Hermon Bumpus was born in Maine but his family soon moved to Massachusetts, where he attended a number of schools in the region of Boston. He showed an early interest in natural history, collecting insects and snakes and hunting birds. While his high school principal did not think Bumpus had the proper education for college, the principal's daughter gave him lessons in classical language, and he was able to enter Brown in 1879. He supported himself in college by sketching animals and working as an assistant in Brown's natural history museum. While still a student he contributed a chapter to the encyclopedia Standard Natural History , published in 1884. After teaching zoology at Brown for a few years, he went Olivet College in Michigan to establish a biology department there and then on to Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, earning the institution's first doctoral degree. During this time Bumpus became involved with founding the marine laboratory at Woods Hole. He returned to Brown in 1890 as an assistant professor of zoology. He was a popular professor, allowing his students after class to smoke and grill the lobsters they had dissected. He attempted a course in human dissection, but found the smallness of Providence made it difficult to find unidentified cadavers. Bumpus was very good at raising money for his projects. As a board member for Rhode Island Hospital, he raised funds for a pathology laboratory and pioneered the use of X-rays in surgery. In 1900 he was appointed director of the American Museum of Natural History. This experience in administration led to jobs as business manager of the University of Wisconsin and president of Tufts University, both of which positions he left as soon as his goals were accomplished. He served as secretary to the Brown Corporation from 1924 to 1937. He died shortly after retiring from the Brown board in 1943.