Sophie Lutterlough

Lutterlough was born Sophie G. Mack in Washington, D.C.,[1] and had two sisters and a brother.[1] She graduated from Dunbar High School in 1928 where she took classes in biology,[1] near the top of her class.[4]

In 1943, Lutterlough applied for a job at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).[1] Racial barriers against African-Americans prevented her from direct employment in the museum's curatorial and science work.[1] She was employed on a trial basis as an elevator operator - the first woman in that position at the Smithsonian[5] - and held that position for 14 years, during which she studied the museum's exhibits on her lunch break and became "a one-women [sic] information bureau" to museum visitors.[1]

It was common for people without academic qualifications in science to become scientists through training and experience at the NMNH.[6] Lutterlough started on that path in 1957, when she asked an insect curator, J.F. Gates Clark, if she could work in his department, and gained a position as insect preparator.[1] This had happened in 1926 for at least one other African-American, Barry Hampton, who moved from being a mail clerk to working in the Division of Reptiles and Bachtrachians, although he was still classified as a laborer.[7]

Jeannine Smith Clark worked at the NMNH as a volunteer tour guide from the late 1960s,[8] and Margaret Collins, an African-American zoology professor at Howard University, was a research associate at the NMNH from the late 1970s. There were no other African-Americans employed as scientists there in 1985.[9] African-Americans were still greatly under-represented among entomologists in 2008, when only eight faculty members of 1,348 on U.S. websites could be identified as African-American.[10]

Lutterlough worked on identifying the NMNH's insect collection, becoming a research assistant within two years.[1] For the next 24 years, she restored and classified many arthropods in the Myriapoda group, that includes centipedes and millipedes, as well as ticks and other species.[1] The NMNH's 1963/64 annual report, for example, reported that she restored over 300,000 ticks in the preceding year.[2]

Lutterlough took college courses in science and writing, and studied German to support her development as an entomologist.[1] Among her achievements were restoring 35,000 ticks, enabling her and her supervisor, Dr. Ralph Crabill, to identify 40 type specimens (a specimen that is the reference point for others in its species).[1] She retired from NMNH after 40 years.[1]

In 1941, Lutterlough married Henry E. Lutterlough.[4] Henry Lutterlough was a member of the Earl Reece Stadtman biochemistry laboratory at the National Institutes of Health.[4][11] Lutterlough was widowed, and in 1999, she moved to live with her daughter in Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey.[4] She was a member of the People's Congregational Church from 1960, and the first soprano in the choir.[4] She joined the Cross of Glory Lutheran Church and its choir when she moved to New Jersey.[4] Lutterlough died in Monroe Township on 11 February 2009, at the age of 98.[4]

In 1979, a mite of the genus Pygmephorus was named for her.[3] Pygmephorus lutterloughae is a large mite, described from a sample in the NMNH collection (No. 3782), collected in Oregon in 1970.[3]

In 1983 when she retired from the Smithsonian, Lutterlough was honored with an Exemplary Service award.[4]