S&TS 2331: Agriculture, History and Society: From Squanto to Biotechnology : Cornell Scientists

New York, The Macmillan company; London, Macmillan & co., ltd., 1907-1909. 4 v.
Liberty Hyde Bailey, one of the most influential figures in American horticulture, served Cornell as professor of horticulture, director of the College of Agriculture, co-founder of the American Society for Horticultural Science, Director of the Experiment Station, and founder of the Bailey Hortorium by virtue of the herbarium he established. He was a prolific author, especially concerned with explaining botany to lay people. His edited Cyclopedia of American Agriculture provides a snapshot of the state of the art of U.S. agriculture at the beginning of the 20th century. Also available online via https://catalog.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=2949859&DB=local

Ithaca, N.Y., The Stephens publishing co. [etc.] 1903-07. v. 1-6, v. 7, no. 1-6; Jan. 1903-July 1907.
This children's magazine, issued from the Chautauqua Junior Naturalists' Club, was edited by Martha Van Rensselaer. It cost $0.50 per issue and contained stories, articles, poems and illustrations designed to interest children in the study of nature. Unfortunately, Van Rensselaer was eventually forced to give up the magazine for lack of time and money to work on it.

Ithaca, N. Y., Comstock Publishing Company, 1911.
Anna Comstock, an entomologist and a professor of nature study at Cornell, was one of the first woman faculty members in the United States. This volume was prepared as a compilation of her work in training elementary school teachers to instruct children in nature study. Although both Liberty Hyde Bailey and her husband, John Henry Comstock, told her they expected the book to lose money, it became one of the best-selling books issued by Cornell University Press. Translated into eight languages, it has appeared in over 20 printings. Also available online via https://catalog.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=6645451&DB=local

New York State College of Agriculture. Ithaca, N.Y. no. 1-lesson 139, Oct. 1911-July 1921.
Educator Martha Van Rensselaer was hired at Cornell by Liberty Hyde Bailey, who was seeking someone to help him organize a reading course for farmers' wives. In the process of preparing the course, she took several home economics-related courses herself, such as bacteriology. Eventually she became one of the first woman professors at Cornell, teaching in the Home Economics Department. In 1925, when Cornell established the first state-chartered College of Home Economics in the country, she and Flora Rose were named co-directors.

Edited by Nina Fedoroff, David Botstein. [Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.] : Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1992.
This recent work combines reminiscences of McClintock's co-workers with discussions of her scientific contributions.

Grace Griswold received a Ph.D. in Zoology from Cornell in 1925 with a dissertation on the oyster-shell scale. She continued her work at Cornell studying household insects such as the clothes moth, aphid and the carpet beetle. She was an inventor of the mothball, a practical device for killing moths since it is solid at room temperature.

Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock wrote this Master's thesis and her doctoral dissertation (in the University Archives) at Cornell.

This is the Nobel lecture delivered by Cornell alumna Barbara McClintock in Stockholm, Sweden, 8 December 1983. At the age of eighty-one, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for her discoveries in genetics. Specifically, she identified the process of genetic transposition-- the notion that mutable genes (“transposons”) were transferred from one cell to another during development of the corn kernel. Also available via JSTOR from https://catalog.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=3301649&DB=local

Ithaca, N. Y., Comstock Pub. Co. v 1-19, no. 9; Jan. 1905-Dec. 1923.
The Nature Study Review was an outgrowth of the 1895 Committee for the Promotion of Agriculture in New York State. This committee, formed during an economic depression, sought to persuade the most capable rural children to continue farming as adults and implement the necessary improvements. To attract children to farming, teachers were trained to give classes in “nature study,” and this magazine was intended to support these teachers. Anna Comstock was a contributing editor in its early years and was Editor-in-Chief from 1917-1923. This first volume contains two articles by her: advice on student observation of a beehive, on page 109, and an explanation on page 143 of why nature study was more appropriate for children than agriculture courses.

Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1946.
Isaac Roberts grew up on a farm in Seneca County, New York, and farmed as a young man in Indiana. In his mid 30s, he became Professor of Agriculture, first at the Iowa Agricultural College, then at Cornell. He eventually became Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Director of the Experiment Station. He wrote extensively on agriculture and was Associate Editor of The Country Gentleman. After his retirement, he wrote this account of his hardworking farm boyhood and his rise to agricultural leadership.

Ithaca, N. Y., 1902.
Mann Library S95.C212 no. 1 and Mann Library TX1 .C81 pt.2 no.1
The bulletin Saving Steps was published as the first issue of the Cornell Reading Course for the Home, created by Martha Van Rensselaer. The text was based on responses to a letter sent to farmers' wives asking how many steps they took in preparing a meal and washing the dishes afterward. Van Rensselaer concluded that rural houses needed more conveniently located drains, utensils and water and ice supplies. The topic became a subject of debate for New York newspapers, one of which conducted its own “fieldwork” and concluded that housewives might walk as many as seven miles in the course of a day.

Line drawings by the author. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1950.
Cynthia Westcott earned a Ph.D. in plant pathology at Cornell in 1932 and ranked number one on the U.S. Civil Service examination in plant pathology. However, federal jobs in this field were not open to women, so she made a career of consulting, speaking to garden clubs and writing some of the first books on plant diseases for the home gardener. The first edition of this book was published in 1937. Interestingly, Westcott later became a critic of Rachel Carson.