Meet the Scientist who Helped Kick-Start U.S. Fish and Fisheries Research

Goode set the methods and standards still used in fishery research today. His time with the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries and the Smithsonian Institution was one of the most productive periods in ichthyology (the scientific study of fish) and taxonomy (the classification of living organisms).

While working for the Fish Commission and the Smithsonian Institution, Goode discovered and systematically cataloged significant collections of unknown species of fish and other marine life, dividing specimens between the two museums. He also authored more than 100 scientific notes and contributions in the reports of both organizations, as well as compiling catalogs and guides to exhibits.

In his work as an ichthyologist, Goode was the first to catalog and name several species, including the Gulf Blanquillo or Grey Tilefish (Caulolatilus microps), the Gulf Scup or Goat’s Head Porgy (Stenotomus caprinus), the Spotted Moray (Gymnothorax moringa), and Baird’s Alepocephalus (Alepocephalus Bairdii), which he named after the first U.S. Fish Commissioner, Spencer Fullerton Baird. Sketches of these species and many others were included in Goode’s eight-volume collection, The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States in 1884.

Goode first worked for the Fish Commission as a volunteer researcher in Maine. There he met Spencer Fullerton Baird, then Fish Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian and quickly became Baird’s assistant and chief of the Division of Fisheries at the Smithsonian Institution.

Goode divided his time between the Fish Commission, Wesleyan University, and the Smithsonian. The Fish Commission and the Smithsonian Institution were so closely intertwined that Goode effectively ran the fish research program of both organizations from 1873 to 1887.