BRIEF PICTORIAL HISTORY - 170 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

1838


Original collections began with the first Geological Survey of Michigan, under the direction of state geologist, Douglass Houghton.  The survey was authorized by an act of the legislature (Act No.49 1838) that specified:

Specimens shall be collected and preserved in the following manner, to wit: first, the state shall be supplied with single and good specimens; second, if more similar specimens than one can be found, sixteen more, if possible, shall be procured, to be distribute by the regents amongst the university and its branches…To entitle the university and its branches to any of the benefits of this act, of the aggregate amount herein appropriated, four thousand dollars shall be refunded to the state treasury from the university fund,…and within one month from the passage of this act, the regents of the university shall file in the office of the secretary of state their assent to the provisions thereof.

The Regents, however, passed the following:
Resolved, that the Regents feel it their duty to withhold their assent to the appropriation contemplated by the Act of the 22d March, 1838.  Yet they hereby pledge themselves for the erection of such buildings as may be necessary and otherwise to provide for the preservation of such specimens as may be collected under said Act, and at any time entrusted to their care (Regents Proceedings, 1837-64 p.45.)

Nevertheless, the collections from the survey came to the University.



Dr. Asa Gray, the first Michigan professor, appointed Professor of Botany and Zoology.










1841


Collections were moved to the Main Building, later designated Mason Hall, which had just been completed. The collection was under the care of the Botany Department.







1876


Professor Mark W. Harrington publishes first research paper based on botanical collections of the University by a member of the faculty in the Journal of the Linnean Society (16:25-37).









1877


Louisa Reed Stowell completes Masters in botany at the University.











1881

New Museums Building constructed containing the Zoology Museum's Herbarium.













1893


Herbarium workspace.










1915


Phanerogamic collection moves to the newly constructed Natural Science Building.






1921


Dr. Calvin H. Kauffman appointed Director of the Hebarium. The various botanical collections, the phanerogamic and cryptogamic herbarium in the Department of Botany, and the herbaria in the Museum of Zoology were united and appropriated a separate budget.










1926

Dr. Bessie B. Kanouse receives her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.  She was later appointed a Curator (1926) and Assistant to the Director (1928).




1928


The Herbarium moves into the newly completed Museums Building.










1929


The lichen library and herbarium of Professor Bruce Fink were purchased.  L. C.C. Krieger collection of fungi paintings donated.











1930


William Randolph Taylor appointed Professor and Curator of Algae.  His books include the Plants of Bikini and other Northern Marshall Islands(1950), Marine Algae of the Northeastern coast of North America (1937), and Marine Algae of the Eastern Tropical and Subtropical Coasts of the Americas (1960).






1931

Edwin B. Mains appointed Director of the Herbarium.  Dr. Mains received his Ph.D. from the University in 1916.




1936

Mycologist Frederick K. Sparrow appointed Assistant Professor.  




1933


Parke, Davis and Company (Pfizer) of Detroit donates their Herbarium and botanical library to the University.







1939

Herbarium publishes first volume of the Contributions of the University of Michigan Herbarium.

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