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44 Autograph Letters Signed (totaling 95 holograph pages + stampless address leaves).

Important archive illuminating the foundations of Botanical Science and its relation to Medicine in the new American Republic, where the study of “natural history” was first advanced by passionate scientific amateurs. Among these, Bigelow is often remembered as author of a bibliophilic landmark - the first American book with printed color plates, his 3-volume Medical Botany of 1817-20. Hailed by his friend Oliver Wendell Holmes as an accomplished scientific scholar, eminent physician and social innovator who had great influence on American medical practice, he also wrote the first American book on “Technology” and was later a founding father of MIT.  But these letters date from the earliest years of his career, when, as a young Harvard Professor of Medicine and “Applied Sciences”, he roamed through the Massachusetts hills to collect plant specimens and wrote his first book on Bostonian flora, prelude to his color-plate magnum opus, and then edited the first American Pharmacopoeia, sanctioned by the first conventions of American physicians.  Beyond offering unpublished details of these scientific and medical “firsts”,  the strength of the archive is in the wide range of correspondents, such as 22 year-old John Torrey, later Botanical chronicler of the Fremont, Marcy and other western exploring expeditions;  Philadelphia bookseller Hamilton Hall, future publisher of the magnificent Wilson American Ornithology; U.S. Senator Samuel Mitchill, a statesman and physician of scientific genius in the Franklin and Jefferson vein; Dr. Thomas Wray of Georgia, who acted as Bigelow’s intermediary with artist John Abbott, famed for his watercolor illustrations of Southern birds; and, another Georgian, Dr. Jacob de la Motta of Savannah, acknowledged by Jefferson and Madison as a spokesman of the American Jewish community, and one of the first Jewish-American men of science. Also mentioned in the letters are eminent naturalists Thomas Nuttall, Stephen Elliott, Constantine Rafinesque, Henry Muhlenberg, Charles-Alexander Leseur, Frederick Pursh, John Bradbury, John Eatton LeConte, Augustin de Candolle, William Bartram, and geologist William Maclure. This archive - probably the most notable Bigelow papers not held by Harvard and other institutions – is thus of botanical, scientific, medical, and bibliophilic interest. For a detailed description of the letters, and a full transcription, Click Here.

The correspondents of the archive, in brief:

• Zaccheus Collins. 3 ALsS, Philadelphia, October 20, 1814; April 16, 1817; October 11, 1818. 6pp.
• George Ticknor. 3 ALsS. Gottingen, Germany. December 7, 1815, June 23 and July 12, 1816. 9pp.
• Samuel Mitchill. New York, October 27, 1816 and July 29, 1821, 7pp.
• Harrison Hall (Bookseller). 3 ALsS. Philadelphia, January 8, April 2 and June 12, 1818. 7pp
• John Torrey. New York, April 6, 1818 and November 22, 1820. 6pp.
• Pliny Hayes. Canandaigua, N.Y., April 20, 1818. 2pp.
• Thomas H. Palmer. 2 ALsS. Philadelphia, June 12, 1818 (as Corresponding Secretary of the Philadelphia Botanical Society); and August 8, 1822. 3pp.
• Jacob de la Motta. Savannah, Georgia, June 24, 1818. 2pp.
• William P.C. Barton. Philadelphia, August 22, 1818. 1pg.
• George Watterston, (Librarian of Congress), as Secretary, Washington Botanical Society, Washington [D.C.], September 1, 1818. 3pp.
• James Eastburn & Co. (Bookseller). NY, September 11, 1818. 2pp.
• Corresponding Secretary, Baltimore Physical Association. Baltimore, October [7], 1818. 1 pg.
• John Locke. New Haven, November 27, 1818 2pp.
• Thomas J. Wray. Augusta, Georgia, June 6, 1819. 3pp.
• William Zollickoffer, 2 ALsS. Baltimore, July 31, 1819 and January 12, 1820. 3pp.
• Lyman Spalding. 8 ALsS. New York, [Feb. 6], March 16, April 25, June 12, June 20, July 3, July 6 and August 15, 1820. 22 pp.
• Robert Carr. Philadelphia, August 28, 1820. 1 pg.
• Hottinguer & Co., Havre (France), March 18, 1820. 2pp.
• Thomas T. Hewson, 5 ALsS. Philadelphia, January 4, January 17, February 11, March 3, and April 4, 1821, 12pp.
• Thomas T. Hewson and Thomas C. James. ALS. Philadelphia, February 24, 1821. 1pg.
• Francis Boott. London, May 12, 1821, 3pp.
• John Eberle. 2 ALS. Philadelphia. August 27 [1821] and June 28, 1823. 3pp.