ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 5364
Session = 15.18.5


BOTANY AT HARVARD, 1918-1950


Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, Dept. History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL


This paper examines the history of botany at one of the premiere institutions of botanical instruction in the United States in the the first half of the twentieth century, Harvard University. Specifically it explores the institutional set-up of the various units and the personalities of the various directors and how their interactions or lack of interaction influenced the character of botany at Harvard. By the 1930s the set-up led to such fractious disputes that President Lowell was rumored to have said of his botanists: What is it about pretty little flowers that makes the botanists hate each other so?


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