Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

4 Jan. 2022: Thank you for following along as Rachel built the Hunt Botanical Library. We hope you enjoyed the journey. Now we’re going to explore how we have expanded Rachel’s core collections into the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.

Buds, lichen and the Hunt bunnies under a pink moon

We’re concluding Women’s History Month with a group project, featuring two men, three women and the Newe (or Shoshone) of Nevada. Together their work gave a generation of women the freedom of choice to make history on their own terms. Read the story (huntbotanical.org/news/show.php?…).

New finding aid added for the William Winfield Ray collection of 20th-century botanists’ correspondence and other materials (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…). It includes about 900 letters, postcards and other materials available as PDFs for downloading.

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with Susan Carlton Smith’s ladybug paintings (huntbotanical.org/exhibitions/sh…) and May Blaine’s correspondence (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…).

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with artwork by Francesca Anderson (huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?19) and Patricia Rennie (huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?20).

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with Margery Claire Carlson’s correspondence (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…) and Arundhati Vartak’s exhibition catalogue (huntbotanical.org/publications/s…).

Tune in to WRCT Pittsburgh, 88.3 FM (wrct.org/2026/03/18/to-…) at 7:30 am today to listen to an interview with Senior Curator of Art Carrie Roy and Curator of Art Lydia Rosenberg about To Make a Prairie. The interview is archived on Spotify (open.spotify.com/episode/5fmwOj…).

For our informal lobby displays this year we depart from exploring our Institute history to celebrate the history of botany in America for the 250th anniversary of our country. The inaugural display is about the connections among the expeditions, the explorers and us.

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with Alice Tangerini’s palm drawings (huntbotanical.org/exhibitions/sh…) and Martha Gene Pierson Williamson’s ceramic mushrooms (huntbotanical.org/exhibitions/sh…).

Tune in to WRCT Pittsburgh, 88.3 FM (wrct.org) at 9:00 a.m. today for an interview with our curators about To Make a Prairie. Hear it again at 7:30 a.m. on Friday (20 March). The interview will be archived on Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/5CqahKV7j…).

Join us today (5–7 p.m.) for the opening reception of To Make a Prairie: Pollination and Human Understanding(huntbotanical.org/exhibitions/sh…). At 5:30 p.m. our curators will introduce the exhibition. The reception is free and open to the public.

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with Sarah K. Berndt’s orchid watercolors (huntbotanical.org/exhibitions/sh…) and Agnes Robertson Arber’s papers (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…).

To Make a Prairie exhibition reviewed by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (post-gazette.com/ae/art-archite…).

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with Cythna Lindenberg Letty’s letters (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…) and Katherine Esau’s papers (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…).

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with Mildred Esther Mathias’ papers (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…) and Fannie (also Fanny) Elisabeth Waugh Davis’ pen-and-ink drawings (huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?2).

Join us Tuesday, 17 March (5:00–7:00 p.m.) for the opening reception of our spring exhibition, To Make a Prairie: Pollination and Human Understanding (huntbotanical.org/exhibitions/sh…). At 5:30 p.m. our curators will introduce the exhibition. The reception is free and open to the public.

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with a pair of adventurers, Emma Lucy Braun (huntbotanical.org/archives/detai…) and Margaret Ursula Mee (huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?6).

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with Ida Hrubesky Pemberton (huntbotanical.org/publications/s…), who influenced Dowden, and Marilena Pistoia (huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?14), who has influenced another generation of botanical artists.

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with our founder, Rachel Hunt (huntbotanical.org/about/?4), and her friend, botanical artist Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden (huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?3).

Join us for Black History Month in 2027 when we will feature the botanical illustrations of the native Antiguan John Tyley (ca.1773–after 1823) in an exhibition and the latest scholarly research into his life in an issue of Huntia, our journal of botanical history.

In 2011–2012 we assisted Samuel Black as he created the Heinz History Center exhibit From Slavery to Freedom (heinzhistorycenter.org/fromslaverytof…). We provided images of plants likely used as food or medicine by enslaved people heading to freedom.

We celebrate Black History Month with George Washington Carver (1864–1943), the first director of agriculture at Tuskegee Institute, where he worked on sweet potatoes and peanuts.