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Preferred Citation
Biographical / Historical
Language of Material:
Undetermined
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: John Hunter Thomas papers
Identifier/Call Number: SC1177
Physical Description:
6 Linear Feet
(39 volumes) + 3 RSB
Date (inclusive): 1949-1992
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The materials are open for research use. Audio-visual materials are not available in
original format, and must be reformatted to a digital use copy.
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be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, California 94305-6064. Consent is given on behalf of Special
Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
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http://library.stanford.edu/spc/using-collections/permission-publish.
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Preferred Citation
[identification of item], John Hunter Thomas Papers (SC1177). Dept. of Special Collections
and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Biographical / Historical
John Hunter Thomas was born in Beaten, Germany on March 26, 1928, the son of an American
mining engineer and his wife, both American citizens. He was raised in Poland (which the
family left in 1939) and the northeastern United States and attended Kent School in
Connecticut.
John got his undergraduate degree at Cal Tech and entered Stanford as a graduate student in
1948. He completed his master's degree in 1949 under Professor Ira Loren Wiggins, then
Director of the Natural History Museum, working on distribution and taxonomy of the evening
primrose family in the Sonoran desert. He continued working with Wiggins on a Flora of
Alaska. John's graduate career was interrupted in 1951-52 by service as an officer in the
Navy during the Korean war, and he was wounded while on the bridge of the destroyer Ernest
G. Small. The ship, dodging coastal artillery fire, struck a mine and suffered 9 killed and
17 in addition to John wounded. The bow later broke off in heavy seas. One of John's
favorite wisecracks, when described the shrapnel which remained embedded in his body for the
rest of his life, was that although he had gained weight, the Ernest G. Small had been
converted into the Ernest G. Smaller. From 1956-58 he was an instructor at Occidental
College, and in 1958 he was hired by Stanford as assistant curator of the herbaria in the
Museum.
John's doctorate was completed under Wiggins in 1959, and published by the Stanford
University Press in 1961 as The Flora of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It remains the standard
work to this day. Thomas' life-long interest in environmental quality was reflected in a
sentence in the first paragraph of the Preface: "This flora will, I hope, acquaint at least
a few more people with the plants around them, and perhaps thus serve as a stimulus, however
slight, toward more permanent protection of our environment" (p. v).
Thomas became Associate Curator (1962), Curator (1963) and then Director (1972) of the
850,000 specimen Dudley Herbarium, with which he had a long and varied association. What he
called "Uncle Dudley's Marginal Repository" was his favorite place at Stanford; he loved the
collections; he loved making order of them. He also loved the lifelong friends he made
there: Wiggins who was his major professor; Roxana S. Ferris, his predecessor as Curator,
Richard W. Holm, and Peter H. Raven. He continued to work with the Herbarium's collections
after they were placed on permanent loan to the California Academy of Sciences in 1976. He
was an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences from 1969 to 1977, and a Professor from
1977 until his retirement. At the same time he held appointments as Associate Curator and
Curator of Botany at the California Academy.
John was a leading plant biogeographer, and remained a specialist in the plants of central
California in general and the Santa Cruz mountains in particular. His other books include A
Flora of the Alaskan Arctic Slope with Ira L. Wiggins, and Native Shrubs of the Sierra
Nevada with D.R. Parnell. He was a dedicated teacher of plant taxonomy, and his extended
course field trips are still remembered fondly by many Stanford graduates, some of whom have
gone on to distinguished careers in biology. His systematic knowledge was also a source of
aid to his colleagues and students of all persuasions in providing the critical
identifications of plants necessary for their research. It must be recorded, however, that
no one, except for John, has ever properly prepared a herbarium specimen -- to say he was
meticulous would be like saying that W.C. Fields would accept a drink.
Some of John's happiest days were in summers spent in Montana at the University of
Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station between 1965 and 1969. He was fascinated by books
and very much enjoyed his service on the board of directors of the Associates of the
Stanford University Libraries and on the Stanford University Press Board.
John had a deep and abiding interest in environmental issues. Although a Catholic, he
publicly criticized Pope Paul VI's anti-birth control encyclical and gave lectures to both
public and Catholic audiences on the problems caused by human overpopulation. He was a key
player in the early organization and running of the world's foremost NGO concerned with
demographic issues, ZPG. He also was engrossed in the history of systematic botany, and
served as the biology department's informal historian. His other hobbies included reading
English novels (C.P. Snow's "Masters" series and the works of Evelyn Waugh were near
obsessions) and printing. He owned a printing press and amused himself churning out
scurrilous mock reviews of colleagues books, and stationery for his rightly famous
"Cardboard Carton Corpse and Cadaver Container Corporation," which he and his friends put to
good use. His favorite quote was from Camus, and reflected his view of the environmental
situation -- "Fortunately there is gin, the sole glimmer of light in this darkness."
John faced the end of his life with calm deliberation, announcing to his friends that he
had Alzheimer's disease, and remaining in touch with them as long as he could. He is
survived by his wife Susan Davidson Thomas and his sister Mary Louise Thomas. A memorial
service was held in Memorial Church August 24, 1999 at which tributes were delivered by many
of his old friends and students. He is remembered along with his close friend, the late
Richard W. Holm, in Stanford's endowed Holm/Thomas Memorial Lectures in Population Biology.
And all of us who miss him will remember well his wry sense of humor and willingness to help
any one, student or faculty member, who was mystified by a hard-to-identify plant.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Botany.
Notebooks.
Thomas, John Hunter