Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

For centuries herbaria great and small have amassed verified samples of botanists' handwriting. Often called the autograph collection, they are always much more than just a signature. Often, pre-20th-century botanists did not sign the herbarium sheets. The correct identification of who wrote what is profoundly important. In the preface to the collection of handwriting samples from the Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques, Frans A. Stafleu (1921–1997) stated: "A correct identification may establish the authenticity of type specimens and other material of historical and nomenclatural standing" (Stafleu 1979).

The General Autograph Collection of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation began with Rachel Hunt's autograph letter collection of 410 letters from 176 botanists and other naturalists. In 1961 George H. M. Lawrence (1910–1978) wrote of the fledgling autograph collection:

It is important to the taxonomist to know the identity of persons who have penciled notes and names on herbarium specimens, and one of the most reliable ways to determine this is to have at hand large suites of handwriting examples for comparison. Usually top quality facsimile copies can be used as acceptable substitutes for the original documents. There is an opportunity here for future publication of a volume that would provide such useful facsimiles of the more important of the world's botanists. In addition, these letters are potential sources of hitherto unrevealed personal and bibliographical information, and of other data important for their scientific value (Lawrence 1961, p. 27).

Hunt Institute curators added additional materials to the collection over several decades. The General Autograph Collection now contains over 1,700 handwritten letters from mostly American and European botanists. The dates of the letters range from the 17th to the 20th century. Sixty-five years later Lawrence's dream has come to fruition. The Institute has digitized its General Autograph Collection (GAC). The collection contains not what is normally thought of as an autograph—something written on a napkin or a t-shirt—but rather complete letters (if possible) detailing the full range of the writer's penmanship. One expected use for these items is as a sampling of the handwriting of botanists, which is particularly useful in determining the identity of individuals who have written notes on herbarium sheets. Perhaps equally important is the historical content with which these are incredibly rich.

Sources

Lawrence, G. H. M., ed. 1961. The Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Botanical Library: Its Collections, Program & Staff. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Hunt Botanical Library. https://www.huntbotanical.org/publications/show.php?127.

Stafleu, F. 1979. Préface. In: H. M. Burdet. 1979. Auxilium ad botanicorum graphicem. Genève: Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques. http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/auxilium/plansite.php.

Finding Aid

A finding aid for this collection is available online.

Other Resources

For information about biographical citations for and portraits of the subject, see the Hunt Institute Archives Biographical Records database. 

Selection of American botanists

William P. C. Barton (17 November 1786–27 March 1856)

William Barton's name is usually written with the initials "P. C." These came from his time as an undergraduate at Princeton; when the members of his class decided to take on the names of famous individuals, William Barton chose "Paul Crillon," a Spanish general active in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. A native of Philadelphia, Barton first studied classics, but he then decided to attend the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he developed an interest in botany and botanical illustration, no doubt at least partially because of the influence of his uncle Benjamin Smith Barton (1766–1815), the author of Elements of Botany (1803), the first botanical textbook written in the United States.

William Barton became a naval doctor, and over the course of his career he spearheaded several reforms, like encouraging sailors to eat limes and lemons to combat scurvy, introducing female nurses, and enacting stronger regulations over ship medical supplies. In 1811 he was asked to draft regulations for the United States' first naval hospitals. Barton was court-martialed and found guilty of making false accusations of negligence against another naval doctor, although for this he was only reprimanded. His interests in botany, illustration and how plants could be used in medicine led him to write and draw illustrations for the Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States (1817–1819, 2 vols. in 4 parts each), the first American botanical work that was printed with color plates, and A Flora of North America ([1820–]1821–1823[–1824], 3 vols.).

Barton, William Paul Crillon (1786–1856), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), n.p., 10 July 1821. Depository: General Autograph Collection (GAC), Archives collection no. 370 (box 3), Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, Pa. https://huntbot.org/hibdarc/collections/370/Barton--William-Paul-Crillon-2_r.pdf.

Barton is writing to John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, asking his opinion on the "propriety" of dedicating his new book, A Flora of North America, to President James Monroe (1758–1831), while working for the federal government. Apparently, it was not considered a conflict of interest as Volume 1 was dedicated to Monroe.

Mary Katharine Brandegee (28 October 1844–3 April 1920)

Born Mary Katharine Layne in Tennessee, Mary's family was one of many that migrated westward to California to try to prosper from the 1849 Gold Rush. They took up residence in Folsom, California. In 1866 Katharine married a constable, Hugh Curran, who died eight years later from alcoholism. After Hugh's death, Katharine relocated to San Francisco, where she became the third woman to enroll in the medical school at the University of California at Berkeley. Upon graduation in 1878, though, Katharine took the advice of a mentor and chose botany as a career instead of medicine.

While studying botany under Hans Hermann Behr, a professor of botany with the California Pharmaceutical Society, Katharine worked at the California Academy of Sciences' herbarium and collected plants from around California. By 1883 she was named a curator of botany and became the academy's sole botanical curator in 1891, one of the few women in the United States at the time to hold such a position. Around this time, she married again to a civil engineer named Townshend S. Brandegee, who was also a plant collector. They spent their honeymoon walking 500 miles from San Diego to San Francisco to collect plant specimens.

By 1894 the Brandegees moved to San Diego where they established the city's first botanical garden on their own private property. After the 1906 earthquake that devastated San Francisco and destroyed the herbarium of the California Academy of Sciences, the Brandegees moved back to San Francisco and donated their collection of over 76,000 specimens to the University of California at Berkeley. Katharine Brandegee remained an active plant collector until her death in 1920.

Brandegee, Katharine (1844–1920), San Francisco, California, to unknown correspondent, 12 March 1890. Depository: General Autograph Collection (GAC), Archives collection no. 370 (box 5), Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, Pa. https://huntbot.org/hibdarc/collections/370/Brandegee--Katherine-1_r.pdf.

Katharine Brandegee inquires after the health of the unknown correspondent and talks about founding the scientific journal Zoe with her husband.

Elizabeth Gertrude Britton (9 January 1858–25 February 1934)

Although she was born in New York City to James and Sophie Anne Knight, Elizabeth spent most of her early childhood in Matanzas, Cuba, where her grandfather owned a sugar plantation and a furniture factory. She studied the natural sciences at Normal College (today Hunter College) in New York City, graduating at the age of 17 and later becoming a lecturer there. In 1885 she married the geologist and botanist Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859–1934). After her marriage, she began working for the Torrey Botanical Club (today the Torrey Botanical Society) as their curator of mosses and the editor of their memoirs. Later, she became Columbia College's unofficial curator of mosses, joined the Botanical Society of America as their only female charter member, and co-founded the Sullivant Moss Society (later the American Bryological and Lichenological Society).

Elizabeth became an active field researcher, carrying out botanical expeditions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Appalachian and Adirondack Mountains. After visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in England, Elizabeth and Nathaniel raised money for the establishment of the New York Botanical Garden in 1891. A pioneering advocate for wildflower preservation, she was a founding member of the Wild Flower Preservation Society. Over the course of her career as a botanist, she published more than 346 scientific works on ferns, wildflowers and mosses. Today the bryophyte genus Bryobrittonia and the Gertrude Britton Moss Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden are named after her.

Britton, Elizabeth Gertrude (1858–1934), Department of Botany, Columbia University, New York, New York, to Frederick Vernon Coville (1867–1937), United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 22 May 1896. Depository: General Autograph Collection (GAC), Archives collection no. 370 (box 6), Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, Pa. https://huntbot.org/hibdarc/collections/370/Britton--Elizabeth-Gertrude-1_r.pdf.

Here Britton discusses an unspecified specimen slip she sent to her correspondent, Frederick Vernon Coville, the chief botanist at the United States Department of Agriculture. Also, she refers to mosses that presumably Coville sent her to be examined and complains that family events and trips "interfere with" her "steady work."

Amos Eaton (17 May 1776–10 May 1842)

Although he studied natural philosophy at Williams College in Massachusetts, Amos Eaton embarked on a career as a lawyer and a land agent in New York. This career came to a crashing end in 1811 when he was charged with forging documents in a land dispute, a crime he would always deny committing. Still, Eaton was incarcerated for five years until he was pardoned by the governor of New York. While in prison, he returned to his older interest in science and read scientific journals and books.

After his release, he studied botany, geology and chemistry at Yale University. He then became a lecturer in the sciences at his alma mater, Williams College, the Castleton Medical Academy in Vermont, West Point, and various schools and private organizations. When plans for the building of the Erie Canal were put in motion, he delivered lectures explaining the geological aspects of the canal plans to the New York legislature and conducted geological surveys of the lands through which the canal would be built. Eaton was both a pioneer in teaching science at the university level, which had been relatively rare, and an early advocate for teaching women the sciences and mathematics. Also, he wrote and published several textbooks on botany, chemistry, agricultural science, geology, zoology and education, including Elementary Treatise on Botany (1810), Botanical Dictionary (1817) and Botanical Exercises (1825).

Amos Eaton also co-founded the Rensselaer School (today the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) in Troy, New York. Over the course of his life, he married four times and had twelve children. One of these children was Amos Beebe Eaton, a general who fought for the Union in the American Civil War. Caroline Eaton, who has written this letter, was the wife of Amos Beebe's son Daniel.

Eaton, Caroline Ketcham (1843–1929), New Haven, Connecticut, to Harlan Hoge Ballard (1853–1934), n.p., 12 October 1897. Depository: General Autograph Collection (GAC), Archives collection no. 370 (box 14, folder 1a–c), Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, Pa. https://huntbot.org/hibdarc/collections/370/Eaton--Caroline-K--1_r.pdf; https://huntbot.org/hibdarc/collections/370/Eaton--Caroline-K--2_r.pdf; https://huntbot.org/hibdarc/collections/370/Eaton--Caroline-K--3_r.pdf.

Caroline, the wife of Daniel Cady Eaton (1834–1895), thanks Ballard and compliments him for his eponymous biography on Daniel Eaton's grandfather, Amos Eaton (1776–1842), which was published by Harvard University Press in 1897. She then reflects on stories she had heard about Amos Eaton from her husband and his family.

Katherine Esau (3 April 1898–4 June 1997)

Katherine Esau was born in Yekaterinoslav, Russia (today Dnipro, Ukraine). Her family were Russian Mennonites, who had fled religious persecution in Germany during the 18th century for Russia, where Tsarina Catherine II (also Catherine the Great) offered legal protection and land grants in exchange for the Mennonites agreeing to settle in recently annexed territories in Ukraine. Because of this heritage, Esau grew up speaking Russian and German, and in addition she was taught English by a paid tutor. She became a student at the Golitsin Women's Agricultural College in Moscow, but her education was disrupted by World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution.

Local Bolshevik authorities had targeted her father, John, because of his German ancestry and the fact he was a mayor during a German occupation of the region. The family fled Russia on a train with German soldiers. With the help of family in Berlin, Esau's family were able to reestablish themselves, and she finished her education, earning a bachelor's degree in botany. Her family then migrated to the United States, specifically California. After a brief stint as a housekeeper, Esau got a job as the manager of a seed company. Then she was hired as a botanist for the Spreckels Sugar Company of Monterey, where she was tasked with improving the immunity of sugar beets to curly top virus. The botanist Wilfred William Robbins (1884–1952) arranged to give Esau graduate assistantship at the University of California at Davis, where she worked toward a Ph.D. She completed her doctorate program in less than three years, a rare feat.

Her academic career produced over 150 books and academic articles, notably Plant Anatomy (1953) and Anatomy of Seed Plants (1960), which are both still considered classics in the field of plant anatomy. Esau became the first female president of the Botanical Society of America in 1951 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, received the 11th International Botanical Congress Medal in 1969, and was the first professional botanist to be awarded the National Medal of Science.

Esau, Katherine (1898–1997), n.p. [University of California, Santa Barbara], to William L. Stern (1926–2021), n.p. [University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland], 27 February 1978. Depository: General Autograph Collection (GAC), Archives collection no. 370, Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, Pa. https://huntbot.org/hibdarc/collections/370/Esau--Katherine-1_r.pdf.

Katherine Esau writes to the professor of botany William L. Stern. She discusses Stern's acquiring one of her books, although it is unnamed.