 1929). "Termites and Termite Damage". University of California. College of Agriculture. Agricultural Experiment Station. Berkeley, California. Circular 314. As part of the committee, he served as chairman on the subcommittee on publicity, as vice-chair on biology, and chair on the advisory council.Light, S. F.; Randall, Merle; White, Frank G. (August 1930). "Termites and Termite Damage". University of California. College of Agriculture. Agricultural Experiment Station. Berkeley, California. Circular 318. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) said Light had an important role on this project in late 1929.Vestal, Arthur G. (August 9, 1929). "The Second Berkeley Meeting of the Pacific Division". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 70 (1806): 130. That same year, Light was made full professor. His contributions to Termites and Termite Control (1934), written in collaboration with Kofoid,Osborn, Herbert. (1952). A Brief History of Entomology Including Time of Demosthenes and Aristotle to Modern Times with over Five Hundred Portraits . The Spahr & Glenn Company. p. 208. . and his 1935 study on termite colony castes, established him as an expert in his field.Bullock, Theodore H.; Eakin, Richard M.; Miller, Alden H. (1947). Sol Felty Light, Zoölogy: Berkeley (1886-1947) . University of California: In Memoriam, 1947. UC History Digital Archives. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
In the 1930s, Light began teaching marine zoology and holding five-week summer courses and field trips to Moss Beach and Dillon Beach. From these classes, he developed a syllabus in 1937 which evolved into an invertebrate zoology textbook and field guide, later publishing it in book form as the Laboratory and Field Text in Invertebrate Zoology (1941).Carlton, James T. (ed.) (2007). The Light and Smith Manual: Intertidal Invertebrates from Central California to Oregon. University of California Press. pp. xv-xvii. . . . The Southern California Association of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists (SCAMIT) recognizes the book as "the first reasonably comprehensive treatment of marine invertebrates" in the north central California coastal region."Newsletter". Southern California Association of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists/ Jan/Feb/March/April 2009 Vol. 27, No. 5. Retrieved November 29, 2023. Marine ecologist James T. Carlton notes that Light's Manual was originally designed for specialists working in the area between Hopkins Marine Station and Bodega Marine Laboratory.
On June 21, 1947, Light accidentally drowned in Clear Lake, while fishing on summer vacation. Until his death, Light served as professor of zoology at Berkeley for 22 years.
Personal life Light married Mary Nexbitt Holdcroft on January 1, 1925. He was known for his conservative demeanor, always appearing in full business suits while on field trips at the beach, only changing his shoes for rubber boots. Light disliked using "Sol Felty" as part of his full name; His students knew him as "Dr. Light", while his wife referred to him only as "S. F. Light" after he died. Former student Joel Hedgpeth remembers that he "always signed himself S. F. Light, or S. F. L. He obviously didn't care much for what his parents had done for him...So sometimes, we use those terms, being overfamiliar in our behind-his-back sort of references." Light was quietly active in the Christian community and belonged to the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, where he was a vestryman. The church was popular with zoologists,Hedgpeth, Joel (1952). "Preface: About This Book and Ed Ricketts, 1952". In Ricketts, Ed. (1985). Between Pacific Tides. Stanford University Press. pp. xvii-xviii. . . with Light's doctoral advisor Charles Atwood Kofoid and colleague Richard M. Eakin notable members.
Legacy Light's former student, neuroscientist Theodore H. Bullock, argues that his work and influence led his students at the University of the Philippines to establish the Puerto Galera Marine Biological Laboratory in 1925. In the 1940s, Light was profiled in American Men of Science as one of the top 255 practicing scientists and 37 zoologists in the U.S.Cattell, Jaques (August 11, 1944). "American Men of Science: Scientific Men Receiving Stars in the Seventh Edition" . Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 100 (2589): 126-129. He published 70 papers, many in entomology. After Light's death in 1947, his colleagues made note of his contributions to academia. "[His] whole life was motivated by great ability, high ideals, strict honesty, and real responsibility that helped to make him the great teacher and investigator that he was", wrote fellow Berkeley entomologist E. O. Essig in Light's obituary. Bullock, Richard M. Eakin, and ornithologist Alden H. Miller wrote that his "unique courses in marine zoology given at the seashore under difficult conditions...maintained standards of excellence unsurpassed by any center of instruction in marine biology in the country". Hedgpeth recalls that Light was referred to by others as an "inspired pedagogue" who "left his mark on virtually every institution of learning on the Pacific coast."
A group of students who studied under Light at Berkeley became leading authorities in their respective fields. These students include Olga Hartman (1900–1974), expert on polychaete worms, professor of biology at the University of Southern California;Fauchald, Kristian; Reish, Donald J. (1977). "Biography and bibliography of Dr. Olga Hartman". In Donald J. Reish, & Kristian Fauchald (eds.). Essays on Polychaetous Annelids: In Memory of Dr. Olga Hartman. The Allan Hancock Foundation, University of Southern California. pp. 1-23. . Light, S. F.; Hartman, Olga. (1937). "A review of the genera Clausidium Kossman and Hemicyclops Boeck (Copepoda, Cyclopoida), with the description of a new species from the Northeast Pacific". University of California Publications in Zoology. 41 (14): 173-188. . zoologist Mildred Stratton Wilson (1909–1973), who like Light before her, focused on copepods as a research associate of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Alaska;Damkaer, David M. (January 1, 1988). "Mildred Stratton Wilson, Copepodologist" . Journal of Crustacean Biology, 8 (1): 131-146. . Joel Hedgpeth (1911–2006), professor of oceanography at the University of California, San Diego;Hedgpeth, Joel W. (1992). "Marine Biologist and Environmentalist: Pycnogonids, Progress, and Preserving Bays, Salmon, and Other Living Things" . Interviews conducted by Ann Lage in 1992. Source of Community Leaders Series. The Bancroft Library. University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley. zoological systematist Paul L. Illg (1914–1998), associate curator at the National Museum of Natural History and professor of zoology at the University of Washington;Hadfield, Michael G. (1998). "Paul Louis Illg". Journal of Crustacean Biology. 18 (4): 839-841.