Biographer of the Feathered Tribes: Alexander Wilson and American Ornithology

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on Biographer of the Feathered Tribes: Alexander Wilson and American Ornithology “As it has fallen to my lot to be the biographer of the feathered tribes of the United States,” Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) wrote to William Bartram (1739-1823) on August 4, 1809, “I am solicitous to do full justice to every species; and I would not conceal one good quality that any one of them possesses.” At the age of 43 Wilson – weaver, peddler, poet, teacher...
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A Flowering for the Ages

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Flowering for the Ages Botanists who classify and name plants are called plant taxono­mists, plant systema­tists, or systematic botanists, most of whom work in her­baria, a name first applied by Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), the great Swedish systematist. A herbarium, the plant taxono­mist’s basic reference source, is a collection of preserved plant specimens, mostly pressed and dried (although certain specimens...
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Like Father, Like Son: The Extraordinary Bartrams

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Like Father, Like Son: The Extraordinary Bartrams An unusual man, of seemingly boundless talent and insatiable curiosity, John Bartram (1699-1777) was many things to many people. Although primarily regarded as a botanist, he might also have been considered a paleontologist, an archaeol­ogist, a geologist, a limnologist, a conchologist, an ethnologist, and so on. Like Thomas Jefferson, he was a prime example of that rare, almost unique,...
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Firm Foundations in Philadelphia: The Lewis and Clark Expedition’s Ties to Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Firm Foundations in Philadelphia: The Lewis and Clark Expedition’s Ties to Pennsylvania For a century and a half, from 1807 until the early 1960s, the celebrated expedition undertaken by Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838) between 1803 and 1806 was generally perceived to be strictly a western United States phenomenon. Historians and educators who discussed it in their writings or in their teaching usually described the twenty-eight month ordeal as beginning...
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