Oakes Ames (botanist)
Oakes Ames | |
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Born | Massachusetts, US | September 26, 1874
Died | April 28, 1950 | (aged 75)
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Botany |
Institutions | Harvard University |
Oakes Ames (
Life and career
Ames was born into a wealthy
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Ames_Mansion_Borderland.jpg/220px-Ames_Mansion_Borderland.jpg)
Ames spent his entire professional career at Harvard. As administrator, he was assistant director (1899–1909) and Director of the Botanic Garden (1909–1922); Curator (1923–1927), Supervisor (1927–1937), Director (1937–1945), and associate director of the Botanic Museum (1945–1950); Chairman of the Division of Biology (1926–1935) and Chairman of the Council of Botanical Collections and Supervisor of the Biological Laboratory, the Atkins Garden in Cuba, and the Arnold Arboretum (1927–1935). As teacher, he was an instructor in botany (1900–1910), associate professor of botany (1915–1926), professor of botany (1926–1932) and Arnold professor of botany (1932–1935). From 1935 to 1941 he was a research professor of botany. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1911.[2]
The
Ames most notable accomplishment is building an extensive orchid herbarium, with library, photographs, and paintings, which he gave to Harvard in 1938. Today the Orchid Herbarium of Oakes Ames contains about 131,000 specimens, plus 3,000 flowers in glycerine, 4,000 pickled specimens, and hundreds of line drawings. Its library includes about 5,000 books, reprints, and journals. Authors of the artwork and photographs include Blanche Ames, Oakes Ames, Dorothy O. Allen, Ruth Barton, Gordon Winston Dillon, Leslie Andrew Garay, J.G. Hall, James Laird Macfarlane , Dorothy H. Marsh, Henry Moon, Magdalena Peña de Sousa, Eleanor B. Phillips, Charles Schweinfurth, Elmer W. Smith, Charles Storer, and unknown artists.[3] This orchid Herbarium would eventually be integrated into the larger Harvard University Herbaria as Ames succeeded Professor George Lincoln Goodale as the director of Harvard's Botanical Museum (now the Harvard Museum of Natural History) in 1923.[4][5]
The Glass Flowers
As the museum's second director, he oversaw the final stages of the creation of the famous Glass Flowers collection, exchanging a letter with the patron sponsor of the enterprise, Miss Mary Lee Ware during her second trip to Dresden, Germany in 1908 visiting Rudolf Blaschka, one of the Flowers' makers.[6][7] This missive to Professor Ames was published on January 9, 1961, by the Harvard University Herbaria - Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University Vol. 19, No. 6 - under the title "How Were The Glass Flowers Made?" and details some of Miss Ware's observations regarding Rudolf.[8] However, Prof. Ames was not as passionate regarding the project as Goodale had been, and began his tenure as Goodale's successor with a letter of grave concern to Mary Ware:
I enclose a letter just received from Mr. Blaschka. This letter disturbs my peace of mind to its depths. It is unnecessary for me to explain why. We have discussed the situation at length. I have thought again and again about our future relations with Mr. Blaschka. Perhaps I am stupid in being at a loss for a solution of the problem. I do not see how we can throw aside a man who has become so much a part of our scheme of things. Yet, how can we avoid the danger of allowing kindness to misguide us? I will go on thinking about possibilities.[9]
Why exactly he was disturbed is unknown, but Ames found his solution in what he referred to as "Economic Botany", asking Rudolf Blaschka to make glass
References
- Citations
- ^ "AMES, Oakes". The International Who's Who in the World. 1912. p. 26.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved April 17, 2011.
- ^ "Collection: Botanical illustrations from the Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium | HOLLIS for". hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu. Retrieved September 18, 2021.
- ^ The Orchid Library of Oakes Ames - http://botlib.huh.harvard.edu/libraries/oakes_ames.htm
- ^ Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries (Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium (AMES)) - http://huh.harvard.edu/pages/oakes-ames-orchid-herbarium-ames
- ^ Schultes, Richard Evans., William A. Davis, and Hillel Burger. The Glass Flowers at Harvard. New York: Dutton, 1982. Print.
- ^ Daston, Lorraine. Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science. New York: Zone, 2004. Print.
- ^ Ware, Mary Lee. "HOW WERE THE GLASS FLOWERS MADE?" Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University 19, no. 6 (1961): 125-36. - https://www.jstor.org/stable/41762212
- ^ Oakes Ames Correspondence: Botany Libraries, Archives of the Economic Botany Herbarium of Oakes Ames, Harvard University Herbaria
- ^ Oakes Ames Correspondence: Botany Libraries, Archives of the Economic Botany Herbarium of Oakes Ames, Harvard University Herbaria
- ^ Oakes Ames Correspondence: Botany Libraries, Archives of the Economic Botany Herbarium of Oakes Ames, Harvard University Herbaria
- ^ International Plant Names Index. Ames.
- Bibliography
- JSTOR 2806802
- Karl Sax,"Oakes Ames, 1874-1950", Journal of the Arnold Arboretum, 31, pages 335–337.
- Borderlands: Oakes Ames
- Harvard University: Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
- Papers of Oakes Ames : an inventory (Harvard University Archives)
- Letter in the Woman's Rights Collection, 1918: A Finding Aid.
- Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
- Oakes Ames (1874-1950) Papers
- The Orchid Library of Oakes Ames
- How Were The Glass Flowers Made?