Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Biographical Note

Margery Claire Carlson (1892–1985) was an American plant collector, plant anatomist, morphogeneticist and taxonomist. Her specialty was Russelia Jacquin. She was the first woman to major in botany and to become a full professor at Northwestern University, where she also taught for more than 30 years. Carlson was also a research associate at The Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Scope and Contents Note

This collection consists of correspondence with three individuals. Handwritten correspondence from Thomas Baillie MacDougall (1895–1973) to Carlson and her life partner, Kate Staley, is dated 1949 to 1967. Most of these letters are one to two pages in length and were sent from New York, New York, or Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. This set of letters includes 34 letters and five postcards, sometimes signed "D. Tomás," and one 3" × 5" printed paper advertising the Hotel Tehuantepec (Mexico). The second set has four letters, all in Spanish, of correspondence with Faustino Antonio Miranda González (1905–1964) of the Instituto Botanico del Estado, Mexico, dated 1952 to 1956.  Finally, the collection includes three letters to Carlson from Judith S. Stix (also Mrs. Ernest W. Stix) of St. Louis, Missouri, concerning MacDougall's work.

Finding aid

A finding aid for this collection is available online.

Other resources

For information about portraits of and biographical citations for this subject, see the Hunt Institute Archives Register of Botanical Biography and Iconography database.