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THE ARCHIVAL SEARCH for ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK a Project FINDING ANNA: THE ARCHIVAL SEARCH FOR ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK A Project Paper Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School Of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in The School of Integrated Plant Science: Horticulture by Karen Penders St. Clair August 2017 © 2017 Karen Penders St. Clair DEDICATION Dedicated to the voices of the women in my life. I hear you. Lottie, Mary Ann, Haley, Maris, Jordan, Riley, Casey, Frances, Jean, Emily, Josephine, Diane, Cheryl, Lisa, Betty to start... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH I came to Ithaca in 2001 as a certified Histotechnologist to work in the histology and pathology labs at Cayuga Medical Center. I processed surgical and autopsy tissue or tumor specimens for pathological diagnosis using immunohistochemical and special staining techniques. When a position opened for a histologist at the Cornell Animal Health and Diagnostic center in 2003 I jumped at the chance to work at Cornell. After working two years in the anatomical pathology and histology lab I took a position in the Virology lab where I ran serum diagnostic tests and continued utilizing my histology background running the Fluorescent Antibody (FA) bench testing and diagnosing tissue sections from all species of animals. My employee benefit allowed me to return to school to pursue my love of nature, gardening, and flowers. Working as a full-time employee, mother, and wife, I received my MPS for writing nature study program modules in forested ecosystems to be used in the grades K-12 classroom. The love of nature study motivated me to begin a new career and I decided to continue for my PhD. I feel very fortunate to have worked with a committee that loves horticulture, nature, and history as much as I do. Researching the life and work of Anna Botsford Comstock these past five years has been an absolute joy. Not only as an educator and researcher, but as a mother of five daughters and grandmother to four grandchildren, the precedence Comstock set for nature education and getting children involved in their world is even more precious. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ❖ My Committee: Don Rakow, Scott Peters, Randy Wayne, and Ed Cobb with deep appreciation and thanksgiving. ❖ The staff of the Rare & Manuscript Collection of Cornell University including Connie Finnerty, Evan Fay Earle, Eileen Keating, Patrick Stevens, Tabitha Cary, Heather Furnas, Lance Heidig, Laura Linke, Eisha Neely, Cheryl Rowland, Hilary Dorsch Wong, Anne Carson, Jude Corina, Marcie Farwell, Erin Faulder, Freddie Lowe, and Theo Wolf. For your scholarship, and especially, your friendship. You are all dear in my heart. ❖ Erica and Alicia Anderson, Jason Kahabka, Maureen Brull, Bridget Cristelli, Marcia Eames-Sheavly, Michael and Lisa Collins, Meredith Collins, Amy (Randy) Wayne, Charles and Kathy Schlough, Marvin Pritts, Craig Cramer, Bill Miller, Robert Dirig, and Kitty Lui for your unwavering support, I heartily thank you. ❖ Especially, my family: Kevin, Mom and Dad, Haley (Gary), Maris (Donovan), Riley, Jordan (Jacob), Casey, Tel, Kaden, Max, Lil Bean, Eric and Stan Heath. My grounding core. You are my everything. ❖ A special note of gratitude and love to Diane Kilts and Betty McKnight, one is my rock and the other my mentor. Both are dear friends. ❖ Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge those people who treated me the hardest: those who were unkind, unsympathetic, revengeful, abusive, and who will never read this document. You made me who I am today and you will never know it. I thank you whole heartedly. ABSTRACT FINDING ANNA: THE ARCHIVAL SEARCH FOR ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK Karen Penders St. Clair, Ph. D. Cornell University 2017 Anna Botsford Comstock contributed significantly to fostering imagination in nature study education at the turn of the 20th century. Through the process of restoring the 'Comstocks of Cornell'-manuscript for historical accuracy and completeness, Anna Comstock’s voice is revealed thereby emphasizing her written legacy in both scientific and Cornell University history. Table of Contents Dedication Acknowledgements Abstract Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1: Introduction ..............................................................................................................12 Chapter 2: Literary Review ..........................................................................................................7 Section I. Literary Research .........................................................................................................7 Literary Research listings……………………...………...………………………………14 Section II. Archival Research ......................................................................................................18 Core Archival Research holdings……….….……………...…………………………….19 Chapter 3: Methodology….………………….………….……………………………… ….….22 Predominant Holdings…………………….……………...………………………………28 Chapter 4: Analysis…………………………………………………………………………….31 Section I: The Early Nature-Study Educators…………………………………………….….34 John Henry and Anna Botsford Comstock………………………………………………34 John Walton Spencer………………………………………………………………….…42 Alice Gertrude McCloskey………………………………………………………...…….49 Mary Farrand Rogers Miller………………………………………………………….….54 Julia Ellen Rogers………………………………………………………….…………….58 Ada Georgia……………………………………………………………………………...60 Clara Keopka Trump…………………………………………………………….……….62 Image: Early 20th Century Nature-study Pioneers at Cornell University…………… …79 Anna Botsford Comstock and The Handbook of Nature Study………………………….80 Section II: The Manuscript, Its Handlers, & the Publication Attempts…...….…........………86 The Manuscript……………………………………………………………………...…...86 The Handlers………………………………………………………………………….….89 Glenn Washington Herrick………………………………………………………89 Simon Henry Gage…………………………………....………………………….93 George Lincoln Burr……………………………………………………….…….95 The 1938 Publication Attempt…………………………………………………….….….96 Image: Handlers of the Comstock Manuscript……………………………………...….106 Image: Example of Edits to Manuscript…………………………………………….…107 The 1953-Publication Endeavor………………………………………….…….….......108 Ruby Green Smith………………………………………………………………108 Francis Dunham Wormuth………………………………………………….….110 Discussion……………………………………………………………………….…….112 Image: Summary of Points…………………………………………………………….119 Chapter 5: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...…120 Image: Anna Botsford Comstock……………………………………………………….124 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………….…...…….125 Section I. Extreme Unction by James Russell Lowell…………………………...….….125 Section II. Preface by Simon Henry Gage………………………………………….….126 Section III. Woodford Patterson letter, July 19, 1938………………………………….127 Section IV. “Chapter IV: Anna Botsford – Childhood and Girlhood” …….…….….…130 Notes……………………………………………………………………………...…………….158 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………...……...…….198 Preface hen one begins a journey, any journey, there may be an anticipation almost from the onset of destination. The details in the planning can enhance the W anticipation particularly if the journey is uncharted. Questions of ‘where am I going,’ ‘what will I discover,’ ‘who will I find,’ ‘how will I proceed, ‘when do I proceed’, and ‘why am I doing this’ are all subconsciously directing every turn in the plan, often overlapping one another, and a few of these questions surface consciously to a tangible thought to help guide oneself along your route. One can but pack your mental-bag with your questions, formulate and stick to your plan, then hope for the best. This is exactly what I did for my dissertation research in the department of Horticulture at Cornell University. The journey I took was a five-year quest to find the voice of Anna Botsford Comstock. Like the reader, perhaps, when I began my search I had little knowledge of who Comstock was save only a little information that she had something to do with nature education for children. As a young girl I collected dragonflies and cicada carcasses that I layered between tissues in shoeboxes, kept notes on more than three-dozen plants in my bedroom, and voraciously read the family’s encyclopedia set to satiate the questions I continuously asked myself about nature. To stumble upon a woman who seemingly answered these same questions a century earlier was tantalizing to the little-girl-curiosity that still resides safely in my brain. With rudimentary interest in who Anna Comstock might be I needed to determine if there was a dissertation project hidden within Comstock’s life that I could tease-out. The question of ‘what 1 will I discover’ fueled my imagination. Above all the other questions I would ask myself in this dissertation project this one question of ‘what’ fueled my determination to uncover Comstock’s voice. Though I did not realize it, at the beginning of my research journey into Anna Comstock’s life, asking myself continuously ‘what will I discover’ would sustain my mental fortitude over the next five years. After I wondered what I would discover, I needed to find direction with the question of ‘how will I proceed,’ and so I bought a ‘map’ in the guise of the book Comstocks of Cornell written by Anna Comstock. I am a regular to the Ithaca, New York “Friends-of-the-Library”-book sale held over three consecutive weekends in the fall and spring of each year. I have gone to the book sale every year, at both events, since I gleefully discovered it when I first moved to the area sixteen years ago. I make it a point to go to the book sale the first weekend (to scope out what’s new to the shelves), the last weekend (to see what books were
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