Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt (1882-1963) was passionate about plants, gardens, botany, books, the book arts and botanical art. In 1961, her personal collection of books, prints, drawings, watercolors, portraits, letters and manuscripts were donated to the Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Botanical Library. This library would eventually become the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The book, Botany and History Entwined: Rachel Hunt’s Legacy is the exhibition catalog of the Institute’s current exhibition featuring items from Rachel Hunt’s original collection. The exhibition documents Rachel Hunt’s interests in books, the book arts and botany.
Authors Charlotte A. Tancin, Lugene B. Bruno, Angela L. Todd and Donald W. Brown tell the story of how a young Rachel McMasters Miller grew up to become a collector of herbals, botany books, botanical manuscripts and botanical art, and how her collecting was motivated by her interest in the role illustration played in communicating information about plants.
Through Hunt’s amazing collection, one can trace the history of botany and observe changes in how plant scholars made meaning. When explorers began to travel the world, they collected plants wherever they went and brought specimens back to Europe. This challenged scholars to reevaluate what they thought they knew about plants. Classification became a huge issue. Tancin et al. (2011) describe how scholars documented their new way of thinking in books and how the invention of the printing press and the increased availability of books led to increased networking among scholars. They also explain how the quality of book illustrations changed over time, changes that can be observed first-hand by anyone reading this wonderfully detailed exhibition catalog.
Included in the catalog is an image of the earliest printed book in Hunt’s original collection, Macer Floridus De Viribus Herbarum (1477), a medieval Latin poem about herbs. This image is joined by several images of herbals, floras and other books about plants. There is even a photograph of Rachel Hunt’s passport. This is a significant entry because Hunt did not only collect books, she retraced the footsteps of botanists and explorers and traveled to locations significant to botany’s history.
The significance of each botanical event documented in this book is made richer by the authors who provide interesting historical facts with each image. This catalog is highly recommend for anyone with an interest in botany, its history and how illustrations have been used to convey information about plants.
Botany and History Entwined: Rachel Hunt’s Legacy is available for purchase from the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation ($22). Visit the Hunt’s Publication page to download an order form.
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