Benjamin Smith Barton Papers , American Philosophical Society

A physician, natural historian, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815) was one of the central figures in Philadelphia's early national scientific establishment. Having received his medical training in European universities, Barton was appointed Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, lecturing on botany, materia medica, natural history. A prolific author, he established his reputation as one of the nation's preeminent botanists through his botanical text book The Elements of Botany (1803), but his contribtions to zoology, ethnology, and medicine were equally noteworthy. Barton's monograph on the "fascinating faculty" of the rattlesnake and his efforts in historical linguistics (New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, 1798) were widely read, and his Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (1804-1809) was one of the nation's first medical journals and an important outlet for natural historical research.

The Barton Papers offer a comprehensive view of the professional work of Benjamin Smith Barton from the time of his return to the United States in 1789 until his death. The collection is divided into five series: Correspondence, Subject Files, Bound Volumes, Graphic Materials, and Printing Plates. The collection includes a particularly valuable series of botanical, medical, and natural historical drawings collected by Barton for research, reference, and publication. Among the many artists represented are William Bartram, Frederick Pursh, Pierre Turpin, and Benjamin Henry Latrobe.

Background note

Benjamin Smith Barton (portrait by Samuel Jennings)

By the time of his death at age 49, Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815) had become one of the best known citizens in the city of Philadelphia, one of the leaders in American medical education, and one of the more controversial figures in American natural history.

Although it is clear, as he maintained, that Barton received training in medicine at elite European universities, the details of his medical education are at best murky. In 1786, Barton entered Edinburgh University under the recommendation of his mentors in Philadelphia, including Benjamin Rush. Ingratiating himself personally and distinguishing himself professionally, Barton joined both the Edinburgh Natural History Society and the Royal Medical Society, receiving the latter's Harveian Prize for his work on Hyosciannus niger, the black henbane. Such early signs of success, however, soon turned sour. By the winter of 1788, Barton withdrew from Edinburgh, claiming that he had been neglected by his professors, although it is equally plausible that he had worn out his welcome through his penchant for borrowing, and not readily repaying, money from colleagues, and perhaps from the Royal Medical Society.

Whatever the cause of Barton's departure from Edinburgh, depart he did, winding up in either the Netherlands or Germany by the fall of 1788 with no medical degree in hand. Later in life, Barton claimed to have taken a degree at the prestigious University of GC6ttingen, and when he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in January 1789, he was listed as Benjamin Smith Barton, M.D. However GC6ttingen has no record of granting a degree to Barton, and the timing makes it unlikely that he did: Barton returned to America during the fall of 1789 to become Professor of Botany at the College of Philadelphia. He received an M.D. from the University of Kiel in 1796.

In Philadelphia, Barton rapidly established a reputation as one of the preeminent botanists in the nation. His interest in systematic botany, materia medica, and Native American uses of plants blossomed into his best known and most popular work, The Elements of Botany; or, Outlines of the Natural History of Vegetables (Philadelphia, 1803), the first American botanical textbook. Impressed with the broad range of scholarship in the book, Thomas Jefferson asked Barton to assist Meriwether Lewis in his scientific preparation for the Corps of Discovery, and after Lewis' untimely death in 1809, Barton assisted in analyzing the natural historical results of the expedition. He was frequently engaged as a public lecturer on scientific topics during the first decade and a half of the 19th century.

From his days at Edinburgh, Barton's interests were never strictly confined to botany nor contained within the walls of the academy. Throughout his tenure at the College of Philadelphia, he offered public lectures on all aspects of natural history, tailoring some to a specifically female audience. His research was both creative and original, reflecting an advanced understanding of the current state of Anglo-American scholarship. His brilliant Memoir Concerning the Fascinating Faculty Which Has been Ascribed to the Rattle-Snake (Philadelphia, 1796), for example, was an examination of the reputed power of rattlesnakes to fascinate their prey, and as such touched not only upon anatomy and zoology, but upon the nature of perception and the relation of body and mind. He turned his attention, as well to the mastodon, chemistry, mineralogy, meteorology, and electricity.

Most famously, Barton followed his mentor Benjamin Rush in becoming an important early national theorist of race, and became consumed by his research into the culture, history, archaeology, and biology of American Indians. His Hints on the Etymology of Certain English Words and on Their Affinity to Words in the Languages of Different European, Asiatic and American (Indian) Nations, in a Letter... to Thomas Beddoes (Philadelphia, 1803) was an early effort in comparative linguistics that drew comparisons between American Indian languages and Welsh, and his New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America (Philadelphia, 1798) was well received.

Even as his scientific and academic reputations burgeoned, Barton maintained an active medical practice as a member of the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital. Perhaps his major contribution to medicine was as editor of the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (1804-1809), one of the nation's earliest medical journals and an important source for scholarly work in natural history.

Barton drew accolades for his work, beginning with his election to the American Philosophical Society in 1789 (vice president, 1802-1815). He was also inducted as a member of the Linnaean Society of London, the Swedish Royal Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Philadelphia Linnaean Society (president, 1806), and the Philadelphia Medical Society. He died from tuberculosis in New York City in 1815, leaving behind his wife of 18 years, Mary Penington.

Scope and content

A rich resource for the study of American natural history during the early national period, the Benjamin Smith Barton Papers contain approximately ten linear feet of correspondence, notes, diaries, essays and lectures. The collection is organized broadly into five series: I. correspondence; II. Subject files; III. Bound volumes; IV. Graphic Materials; and V. Printing Plates.

The Barton Papers document the professional interests of the botanist and physician Benjamin Smith Barton from the time of his return from Europe in 1789 until his death in 1815. Series I consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence arranged alphabetically. Series II is comprised of notes and manuscripts by Barton or collected by Barton relating to his research in Botany, Indians, Medicine, and Miscellaneous other subjects. The series is arranged by topic. Series III is made up of 32 bound volumes of manuscript notes on various scientific topics, including a commonplace book, generation, fevers, mineralogy, and journals of trips taken by Barton to New York state, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Although Series IV contains a number of works attributed to Barton himself, the majority consists of illustration of botanical, medical, and natural historical illustrations collected or commissioned by Barton from other artists. The bulk are botanical illustrations used by Barton in his publications or for reference, including numerous pen and ink and watercolor sketches by William Bartram, Pierre Turpin, Frederick Pursh, and Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Among the Pursh illustrations are several that depict plants collected by Lewis and Clark, while the Bartram illustrations include the portrait of Mico-Chlucco, King of the Muscogulges (used as a frontispiece to Bartram's Travels), his drawing of Arethusa divaricata with a view of Philadelphia from Bartam's Garden in the background, and his figurative map of the Great Alachua Savana in Florida. Series VI includes a number of printing plates used in Barton's publications and elsewhere, some based on the original artwork in Series V.

The series are:


Series I. Correspondence	1783-1817	7 boxes; 3.25 linear feet
Series II. Subject files, ca. 1789-1815	1783-1817	7 boxes; 3.25 linear feet
Series III. Bound volumes	1790-1826	32 items; 2 linear feet
Series IV. Graphic materials	1773-ca.1815	0.75 linear feet
Series V. Printing Plates	n.d.	42 items; 0.5 linear feet

Arrangement

The collection is described by two finding aids. This finding aid describes the textual materials contained in Series I, II, and III. The finding aid describing the graphic materials contained in Series IV and V may be viewed at http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/b/bartonimg.htm.

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

Acquired, 1970.

Preferred citation

Cite as: Benjamin Smith Barton Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Alternate formats

Images of most sketches are available for purchase by contacting the Manuscripts Department. Black and white 8x10" photographic prints are $15.00; 4x5" color transparencies are $40.00 (transparencies must be returned within six months). Postage and handling and publication fees may also apply.

Additional information

Related material

The Boston Public Library contains an important collection of the papers of Benjamin Smith Barton.

References

Whitfield J. Bell, "Benjamin Smith Barton, M.D. (Kiel)," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 26 (1971), 197-203.

The Printed Materials Department of the APS Library contains the majority of Barton's publications, including the following:

Barton, Benjamin Smith, A Discourse on Some of the Principal Desiderata in Natural History,and on the Best Means of Promoting the Study of this Science in the United States (Philadelphia, 1807). Call no.: 508 B28 v.2
Barton, Benjamin Smith, A Memoir Concerning the Fascinating Faculty which has been Ascribed to the Rattle-Snake, and Other American Serpents (Philadelphia, 1796). Call no.: 508 B28 v.1
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Additional Facts, Cbservations and Conjectures Relative to the Generation of the Opossum of North America (Philadelphia, 1813). Call no.: 508 B28 v.2
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Archaeologiae Americanae Telluris Collectanea et Specimina. Or, Collections, with Specimens, for a Series of Memoirs on Certain Extinct Animals and Vegetables of North-America (Philadelphia, 1813). Call no.: Pam. v.454, no.1
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Collections for an Essay Towards a Materia Medica of the United States (Philadelphia, 1801-1804). Call no.: 508 B28 v.1,2
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Elements of Botany; or, Outlines of the Natural History of Vegetables (Philadelphia, 1803). Call no.: 508 B28 v.1,2
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Flora Virginica: Sive Plantarum, Praecipue Indigenarum, Virginiae Historia Inchoata (Philadelphia, 1812). Call no.: 508 B28
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania. Part I (Philadelphia, 1799). Call no.: Pam. v.1173, no.1
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Hints on the etymology of certain English words :and on their affinity to words in the languages of different European, Asiatic, and American (Indian) nations (Philadelphia, 1803). Call no.: Pam. v.889, no.2
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Memoir Concerning the Disease of Goitre as it Prevails in Different Parts of North America (Philadelphia, 1800). Call no.: 508 B28 v.1
Barton, Benjamin Smith, New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America (Philadelphia, 1797). Call no.: 572.897 B28
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Observations on Some Parts of Natural History: to Which is Prefixed an Account of Several Remarkable Vestiges of an Ancient Date, which have been Discovered in Different Parts of North America. Part I (London, 1787). Call no.: 500 Pam. v.1, no.1
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Remarks on the Speech Attributed, by Mr. Jefferson, to an Indian Chief of the Name of Logan (Philadelphia, 1806). Call no.: 508 B28 v.2
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Some Account of the Siren lascertina and Other Species of the Same Genus of Amphibious Animals (Philadelphia, 1808). Call no.: 508 B28 v.2
Barton, Benjamin Smith, Supplement to a Memoir Concerning the Fascination Faculty of the Rattle-Snake (Philadelphia, 1800). Call no.: 508 B28 v.1
Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (Philadelphia, 1804-1808). Call no.: 610.5 P53v.1-3