Alice Mills Hadley watercolors of native fungi from Chelsea, Vermont and Wellesley, Massachusetts
Scope and Contents
This collection is comprised of 138 watercolor paintings of fungi by Alice Mills Hadley. The paintings date from 1881-1885 and were created during her time at Wellesley College. At the time, botany classes received instruction in flower painting in watercolors, and morphology labs supplied students with compound microscopes with cameras and micrometers for drawing specimens. It is likely that she used these tools to illustrate spores under magnification that appear in many of the watercolors.
The collection also includes one exhibit sign: Native fungi, collected and painted at Chelsea, Vermont and Wellesley, Massachusetts by Alice Mills Hadley (1881-1885).
The paintings were mounted in glass double-sided frames and on display in the biology building of Wellesley College.
Dates
- Creation: 1881-1885
Creator
- Hadley, Alice Mills, 1849-1937 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Approximately half of the paintings need conservation treatment so they are not currently available for research. Please contact botref@oeb.harvard.edu for additional information.
Extent
1 collection (half-width manuscript box, oversize folders)Biographical note
Alice Mills Hadley was born on April 14, 1849, in Topsham, Vermont. Mills studied at Wellesley College from 1881 to 1883 and traveled to Europe to study botanical watercolor painting. She was an instructor of drawing and painting at Wellesley College from 1883 to 1885. In 1896, Alice Mills married Clark Hadley. They lived together in Manchester, New Hampshire. Hadley died on June 8, 1937, and was buried in Chelsea, Vermont.
References:
Find a Grave. 2018. Memorials. www.findagrave.com. Accessed August 2019.
Lovejoy, M. E. W. 1911. History of Royalton, Vermont: With Family Genealogies, 1769-1911, 1. Free Press printing Company, Royalton.
Singer, S. L. 2003. Adventures Abroad: North American Women at German-speaking Universities, 1868-1915. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport.
Wellesley College. 1900. Wellesley college record, 1875-1900.
Wellesley College. 1923. Record Number of the Wellesley College Bulletin.
Provenance
The Mills collection was donated by Wellesley College in 2019. Two other collections were donated at the same time: Elizabeth Eaton Morse collection of photographs of Pacific Coast states fungi and Florence N. Andrews Neal pressed ferns collected on the Island of Maui. The collections were mounted in glass double-sided frames and on display in the old biology building of Wellesley College.
Creator
- Hadley, Alice Mills, 1849-1937 (Person)
- Title
- Hadley, Alice Mills, 1849-1937. Alice Mills Hadley watercolors of native fungi from Chelsea, Vermont and Wellesley, Massachusetts, 1881-1885: A Guide.
- Status
- in_progress
- Author
- Botany Libraries, Farlow Reference Library of Cryptogamic Botany, Harvard University.
- Date
- 2019
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- far00043
Repository Details
Part of the Botany Libraries, Farlow Reference Library of Cryptogamic Botany, Harvard University Repository
The Harvard University Herbaria houses five research libraries that are managed collectively as the Botany Libraries. The Farlow Reference Library of Cryptogamic Botany specializes in organisms that reproduce by spores, without flowers or seeds. The Archives of the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany houses unique resources including personal papers, institutional records, field notes and plant lists, expedition records, photographs, original artwork, and objects from faculty, curators, staff, and affiliates of the Farlow Herbarium.
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botref@oeb.harvard.edu