American orthopterist James Abram Garfield Rehn (1881-1965) was born and educated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of William J. and Cornelia Loud Rehn. He attended the Public Industrial Art School and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Rehn’s interest in natural history began some time before 1898. During this period Rehn “had been a member of a group of boys known as the Aristotle Society, the activities of which had been supervised by C. W. Johnson, who was then Curator of the Wagner Free Institute of Science.” (Phillips 1965)

Rehn’s career in systematic zoology began on June 1, 1900 when he was accepted as a Jessup student at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP), and became an associate of the Entomological Section. During the first ten years of his career, Rehn published articles in the fields of Mammalogy and Entomology, however, by 1905, his interest had become concentrated on the study of the Orthoptera group. “[B]eginning about 1910 a steadily increasing stream of papers on Orthoptera began to appear under his name.” (Phillips 1965) Through this concentration, Rehn became one of the few scientists to publish work on North American Orthoptera. The introduction to his 1961 monograph emphasizes the uniqueness of Rehn’s field of research: “Since 1900 the chief systematic and bionomic work on the Orthopters of North America produced up to the preparation of the present work, has come from the studies of six men, i.e. Andrew Caudell, Ashley P. Gurney, Morgan Hebard, Theodore H. Hubbell, James A. G. Rehn, and John W. H. Rehn.” (Rehn and Grant 1961)

Between the years 1900 and 1955 Rehn had published “seventy-two papers on North American Orthoptera, as well as thirty-six jointly with Morgan Hebard, and five jointly with John W. H. Rehn, or a total of a hundred and thirteen titles.” (Rehn and Grant 1961) Rehn’s obituary from the Entomological News reported: “The results of Mr. Rehn’s research in various field have been extensively published. During the 65 years involved, there were 20 papers on mammals, including four as joint author; on the subject of Orthoptera about 337 have been printed, of which 83 were with other authors; in all, over 350 papers bear his name.” (Phillips 1965) The list of journals that published Rehn’s articles includes Notulae Naturae; Transactions of the American Entomological Society; Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences; Entomological News; Monographs of the Academy of Natural Sciences; and Publications of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Rehn also published two monographs. The first was The Grasshoppers and Locusts (Acrididae) of Australia in three volumes (1952-1957). This work was prepared for The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of the Australian government. Rehn’s 1961 monograph, co-authored with Harold J. Grant,A Monograph of the Orthoptera of North America (North of Mexico), Volume 1 was the culmination of his work on the Orthoptera group in the United States.

Rehn’s prolificacy was the result of his tenacious field research. Over the course of his career he had spent over thirty seasons in the field. His field work included a wide variety of surveys throughout the United States, recording data from 3538 numbered collecting stations. In the introduction of his 1961 monograph, Rehn summarized the history of his field research:

The idea of the present monograph was slowly crystallizing in the minds of Morgan Hebard and James A. G. Rehn as far back as 1905, when the second of many joint field studies was carried out, this in northern Florida. The encouragement and early support of Mr. Hebard's parents made possible in the development of the field side of the plan, the plotting of a series of seasonal field expeditions for Orthoptera in various parts of the United States. This early planning resulted in fifteen seasons of detailed joint field study and collecting between 1905 and 1928, correlated with which from 1911 on circumstances permitted Morgan Hebard to concentrate his days very largely upon orthopteran research, as well as the broad development of the collections of that order at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, on which the present monograph is largely based. The particular value of this collection is its comprehensiveness and its geographic coverage, containing as it does the results of the seasons of field work with its accompanying thousands of field observations. ... In addition the collection at the Academy contains the results of sixteen seasons of similar field work in North America, carried out by James A. G. Rehn, these chiefly between 1937 and 1957, in four of which John W. H. Rehn took and active part. (Rehn and Grant 1961)