Arrangement

Indexing Terms

Series 1. Correspondence.

Scope and Content:

The correspondence is indexed by correspondent's last name (or organization name) and organized into three sub-series as follows. Correspondence is also located in other series where appropriate.

Subseries a. General.

Consists of letters from professional associates, occasional writers, friends, and graduate students. The collection includes carbon copies of outgoing correspondence. Significant correspondents include Rolf Dahlgren, Leo C. Hitchcock, Arthur H. Holmgren, Ernst Mayr, James Reveal, Ernest Small, Frans Stafleu, and William C. Steere.

Subseries b. NYBG Correspondence.

Includes outgoing and incoming correspondence and memoranda of NYBG staff relating to scientific and administrative work. Of special interest are communications with Bassett Maguire and the correspondence of Julius Cohn regarding a letter of Dr. Henry Gleason, dated 15 November 1952, in which Gleason details the history of his work as an ecologist. This letter was published as "A Letter from Dr. Gleason" Brittonia, 39(2), 1987, pp.205-209, with a short preface by Cronquist. The original copy of Gleason's six-page letter to Cohn is attached to the Cohn/Cronquist correspondence.

Subseries c. Russian Correspondence.

Consists of outgoing and incoming correspondence with colleagues in the former Soviet Union, some of which is typewritten in Russian (Cyrillic). There are seven files of Cronquist's correspondence with Armen Takhtajan (1957 to 1992), including four pertaining to specific projects or publications undertaken in collaboration. One file pertains to the Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov relating to constituent opinions of the Botanical Society of America members regarding a position statement of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the Sakharov case in 1973.

Series 2. NYBG Administration.

Scope and Content:

Includes records pertaining to Cronquist's administrative duties, e.g. employment (applications, resumes, curriculum vitae), accounting (budget and salary records), publications (meeting minutes), policy, general affairs, and administration of the Cary Arboretum.

Series 3. Scientific Affiliations.

Scope and Content:

Consists of meeting minutes, correspondence, and notices relating to the administration and publications in the several organizations represented. Affiliations include the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Biological Sciences (IABS), the Botanical Society of America (BSA), Flora North America (FNA), the Torrey Botanical Club (TBC), and three International Botanical Congresses. As council member of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT), Cronquist received documents relating to the founding of the organization in 1936 and correspondence of the first 25 years of the society's existence. These files, all prior to Cronquist's ASPT stewardship, have been removed from the collection and placed with the records of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (Repository Archives, NYBG).

Series 4. Research Grants.

Scope and Content:

Grant proposals and related materials relate primarily to National Science Foundation (NSF) grants. The material consists of reports, correspondence, and notes relating to grant proposals by Dr. Cronquist for his own research and/or on behalf of others. In some cases, proposals have several authors to fund joint projects. Notable proposals include the Flora of the Pacific Northwest (Cronquist and Hitchcock) and Intermountain Flora (Cronquist et al).

Series 5. Education.

Scope and Content:

This series consists of administrative records relating to faculty and administrative appointments Cronquist held at Columbia University and at the City University of New York (CUNY). The records largely pertain to doctoral review committees and the CUNY Executive Committee on Biology and contain information relating to NYBG affiliations with the two universities.

Series 6. Manuscripts and Typescripts.

Scope and Content:

Contains scientific articles in draft form (some in press), many of which were directed to Cronquist for his review and advice. All manuscripts and typescripts are indexed alphabetically by author. There are eight manuscripts authored by Cronquist himself, and two with T. Barkley as co-author. Photographs and/or illustrations supporting the texts are located in Series 8.

Series 7. Publishing Companies.

Scope and Content:

Correspondence, contracts, sample pages, tear sheets, and lists author's corrections form the bulk of material in this series. While publishers of scientific periodicals also appear here, most files pertain to publishing houses that handle book-length works, especially university presses. Notable here is Columbia University Press, publisher of Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants.

Series 8. Photographs and Illustrations.

Scope and Content:

This series consists of loose and mounted photos, two-tone prints, mock-ups, sketches, and other illustrations relating to book publications, especially to the textbooks, Introductory Botany and Basic Botany and An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants. Illustrators of the latter are Bobbi Angell and Robin Jess, whose work has been removed to the NYBG Art and Illustration Collection #15. There are also several photo portraits of botanists, including Russian and Armenian scholars from the Soviet Union.

Series 9. Research Papers and Projects.

Scope and Content:

Consists of twelve boxes of index cards, organized alphabetically by genus, of plant specimens collected in the field. Each card provides data on species name, location and state, collection date, and collector's name. Additional information on specimens appears in Dr. Cronquist's field notebooks located in the NYBG Collectors' Field Notebook collection. There are also notes and records of legal cases for which Cronquist was consulted, notably the Cache Creek-Bear Thrust Environmental Impact Statement relating to legal battle to prevent land development near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Another involved information on a "creationism" case. The series also contains five files relating to Dr. Cronquist's death in 1992 and an unfinished research project. Included are commemorative presentations delivered at the Arthur Cronquist memorial at the NYBG, 2 May 1992.

Series 10. Cannabis Cases.

Scope and Content:

This series consists of legal documents (testimonies, opinions, orders, and summaries) of several criminal cases involving prosecution of individuals for possession of marijuana. Called upon for his taxonomic expertise, Cronquist supplied information on the analysis and history of Cannabis taxonomy; he held that the genus consists of only one species, Cannabis sativa. There is also correspondence with Ernest Small, a Canadian colleague and expert on Cannabis taxonomy and its legal dimensions in American society.