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This finding aid was produced in English.
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| Collectors: | Wilson, Percy, 1879-1944. | |
| Title: | Percy Wilson Records (RG4) | |
| Dates: | 1902-1940 | |
| Dates: | bulk, 1925-1940 | |
| Quantity: | 10.6 linear inches; 1 box | |
| Call Phrase: | Wilson (RG4) | |
Percy Wilson (1879-1944) first worked at the New York Botanical Garden as a museum aide. Nathaniel Lord Britton, NYBG Director-in-Chief, perceived a particularly effective employee and dispatched Wilson on several of the earliest NYBG botanical expeditions. One of these was the "Total Eclipse Expedition" to the East Indies where he was commissioned to establish official ties with certain botanic gardens of Asia. His success in this endeavor resulted in the procurement of specimens for the garden's young and growing herbarium. In 1902 Wilson joined Dr. and Mrs. Britton on their initial botanical explorations of the island of Puerto Rico.
Soon afterwards Britton appointed Wilson as his personal assistant, a relationship that lasted from 1905 to Britton's retirement in 1929. In 1914 Wilson became an Associate Curator. Three years later he published The Vegetation of Vieques Island, among the studies which originated from the Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Britton and Wilson's chief collaboration in the survey was Part 7, Descriptive Flora, Spermatophyta. After Britton's retirement Wilson provided continuity in the collaborative relationships established with the Puerto Rican scientific and governmental communities. He retired from the NYBG in 1939 and died in 1944 following a long struggle with a degenerative illness.
The Percy Wilson collection consists of correspondence, field notebooks, and manuscript of A Provisional List of the Known Trees of Cuba pertaining to his work at the NYBG.
Arrangement |
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| The collection is organized into seven series: | ||
| Series 1: Correspondence. 1908-1940. Arranged alphabetically. | ||
| Series 2: Manuscripts. 1925. One item. | ||
| Series 3: Field Notebooks. 1902-1916. Arranged chronologically. | ||
This collection is open for research with permission from Mertz Library staff.
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.
Indexing Terms |
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| The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog. | ||
| Persons | ||
| Horne, Frances Worth, 1873-1967. | ||
| Murphy, Robert Cushman, 1887-. | ||
| Wilson, Percy 1879-1944--Archives. | ||
| Subjects | ||
| Britton, Nathaniel Lord, 1859-1934. Flora Borinquena. | ||
| New York Botanical Garden Archives. | ||
| Plants--Cuba. | ||
| Trees--Cuba--Identification. | ||
New York Botanical Garden
PP-- Frances W. Horne Papers
RG4-- Nathaniel Lord Britton Records
All notebooks have been separated from the present collection and are located in the Collectors’ Field Notebook collection as follows: Porto Rico (vol 57, 1902) Porto Sierra, Honduras (vols 27-28, 1902); Cuba (vols 68 & 157, 1903); Cuba (vol 41, 1904); Bahamas (vol 166-168, 1907-1909); and Cuba (vol 132-155, 1909-1916).
Percy Wilson (RG4), Archives, The New York Botanical Garden.
This collection was transferred to the Archives of the New York Botanical Garden.
Originally processed by David Rose, Archives Assistant, April 1999 with grant funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH-PA 23141-98) and the Harriet Ford Dickenson Foundation.Converted into EAD in June 2006 by Kathleene Konkle under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH-PA 50678-04).