Botany Department Records

From its inception, Oberlin College recognized the importance of exposing, educating, and instructing its students in the natural sciences.  During the 19th century, botany was one such prominent field of scientific exploration at Oberlin. The College’s botany department provided training in this science. It produced many graduates who went on to become leading botanists and teachers. Recognizing the importance of exposing its students directly to their chosen field of study, the Botany Department oversaw the establishment and development of the College Herbarium. This collection of over 200,000 specimens was recognized for its extensive representation of plants from across the world.

Upon the recommendation of John J. Shipherd in 1834, Dartmouth graduate James Dascomb (ca. 1833), was recruited by the College to teach chemistry, botany, and physiology. By 1860, the college was offering a total of 19 science courses, two of which were devoted solely to botany.

Dascomb was an avid plant collector, and he approached the teaching of Botany through the systematic identification and classification of different plant specimens. Dascomb was instrumental in founding the College Herbarium. The 1878 donation of his personal collection of New England and Ohio plant specimens formed the foundation of the Herbarium collection. Dascomb encouraged his students to follow his example, resulting in additions being made by Jacob D. Cox (ca. 1851), Caroline A. Dickinson Ripley (ca. 1852), Edward S. Steele (ca. 1872), and Albert A. Wright (ca. 1865).

In 1873, Albert A. Wright returned to Oberlin to teach Geology and natural history. Upon Dascomb’s retirement in 1878, Wright began teaching Botany, operating from the first floor of the Spear Library from 1886-1891.  During his long tenure at Oberlin, Wright enhanced Oberlin’s Botany course by extending the range of classes offered and adding to the Herbarium.  In 1884 Wright purchased for $300.00 the collection of Dr. Henry Beardslee, State Botanist of Ohio. In doubling the size of the College Herbarium, Wright succeeded in increasing the collection’s representation of Ohio and United States plants. Finally, Wright introduced the use of the compound microscope in class work. “Probably no other man was so prominent a factor as...[Wright]," wrote Albert Lothrop years later, recognizing the importance of natural science and of new scientific methods which called for more specialized equipment and higher scientific standards.

The Botany Department was officially formed in 1893 with the appointment of Francis D. Kelsey (Montana, Sc.D 1890) as Professor of Botany. He was the first Oberlin faculty member to teach solely Botany. According to Frederick Grover, this step illustrated Oberlin’s educational vision at a time when Botany tended not to be treated as a distinct science or given departmental ranking. Kelsey served a relatively short term. However, during his five-year tenure, the department educated an increasing number of students and worked to improve the Herbarium.

In 1897,  Herbert L. Jones (Harvard University, A.M. 1892) succeeded Kelsey. During Jones’ one year as Professor of Botany (he died in 1898) he made great strides in setting the department on a course for the early 20th century. While Jones remained committed to the development of the College Herbarium (which had become a national resource for botanists), he nonetheless shifted the study of Botany from being simply the identification and classification of plants to that which also addressed plant functions through such classes as Plant Histology, Plant Physiology, Morphology, Cytology and Ecology. According to Frederick O. Grover, Jones modernized the department by exposing students to the entirety of their subject, and by creating opportunities to do professional work or teacher training.

By 1920, the Oberlin College botany department was widely recognized as a program that produced sound graduates who were prepared for professional placement and postgraduate study. Yearly summer field trips to the Western United States (started in 1919 and offered through the long tenure of George T. Jones) allowed students to be exposed to plant life far different from what they would find in Ohio. Furthermore, with the College’s 1928 purchase of Chance Creek (55 acres of land between Vermillion River and Chance Creek), the Botany Department was able to provide a natural laboratory setting for its students.  However, like other small academic units across the nation, the department faced many financial, spatial, and institutional restrictions, which limited its ability to command campus wide attention, and attract students and resources.

Between 1891 and 1904, the botany department was located in Finney House (built in 1835 and located where Finney Chapel now stands). In 1904, the department moved to Lincoln House (built in 1893 and located on Tappan Square). Despite its recent renovations, Lincoln House barely met  the Botany Department’s needs; modest space existed for instruction, and even less for the Herbarium Collection. Lincoln House was also considered an unsafe structure, and susceptible to fire. In 1914, in accordance to the provisions of Charles Martin Hall’s will, Lincoln House was moved from Tappan Square to be attached to Metcalf House (located just north of Severance Hall). While this move provided more room for departmental activity, the issue of fire safety still had not been adequately addressed.  In 1927, the College’s first fireproof structure was built as a two-story addition to the Botany building. This addition housed the Herbarium and was made from the bricks of the razed French Hall. In the early 1930s, the department received funds to allow it to build and then enlarge a greenhouse. The latter facility exposed Oberlin students  to living varieties of plants and flowers in the course of their Botanical studies.

The botany department constantly competed with other academic departments for scarce institutional resources. Due to limited institutional funds, the department fell short in its effort to provide valuable equipment in a proper laboratory environment. The number of available microscopes often dictated class size. In some instances, courses were dropped altogether due to a lack of equipment.

The department also faced staffing limitations. Despite the fact that the department enrolled respectable numbers of students in its courses (163 students took Botany courses in 1950), it did not produce a large number of majors. As institutional resource allocators sought to balance departmental staffing against teaching loads, the Botany Department suffered. Until 1950, the department had three staff members: a full professor, an associate professor, and an instructor. In the early 1950’s, the teaching faculty of the Botany department was decreased from three to one. The departure of department head Paul B. Sears, noted botanist, ecologist, and conservationist, to Yale University, signaled the diminishing influence of this department. Similar cuts were seen in the Chemistry and Geology and Geography departments. However, not all departments experienced cuts. During this time, staff numbers in the Physics and Zoology departments remained constant.

The department’s battle for institutional support became more challenging when the college sought to restructure its curriculum. Where possible, departments which had previously stood as individual units merged. The General Faculty Committee in a 1945 "Report on Post War Problems" addressed this issue. In outlining several ideological, financial, and curricular issues facing the college, including the manner in which the sciences were being taught at Oberlin, this committee argued that the sciences had become too particularized and specific. The report further called for the reorganization and integration of these subjects. In doing so, it was hoped that the College could offer students more courses outlining the basic fundamentals in research and the scientific method. It was also concluded, that through such a collaboration, materials, equipment, and staff time would be better shared and allocated.

Sensing that this small department was losing ground to larger units, Arts and Sciences Dean Blair Stewart (1945-1959) initiated a study in 1953 to investigate ways to strengthen Botany at Oberlin. M.A. Johnson, Chairman of the Department of Botany at Rutgers University, conducted the study. He  reported that the department was limited by its space and small staff. The question of merging the departments of botany and zoology was raised. In exploring the possibility of a merger,  Johnson stated that both disciplines would still require a great deal of individual financial support and autonomy. Otherwise, its graduates would not have the opportunity to specialize in either of these specific areas.

In response to the issues raised in these reports, the botany and zoology departments did seek to collaborate in offering an introductory biology course between 1953 and 1955. The association was short lived and problematic. Both departments found that  coordinating combined class lectures, topics, and lab time worked against their own departmental needs and autonomy. Each also found that neither was able to cover the basic introductory material of their own subjects. The latter had previously been taught in separate lower level classes.

In the late 1950s, during planning for the construction of Kettering Hall of Science, the botany and zoology departments, along with several of the other sciences, were scheduled to be housed there. To many observers, it seemed logical that with the departments’ new physical proximity, they should also be merged. National trends in higher education indicated that many institutions were merging their botany and zoology departments as these two disciplines began to address such similar topics as molecular biology, plant physiology, and environmental biology. After nearly twenty years of discussion, it was decided at the December 8, 1958, College Faculty Council Meeting that the departments of Botany and Zoology be merged to form the department of biology.

With the decision of the Faculty Council, department head George T. Jones  Oberlin College A.B. 1920, A.M. 1923) prompted several of his former students to write to the College expressing their concerns. The general fears expressed by these students, who had gone on to teach botany themselves, was that with such a merger, botanical subjects would get lost under the larger zoology subjects. Furthermore, they feared that the introductory biology classes (which tended to cater to pre-medical students) would not provide enough introductory material to interest biology majors to focus on Botany. Despite this, the merger was approved, and the biology department was officially recognized on July 1, 1961.

Botany study at Oberlin was further curtailed in 1964 with the sale of a portion of the College Herbarium to Miami University for $10,000. While the sale was initially criticized as a direct blow for botany instruction at Oberlin, space needed to preserve the herbarium far outweighed its utility in the classroom. The College retained specimens documenting plant life in Northeastern Ohio (over half of the collection), and the funds from the sale supported the purchase of new laboratory equipment and instructional materials. By 1992, additions to the collection placed its number of Specimens at 150,000. In response to increased space demands, and a curriculum, which focused increasingly on plant functions rather than on identification and classification, the remaining half of the herbarium was sold for $10,000 to the Ohio State Biodiversity Center. The funds were used to establish a George Jones memorial endowment fund to support Camden Bog, a restoration ecology center near Oberlin College. In 1994, the Chance Creek property was sold to the Lorain County Metro Parks System.

The study of botany has remained an integral part of Oberlin’s curriculum. Despite departmental mergers, staffing reconfigurations, and budgetary restrictions, in 1995, the botanical curriculum was better staffed and supported than it was upon its merger with Zoology in 1961.

Department Heads: James Dascomb (1834-1878);Albert A. Wright (1878-1891); Worrallo Whitney (1891-1893); Francis P. Kelsey (1893-1897); Herbert L. Jones (1897-1898); Frederick O. Grover (1898-1933); Susan P. Nichols (1933-1938); Paul Sears (1933-1950); George T. Jones (1950-1963)

Sources Consulted:

RG 3/002, William Frederick Bohn Papers

RG 9, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

RG 30/107, Jones Family Papers

RG 28/3, Paul Sears Faculty File

Vertical File, Botany Department