Morgan was born in Lexington, Kentucky, to Charlton Hunt Morgan and Ellen Key Howard Morgan. Part of a line of Southern plantation and slave owners on his father's side, Morgan was a nephew of Confederate See more

Morgan had throughout his life suffered from a chronic duodenal ulcer. In 1945, at age 79, he experienced a severe heart attack and died from a ruptured artery. See more

Morgan left an important legacy in genetics. Some of Morgan's students from Columbia and Caltech went on to win their own Nobel Prizes, including George Wells Beadle and Hermann Joseph Muller. Nobel prize winner Eric Kandel has written of Morgan, "Much as … See more

• Mildred Hoge Richards, pupil See more

Bryn Mawr
In 1890, Morgan was appointed associate professor (and head of the biology department) at Johns Hopkins' sister school See more

Morgan was interested in evolution throughout his life. He wrote his thesis on the phylogeny of sea spiders (pycnogonids) and wrote four books about evolution. In Evolution and Adaptation (1903), he argued the anti-Darwinist position that selection could … See more

On June 4, 1904, Morgan married Lillian Vaughan Sampson (1870–1952), who had entered graduate school in biology at Bryn Mawr the same year Morgan joined the faculty; she put aside her scientific work for 16 years of their marriage when they had four children. … See more