Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

We kick off Black History Month with a few items from the collection and a previous collaboration. In our Archives we have a portrait of and a letter from George Washington Carver (1864–1943), who was the first director of agriculture at the Tuskegee Institute, where he worked on sweet potatoes and peanuts.

In 2011–2012 we provided research assistance to Samuel Black, director of the African American Program at the Heinz History Center, as he created the exhibit From Slavery to Freedom. We provided images of plants that he identified as likely food/medicine sources for enslaved people heading to freedom.

Like many other organizations of a certain age, we don't have numerous items pertaining to people of color. While these offerings are meager, we do have the botanical illustrations of the native Antiguan John Tyley (ca.1773–after 1823). Please join us for Black History Month in 2027 when we will feature Tyley's work in an exhibition and the latest scholarly research into his life in an issue of Huntia, our journal of botanical history.