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Dudley (William Russell) Papers
SC0558
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Language of Material:
Undetermined
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: William Russel Dudley papers
creator:
Dudley, William Russel
Identifier/Call Number: SC0558
Physical Description:
10.25 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1874-1913
Abstract: Papers include field notes, a diary, manuscripts, articles and reprints, maps, and correspondence; most of the field notes
relate to California, with occasional later annotations by other botanists. Some of the material relates to Big Basin Redwoods
State Park and the Sierra Club. The diary is from a tour of the California missions from December 27, 1895 to January 7, 1896
and includes photographs. Correspondents include Michael Schuck Bebb, Frederick V. Coville, Elias Durand, Alice Eastwood,
Gifford Pinchot, C. O. Thurston, Charles Frederick Millspaugh, Charles Sprague Sargent, and J. H. B. Pilkington. There is
also a large correspondence file on California forest fires of 1899.
This collection is open for research.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94304-6064. Consent
is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission
from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubserv/permissions.html.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research
and educational purposes.
William Russel Dudley Papers (SC0558). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif.
Biographical & Historical Sketch
William Russel Dudley earned his bachelor's (1874) and master's (1876) degrees in botany at Cornell University; after graduation
he pursued botanical study in Strassburg and Berlin. He taught at Cornell and Indiana University before joining the Stanford
faculty in 1892. Once at Stanford, his work focused on California flora, with a special interest in the study of trees; he
was instrumental in the establishment of the Big Basin Redwoods State Park.
[Reprinted from SCIENCE, N.S., Vol. XXXIV., No. 866, Pages 142- 145, August 4, 1911]
William Russel Dudley, professor of systematic botany in Stanford University, was born on a farm in North Guilford, Conll.,
on :iUarch 1, 1849, and died at Los Altos, Cal., on June 4, 1911. The fact that the writer has been intimately associated
with Professor Dudley since the day he entered the freshman class at Cornell University, in September, 1870, will perhaps
excuse the personal element in this little sketch. The word" instructor" as a technical term, describing a minor assistant
to a professor, had just then been invented, and the present writer had just been appointed "instructor in botany" under Professor
Albert N. Prentiss.
One day, Professor Henry T. Eddy, now of Minnesota, brought to me a tall, well-built, handsome and refined young man, older
and more mature than most freshmen, and with more serious and definite purposes. Young Dudley had an intense delight in out-door
things and especially in flowers and birds. He wanted to be a botanist, and had turned from old Yale, to which as a descendant
of Chittendens, Griswolds and Dudleys he would naturally have gone, to new Cornell, because Cornell offered special advantages
in science, and because at Cornell a good man could, if need be, pay his own way. For the rest of my stay at Cornell, Dudley
was my room-mate, living in a cottage on the hill, built by students and termed "University Grove." In this cottage was established
the boarding-club, known later and appropriately as " The Struggle for Existence," and in later and more economical times
as the " Strug." For a time, Dudley paid his way by rising at four o'clockto milk cows at the farm . Later he was made botanical
collector, and this congenial .work he kept up until he became my successor as instructor in botany. In college Dudley was
a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity, and took an active part in holding this society to the high ideals (dikaia upotheke)
on which it was originally based. He was also a charter member in the honorary scientific society of Sigma Xi (spoudon xunones).
In 1871 I went with him to his home at North Guilford, and I remember that his practical father said to me: 'There comes
Willie across the fields with his hands full of flowers, just as he used to. I wonder if there is any way he can make a living
by it.
Dudley graduated from Cornell in 1874, with the degree of B.S. In 1876, he received the degree of M.S., after which he spent
some time in botanical study in Strassburg and Berlin. From 1872 to 1876 he was instructor in botany at Cornell, his eminent
knowledge of the eastern flora overbalancing the fact that at first he had not yet received a degree. From 1876 to 1892 he
was assistant professor of botany at Cornell, with a year's absence in 1880, in which he served as acting professor of biology
in the University of Indiana, in the absence of the present writer, who then held that chair.
In 1892, Professor Dudley became professor of systematic botany at Stanford University, which position he held until, in
January, 1911, failing health caused his retirement on the Carnegie Foundation as professor emeritus, his work being then
taken by one of his students, Associate Professor Le Roy Abrams. Many of the leading botanists of the country have been students
of Professor Dudley. H. E. Copeland, Kellerman, Lazenby, Branner were among his associates at Cornell. Atkins became his successor
at Cornell. Abrams, Cook, Elmer, Olssen-Seffer, Cannon, Wight, E. B. Copeland, E. G. Dudley, Greeley, Herre, McMurphy and
many others were under his tutelage at Stanford.
In Stanford University, Dudley was one of the most respected as well as best beloved members of the faculty. No one could
come near to him without recognizing the extreme refinement of his nature; a keen intellect, an untiring joy in his chosen
work, and the Puritan conscience at its best, with clear perceptions of his own duties to himself and a generous recognition
of the rights and the aspirations of others.
Dudley entered with great joy into the study of the California flora. He became especially interested in the study of trees,
the evolutionary relations of forms and especially the problems of geographical distribution. The conifers of California were
his special delight, and he made many field trips with his students to all parts of the state, notably to the Sierra Nevada
and the Sierra Santa Lucia. His extended collections were presented to Stanford University, where with the collections of
Dr. Abrams they form the major part of the large" Dudley Herbarium."
A genus of stone-crops, of many species, abounding on the cliffs of California and especially on those which overhang the
sea, was named Dudleay by Britton and Rose. Dudley pulverulenta is one of the most conspicuous plants in California wherever
"sea and mountains meet."
Dudley was instrumental in inducing the state of California to purchase a forest of redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), that
this, the second of California's giant trees, might be preserved in a state of nature. Two thousand five hundred acres in
the "Big Basin" of Santa Cruz County were thus bought and established as the "Sempervirens Park." For several years Dudley
served on the board of control of this park.
Of the Sierra Club of California, Dudley was a leading member and for some years a director.
As an investigator, Professor Dudley was persistent and accurate, doing his work for the love of it. A partial list of his
papers is given below. A large work on the conifers of the west was long projected, but still exists only in uncompleted manuscript.
Dudley was master of a quiet and refined but effective English style. He was one of thpse scientific men, too few I fear,
who have real love for literature, and who understand what poetry is and what it is about. In his early days he wrote graceful
verse.
Professor Dudley's health was good until about three years ago, when he set out to study the trees of Persia. In Egypt he
was attacked by a severe cold or bronchitis which ended in tuberculosis.
He was never, married.
Papers include field notes, a diary, manuscripts, articles and reprints, maps, and correspondence; most of the field notes
relate to California, with occasional later annotations by other botanists. Some of the material relates to Big Basin Redwoods
State Park and the Sierra Club. The diary is from a tour of the California missions from December 27, 1895 to January 7, 1896
and includes photographs. Correspondents include Michael Schuck Bebb, Frederick V. Coville, Elias Durand, Alice Eastwood,
Gifford Pinchot, C. O. Thurston, Charles Frederick Millspaugh, Charles Sprague Sargent, and J. H. B. Pilkington. There is
also a large correspondence file on California forest fires of 1899.
The materials are arranged in six series: Series 1: General Correspondence; Series 2: Subject Files Series; 3: Biographical
and Personal Papers; Series 4: Class materials, lecture notes, and manuscript articles; Series 5: Field Notes and Research
Notes Series 6: Oversize publications and maps.
PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY, OF THE BOTANICAL WRITINGS OF WILLIAM: RUSSELL DUDLEY
1. An Abnomlal Orchid. Abstract from the Proc. of the Amer. Ass'n. for the Adv. of Sci., Vol. 32, August, 1883.
2. Another Disease of the Strawberry. December, 1889.
3. Big Basin Redwood Park. Forester, July, 1901, 7: 157.
4. The Big Trees of California. Forester, September, 1900.
5. The Cayuga Flora. Bull. of Cornell Univ., 1886.
6. Charles Christopher Frost. Jr. Of Mycology, Vol. 2, 10 (October, 1886).
7. The Clover Rust . December, 1890.
8. Concerning the Vitality of Sequoia sempervirens. Palo Alto Times, March 17, 1908.
9. The Death of Dr. DeBary. Bot. Gaz., Vol.13 : 64.
10. Directions for Laboratory Study. Anatomy and Histology of Plants. Cornell Univ., 1887.
11 Elias Magnus Fries. Jr. of Mycology, Vol. 2, August, 1886.
12. First Steps in the Study of Botany. The Educationist, Vol. 2, July, 1880.
13. Flora of the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys, 1892. (With Charles O. Thurston.)
14. Forestry Notes. Sierra Club Bull., 1901-02.
15. Forestry Notes. Sierra Club Bull., January, June, 1902-4: 71-14; (173-76).
10. Forestry Notes. Sierra Club Bull., June, 1903-4: 71,173, 246, 319.
17. Forestry Notes. Sierra Club Bull., January,1904-5: 82-85.
18. Forestry Notes. Sierra Club Bull., January,1905-5: 265-70.
19. Forestry Notes. Sierra Club Bull., 1905-1906.
20. Forestry Notes. Sierra Club Bull., June, 1908-6: 334-36.
21. The Geuus Phyllospadix, Wilder quarter Ceutury Book, Ithaca, N. Y., 1893.
22. The Hollyhock Rust. December, 1890.
23. A Laboratory Manual of Plant Histology. Crawfordsville, Ind. (1894). (With M. B. Thomas.)
24. Leafy Berries in Mitchella repens. Bull. of the Torrey Bot. Club, January, 1883, Vol.10: 1.
25. Lumbering in the Sequoia National Park. The Forester, December (1900).
26. Near the Kern's Grand Canon. Sierra Club Bull., June, 1903, Vol. 4: 301-07.
27. A Notable California Fir, Abies venusta. Forestry and Irrigation, May, 1902, Vol.8: 193.
28. The Onion Mold. December, 1889.
29. Phyllospadix. Its Systematic Characters and Distribution. Extract from Zoe., February 26, 1894.
30. A preliminary List of the Vascular Plants of the Lackawanna anc1 Wyoming Valleys. In Lackawanna Institute of History and
Science, Proc. & Coll., Vol. 1: 29.
31. Report of the Cryptogamic Botanist.
32. Sketch of Curtis. Jr. of Mycology, May 1886, Vol. 2: 5.
33. Strassburg and its Botanical Laboratory. Bot. Gaz., December, 1888, Vol. 13: 305.
34. The Strawyberry Leaf-blight.
35. Trees along the Tulare Trails. Sierra Club Bull., June, 1902 (Vol. 4: 153- 56).
36. The Vitality of Sequoia gigantea. Read before the Alumni Association of Columbia University, January, 1905.
37. Zonal distribution of trees and shrubs in the Southern Sierra. Sierra Club Bull., June, 1901, 3: 298-31 2.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Stanford University -- Faculty.
Botany -- United States -- History.
Botany -- United States.
Dudley, William Russel
Dudley, William Russel