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Descriptive Summary

Call No.: gra00039
Repository: Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Botany Libraries, Harvard University
Creator: Mann, Horace, 1844-1868
Title: Horace Mann, Jr. manuscripts
Date(s): approximately 1860-1868
Quantity: 1 collection (10 folders in shared box AJ)
Language of materials: English

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Related Materials

Other related material at the Botany Libraries, Harvard University Herbaria: Asa Gray correspondence files, 1832-1892.

Biography

Horace Mann was born on February 25, 1844 in Boston, Mass., the oldest son of education reformer Horace Mann and his wife, Mary Peabody Mann. His early education was provided informally by his father who fostered his interest in the study of nature. At the age of twelve Mann was sent to the State Normal School in West Newton, Mass., where he became particularly interested in mineralogy. In 1861 he enrolled in the Lawrence Scientific School (later part of Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences), where he took courses in zoology with Louis Agassiz and in botany with Asa Gray.

Gray encouraged Mann to accompany William Tufts Brigham to the Hawaiian Islands in 1864. Mann's botanical studies there inspired him to specialize in Hawaiian plants when he returned to the Cambridge. He presented his thesis, "Enumeration of Hawaiian Plants," and received a B.S. in 1867. Mann worked as Asa Gray's assistant and curator of the Harvard Herbarium and also served as curator of the Boston Natural History Society herbarium. Gray apparently planned to train Mann as his successor. He hope to put him in charge of the botanical garden and botany department when he traveled to Europe in September 1868. This succession plan ended on November 11, 1868, when Mann, who suffered from poor health for much of his life, succumbed to tuberculosis.

In addition to his "Enumeration of Hawaiian Plants" (published in the "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," vol. VII, September 11, 1866), Mann wrote several articles and reviews for various scientific journals. His magnum opus, "Flora of the Hawaiian Islands," was left unfinished at his death.

Sources

[Brigham WT.] 1870. A sketch of the life of the late Horace Mann. Bull. Essex Inst. 1:25-31, 41-50.

Dupree AH. 1959. Asa Gray: 1810-1888. Cambridge (MA): Belknap Press.

Horace Mann. 1873. Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts. 8:129-131.

Stafleu FA, Cowan RS. 1981. Taxonomic literature: a selective guide to botanical publications and collections with dates, commentaries and types. 2nd ed. Utrecht: Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema.

Scope and Content

The Mann manuscripts consist primarily of drafts and notes pertaining to his partially published monograph, "Flora of the Hawaiian Islands." There is an incomplete draft of the published section and drafts in varying degrees of completeness of unpublished sections.

Container List

• Folder 1. "Analysis of the Hawaiian Flora"
  Scope and Contents: Draft of article published in Memoirs Read Before the Boston Society of Natural History 1: 532-541.

• Folder 2. Miscellaneous notes on Hawaiian flora 20 pages
  Scope and Contents: Lists of names of plant families, notes on specific genera

• Folder 3. "Flora of the Hawaiian Islands" incomplete draft
  Scope and Contents: Class I, Division I: Polypetalous Exogenous Plants, Ranunculaceae to Araliaceae". Corresponds to published pages 20, 32-35, 46-47, and 57-88 (some gaps)

• Folder 4. "Flora of the Hawaiian Islands" draft 230 pages
  Scope and Contents: Class I, Division II: Monopetalous Exogenous Plants

• Folder 5. "Flora of the Hawaiian Islands" incomplete draft 47 pages
  Scope and Contents: Class I, Division III: Apetalous Exogenous Plants, pages numbered 231-277; some in handwriting likely belonging to William Tufts Brigham

• Folder 6. Notes corresponding to incomplete draft of Division III 18 pages

• Folder 7. Notes on Endogenae 34 pages
  Scope and Contents: [Class II: Monocotyledonous or Endogenous Plants] likley prepared for Hawaiian flora

• Folder 8. Notes on algae 8 pages
  Scope and Contents: Lists taken from William Henry Harvey's "Nereis Boreali-Americana" (1852), parts I and II

• Folder 9. Notes pertaining to the distribution of plants in the Pacific islands 18 pages

• Folder 10. Plant development, incomplete draft of lecture or article 11 pages
  Scope and Contents: Pages numbered 1-2, 17-24, one page without a number; written on the verso pages of what appears to be a manuscript for the published portion of "Flora of the Hawaiian Islands"