Edward Hopkins Jenkins
Edward Hopkins Jenkins was an American agricultural chemist who served as director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station from 1900 to 1923. He also directed the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station from 1912 to 1923. Jenkins oversaw the writing of hundreds of agricultural publications during his tenure, specializing in the culture, cure, and fermentation of tobacco.
Early life and education
Born in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to John and Chloe Jenkins, Jenkins graduated Phillips Academy in 1868 and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale College in 1872. He pursued graduate studies at Yale's Sheffield Scientific School under the tutelage of noted agricultural chemist Samuel William Johnson. From 1875 to 1876, Jenkins studied in Germany at Leipzig University and then at the Royal Saxon Academy of Agriculture and Forestry in Tharandt, Saxony under Friedrich Nobbe. He received his Doctor of Philosophy in chemistry from Yale in 1879.Career
While studying for his doctorate, Jenkins began working as an assistant chemist for the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven in 1877, only two years after the Station started. Johnson was the Station's director, while Jenkins and future Storrs Agricultural School principal Henry P. Armsby were his assistants. Jenkins rapidly developed a reputation for both scientific excellence and ability to convince skeptical farmers to adopt new agricultural techniques. He was promoted to vice director of the Station in 1884 and became director in 1900 and treasurer in 1901. Jenkins simultaneously served as director and treasurer until retiring in 1923, when he became director emeritus until his death. The Station grew during his tenure, adding departments of entomology, forestry, genetics, and tobacco, the latter substation being in Windsor.Jenkins held many other state offices. In 1883, he became an officer of the state board of agriculture. In 1899, he joined the board of trustees of the Connecticut Agricultural College. He served as director of the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station from 1912 until 1923 and chaired the Connecticut Sewerage Commission from 1897 to 1903. During World War I, he served as state food administrator, leading Connecticut's efforts to ration supplies and maximize production of foodstuffs needed for the war effort. He wrote or oversaw the composition of hundreds of agricultural reports, bulletins, and other publications, including A History of Connecticut Agriculture. Dedicated in October 1932 at a ceremony presided over by Governor Wilbur Cross, the Jenkins Laboratory of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station was named in his honor. Renovated and expanded in 2014, the facility was renamed the Jenkins-Waggoner Laboratory after Paul E. Waggoner.