Archives and Manuscript Collections
Personal Papers
ANNA MURRAY VAIL PAPERS (1892-1905)
0.5 linear feet (1 box)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Anna Murray Vail (1863-1955) was born 1863 in New York City. She was
educated in Europe and later became a student of Nathaniel Lord Britton.
In 1896 she donated her herbarium, which consisted of 3,000 specimens,
mostly from the eastern United States, to The New York Botanical Garden.
Vail was a member of the Torrey Botanical Club and was active in the movement
to found The New York Botanical Garden. She studied the taxonomy of Leguminosae
and Asclepiadaceae.
In 1900, she became the first librarian of The New York Botanical Garden,
where she stayed until 1907. After resigning her post she went to France,
where she lived through the two world wars. She was active in The American
Fund for French Wounded (1915-1919) which was founded to further the
relief efforts of American women during World War I.
While in France, she had acquired a house in Hericy and remained active
in library work until her health failed her. By 1952 Anna Vail had become
blind, and she died in 1955 at the age of 92.
SCOPE AND CONTENT
The Anna Murray Vail Papers document the botanical career of Anna Vail,
especially as it pertained to her research in the Asclepiadaceae and Leguminosae
families. The collection contains some correspondence, research papers,
and manuscripts. The field notebooks have been removed to the Collectors'
Field Notebooks series.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series 1: Correspondence
Series 2: Research Notes
Series 3: Field Notebooks
Series 1: Correspondence
Arranged alphabetically.
The correspondence relates to botanical subjects.
Series 2: Research Notes, n.d.
5 lin. in. Arranged alphabetically.
Research Notes consists of some handwritten notes, typed data sheets,
and carbon copies of species descriptions mainly in the Asclepiadaceae
and Leguminosae families.
Series 3: Field Notebooks, 1891-1897
2 lin. in. Arranged chronologically.
This collection contains a number of field notebooks from Anna Vail's
collecting trips to Virginia, Vol. 222; Tyringham, Massachusetts, Vol.
294; and Tannersville and Greene County, New York, Vol. 629.
RELATED COLLECTIONS
The New York Botanical Garden
RG6 Records of the Library
RG3 Records of the Director in Chief-
N.L. Britton's administrative files
CFN Numbers 222, 294, 629
The New York Public Library: Manuscripts and Archives Division
American Fund for the French Wounded, 1915-1919. Control No.
NYPW93-A39.
Processed July 1999 by Susan Fraser under a grant
from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) PA 23141-98 and a
grant from the Harriet Ford Dickenson Foundation.
For more information and a complete description contact:
Susan Fraser, NYBG
Archivist
The LuEsther T. Mertz Library
The New York Botanical Garden
Bronx, New York 10458-5126
(718) 817-8879
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