Herman F. Becker Papers (PP)

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Biography of Herman F. Becker

Herman F. Becker (1907-1985) was a reknown paleobotanist whose specialty was the Tertiary paleobotany of southwest Montana. He was employed by the NYBG from 1958 to 1974 and served as Curator of Paleobotany from 1965.

Born in Dusseldorf, Dr. Becker studied horticulture at the Berlin Botanical Gardens and emigrated to the United States in 1930. He was initially employed as a horticultural assistant and eventually became Superintendant of the Conservatory for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He attended Brooklyn College from 1939 to 1947 when he received his BA. He went on to study botany at Columbia University and received his MA in 1952. He then went to the University of Michigan to study paleobotany with Chester Arnold and received his PhD in 1956.

From 1947 to 1968, Dr. Becker made a total of ten summer expeditions to the Ruby River basin of southwestern Montana. These shale deposits provided him with the research material he needed to complete his dissertation and he continued to write extensively about the deposits of this area. He also was known for his work in clarifying the structure of the controversial Sanmiguelia from the Triassic deposits of Colorado.

Dr. Becker received many honors during his lifetime. He was a member of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, the Cactus and Succulent Society of America and the New York Academy of Sciences. He served as a fellow of the Geological Society of America and as president and vice-president of the Torrey Botanical Club. In 1977 he received a Distinguished Service Award from the Botanical Society of America. In 1981 he received a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Brooklyn College Alumni Association and in 1985 a symposium was held in his honor entitled “Evolution of the Modern Vegetation of the Northern Rocky Mountains. The symposium was jointly held by the Botanical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Scope and Content

This collection consists of Dr. Becker’s research notes, teaching materials, clippings file and travel notebooks. Dr. Becker was also interested in orchids and the collection includes two of his orchid photo scrapbooks.

Restrictions

Access restrictions

This collection is open for research with permission from Mertz Library staff.

Copyright

Requests for permission to publish material from the collection should be submitted in writing to the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden.

Related Material

New York Botanical Garden

RG4 Herman F. Becker Records

CFN Collectors' Field Notebooks

Yale University

In 1983, the entire NYBG Paleobotanical Collections were placed on long term loan with Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History where they remain a discrete collection.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Herman F. Becker Papers (PP), Archives, The New York Botanical Garden.

Acquisition Information

This collection was retrospectively accessioned on 24 February 1981. The original accession number was x305

Processing Information

Originally processed by Stephen Sinon, Assistant Archivist, April 1999. Converted to EAD in December 2005 by Kathleene Konkle under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) PA-50678-04.

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