Guide to the Olivia Converse Papers
Laurie Hannah and Lindsey Hashimoto
Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration
University of California, Santa Barbara
Harder South 9615
Santa Barbara, California 93106-9615
Phone: (805) 893-2401
Fax: (805) 893-4222
Email: hannah@lifesci.ucsb.edu
URL: http://ccber.lifesci.ucsb.edu/library
© 2008
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Olivia Converse papers
Dates: 1939-1971
Collection number: MS-04
Creator:
Converse, Olivia L.
Collection Size:
4 linear feet
5 boxes
Repository:
UC Santa Barbara Library, Department of Special Research Collections
Abstract: Correspondence, manuscript, artwork and photographs related to Olivia Converse's writings about Mexican plants.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Spanish
Nahuatl
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, UC Santa Barbara. All requests
for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director. Permission for publication
is given on behalf of the Cheadle Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission
of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
Preferred Citation
Olivia Converse papers, MS-04 , Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration. University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Acquisition Information
Collection transferred from the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, University of California, Santa
Barbara, to the UC Santa Barbara Library Department of Special Research Collections, August, 2016.
Processing Information
Arrangement and description of this collection was funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Biography / Administrative History
Olivia Poole Long Converse was born November 23, 1898. She was the daughter of Louis Long. According to her friend Isabel
Kelly, she was raised in California and attended UC Berkeley. She married George P. Converse, grandson of Edmund Cogswell
Converse, former president of U.S. Steel, in 1922 and they were subsequently divorced in 1928. She lived part time in Santa
Barbara and also spent much of her time in Valle de Bravo, a town located on a large lake, about two hours from Mexico City.
While in Mexico, she worked on a book on garden plants of Mexico writing the text and making original drawings of about 70
plants she hoped to describe. Her yearly stays in Mexico were interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941,
and she was unable to go back until 1944 to resume work on her book.
In 1946, she had a showing of her drawings at the Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin in Mexico City, sponsored by the Instituto
de Biologia de la Universidad Nacional and the Sociedad Botanica de Mexico. A 16-page catalog was published containing the
text that accompanied the pictures. Converse also illustrated the cover of an issue of the Sociedad's
Boletin in 1948. While she worked on her book, she collected many plants from the wild and sent specimens to both Mexican and American
botanists for identification. On the advice of Maunsell van Rensselaer, Director of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, she
collected a voucher specimen for each plant so there would be no future questions regarding their identification. Many if
not most of those specimens were deposited at the Jepson Herbarium, UC Berkeley. Some of her specimens are also in the herbaria
at the U.S. National Herbarium, the New York Botanical Garden and the Missouri Botanical Garden. Two plants she collected
were new to science and were named after her:
Aristolochia conversiae H.W. Pfeifer and
Erythrina oliviae Krukoff.
Converse tried for a number of years to get a publisher interested in her book, to no avail. At the time of her death in
1972, her text was still very much in draft form, although she had 68 final or partially completed drawings. Her friends
and colleagues Isabel Kelly, Annetta Carter, and Cornelius Muller were tasked in her will to dispose of her manuscript and
drawings. After considering publishing her work as single journal articles, the group decided to contact the Hunt Institute
for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh to offer the collection to them. However, UCSB, where the collection was housed,
made the decision to keep the collection for its value as a botanical art collection. In her honor, a graduate fellowship
has been set up at UCSB for botanical field research in Mexico.
Scope and Content of Collection
The bulk of this collection focuses on Converse's unpublished manuscript and drawings of Mexican plants, a project she worked
on during the last thirty years of her life. Included are descriptions of about 60 plants with accompanying pencil drawings.
Through her book, she wanted to introduce American readers to
showy and beautiful flowering trees and shrubs which have not been widely introduced here (letter to Macmillan Company, April 4, 1939). By 1961 she had broadened her scope to address a growing interest in pre-Columbian
life and to show the importance of Mexican plants in Aztec culture. She added to her early descriptions evergreens of historical
or economic importance, vines, fruits, and edible plants such as coffee and vanilla.
For each plant she gave its Nahuatl (Aztec) name, botanical name and any regional common name (in Spanish), as well as its
native habitat, history of introduction if it was not native, medicinal or other uses, and other interesting information she
found. She was interested in pre-Columbian uses of these plants and took copious notes from many historical works about Mexico.
Her pencil drawings, showing flowers, fruits, and leaves, are stylized but accurate botanically. Accompanying these materials
are research notes, field notes, and correspondence. Converse wrote to botanists in both the United States and Mexico for
plant identification, verification of facts, and for assistance with editing. Notable correspondents include Annetta Carter
and Herbert Mason from University of California, Berkeley; Maximo Martinez from the Sociedad Botánica de Mexico, Sylvio Conzatti,
Clif Smith, and E.O. Orpet. Letters are in both Spanish and English. She also received assistance from botanists Paul Standley,
Richard Howard, C.H. Muller, and Harold Moore, Nahuatl expert Francisco Horcasitas, and anthropologists Bodil Christensen
and Isabel Kelly.
Arrangement
This collection is arranged into 4 series: Series 1 Correspondence; Series 2 Publications; Series 3 Photographs; and Series
4 Drawings.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Converse, Olivia L.
Plants, Useful--Mexico
Plants--Mexico
Drawings
Photographs
Related Material
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Institutional Papers has correspondence between Converse and Maunsell Van Rensselaer.
Box 1, Folder 3
Fernando Horcasitas
1963-1970
Box 1, Folder 4
Publishers Correspondence
1939-1960
Box 1, Folder 5
[Chapter 1] Aheuheute, Taxodium mucronatum
Box 1, Folder 6
[Chapter 2] Oyametl, Abies religiosa
Box 1, Folder 7
[Chapter 3] Ocote, Pinus montezumae
Box 1, Folder 8
[Chapters 4 and 5] Quercus rugosa and Quercus urbani
Box 1, Folder 9
[Chapters 7 and 8] Ficus cotonifolia and Ficus petiolaris
Box 1, Folder 10
[Chapter 10] Cuauhnacaztli, Enterolobium cyclocarum
Box 1, Folder 11
[Chapter 11] Caoba, Swietenia humilis
Box 1, Folder 12
[Chapter 12] Habilla, Hura polyandra
Box 1, Folder 13
[Chapter 13] Pochote, Ceiba pentandra
Box 1, Folder 14
[Chapter 14] Guamuchil, Pithecolibium dulce
Box 1, Folder 15
[Chapter 15] Copal, Bursera glabrifolia
Box 1, Folder 16
[Chapter 16] Cirian, Crescentia alata
Box 1, Folder 17
[Chapter 19] Guarumbo, Cecropia schiedeana
Box 1, Folder 18
[Chapter 20] Sangregado, Croton dreco
Box 1, Folder 19
[Chapter 22] Colorin, Erythrina americana
Box 1, Folder 20
[Chapter 23] Tabachin, Caesalpinia pulcherrima
Box 1, Folder 21
[Chapter 24] Guaje, Leucaena esculenta
Box 1, Folder 22
[Chapter 28] Huele de Noche, Cestrum nocturnum
Box 1, Folder 23
[Chapter 29] Floripondio, Datura cornigera
Box 1, Folder 24
[Chapter 30] Yoyote, Thevetia thevetoicles
Box 1, Folder 25
[Chapter 31] Anacahuite, Cordia boissieri
Box 1, Folder 26
[Chapter 34] Yoloxochitl, Talauma mexicana
Box 1, Folder 27
[Chapter 35] Cacaloxochitl, Plumeria acutifolia
Box 1, Folder 28
[Chapter 36] Xiloxochitl, Bombax elipticum
Box 1, Folder 29
[Chapter 39 and 40] Tabebuia pentaphylla and Tabebuia palmeri
Box 1, Folder 30
[Chapter 41] Tecomaxochitl, Cochlospermum vitifolium
Box 1, Folder 31
[Chapter 42] Macpalxochitl, Chiranthodendron pentadactylon
Box 1, Folder 32
[Chapter 48] Temecate, Pithecoctenium echinatum
Box 1, Folder 33
[Chapter 49] Pinanona, Monstera deliciosa
Box 1, Folder 34
[Chapter 50] Timbirichi, Bromelia karatas
Box 1, Folder 35
[Chapter 51] Platanos, MUSA Specimins
Box 1, Folder 36
[Chapter 53] Cuauhayotli, Leucopremna mexicana
Box 1, Folder 37
[Chapter 55] Cuajilote, Parmentiera edulis
Box 1, Folder 38
[Chapter 56] Texocotl, Crataegus mexicana
Box 1, Folder 39
[Chapter 57] Atoyaxocotl, Ciruela spondias
Box 1, Folder 40
[Chapter 58] Capulin, Prunus capuli
Box 1, Folder 41
[Chapter 59] Guayaba, Psidium guajava
Box 1, Folder 42
[Chapter 60] Anona, Anona reticulata
Box 1, Folder 43
[Chapter 61] Chico Sapote, Achras sapota
Box 1, Folder 44
[Chapter 62] Cochizapotl, Casimiroa edulis
Box 1, Folder 45
[Chapter 63] Sapote Prieto, Diospyros ebenaster
Box 1, Folder 46
[Chapter 64] Mamey, Calocaprum mammosum
Box 1, Folder 47
[Chapter 65] Sapote Amarillo, Lucuma salicifolia
Box 1, Folder 48
Nahautl Plant Names, Nauhatl Words in Text
Box 1, Folder 49
Converse Manuscript (Incomplete, 21 Chapters Missing)
Box 1, Folder 51
[Black Binder #1] Research Notes and Bibliography
Box 1, Folder 52
[Black Binder #2] Research Notes and Field Notes for Erythrina
Box 1, Folder 53
[Green Binder] Research Notes
Box 1, Folder 55
OLC [Notes and Correspondence on Manuscript Drafts]
Box 1, Folder 57-58
Notes for UC Herbarium and Record Book
Box 1, Folder 60
Catalago de los Dibujos de Plantas Mexicanas de Olivia Converse, Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin
1946
Box 1, Folder 61
Exposicion de Dibujos de Plantas Mexicanas
1946
Box 1, Folder 62
Collecting Permit and Identity Card
1939
Scope and Contents note
Includes photo of Converse.
Box 1, Folder 63
Published Journal Cover and Obituary
1948-1973
Scope and Contents note
Obituary appeared in
Macpalxochitl Boletin Mensual de la Sociedad Botanica de Mexico
, June 1973.
Box 2
Notebooks--6 bound and spiral
Photo_box 1
Photographs
Scope and Contents note
1 box of photographs of varying sizes. There is one complete set plus a partial second set of 4 x 5 photos of her drawings;
additional 5 x 7 photographs of her drawings; and photos of various trees and flowers. There is also a photo of Olivia Converse
and two photos of unidentified women.
Drawings
Scope and Contents note
One oversize box contains sketches, drawings in various stages, and paintings of plants and mockups for the cover of the book.
The other box contains 84 finished pencil drawings.
