Table of Contents
- Collection Summary
- Biographical Note
- Scope and Content Note
- Subject Headings
- Administrative Information
- Access and Use
- Encoding Information
- Container List
Collection Summary
| Repository: | Archives and Special Collections Library, Vassar College Libraries |
|---|---|
| Creator: | Clarkson, Rosetta Shear, 1892-1950 |
| Title: | Rosetta Shear Clarkson Papers |
| Dates: | 1904-1956 |
| Quantity: | 3.6 cubic feet (4 boxes) |
| Abstract: | Photographs, clippings, manuscripts, correspondence, and scrapbooks relating to Clarkson's study and cultivation of herbs. |
Biographical Note
Rosetta Elizabeth Shear was born in 1892 in Orwell, NY and was graduated from Vassar in 1914. Like many college women of that time, she became a high school teacher. In the early 1920's she took a leave from teaching to get her master's degree at Columbia. While researching her study of Henry Porter, an Elizabethan dramatist, she became fascinated with old herbals and began to study and cultivate herbs. In 1938 she and her husband, Ralph C. Clarkson, moved to Milford, Connecticut, where she devoted herself exclusively to herbs. Her work at their home, Salt Acres, was instrumental in reviving herb culture in the United States. She grew more than three hundred herbs, lectured widely, showed her gardens to hundreds of visitors annually, and supplied seeds to commercial growers and private individuals at no charge. From 1936 - 1939 she published THE HERB JOURNAL, which was sent free to more than two thousand people each month. She wrote several books on herb cultivation and use, and founded the Herb Lovers Book Club to publish reprint editions of old herbals and gardening books which she and her husband collected. After years of poor health she died in 1950.
TopScope and Content Note
Collection primarily concerns her interest and professional activities as an herb enthusiast and includes her diaries and engagement books, 1904-1947; a travel diary, circa 1932; letters from Remsen B. Ostrander, 1918; correspondence concerning her publications and her book collecting activities, 1937-1956; manuscripts and galley proofs from her books Green Enchantment, Herbs: Their Culture and Use, and Magic Fragrance, and other notes and manuscripts; and copyright correspondence and various issues of The Herb Journal, 1936-1938. Other items include her Master's thesis on Henry Porter with related correspondence, 1924; accounts, 1937-1939; and miscellaneous biographical information and photographs.
TopAccess and Use
Access
This collection is open for research according to the regulations of the Vassar College Archives and Special Collections Library without any additional restrictions.
Restrictions on Use
Permission to quote (publish) from unpublished or previously published material must be obtained as described in the regulations of the Vassar College Archives and Special Collections Library.
Subject Headings
Names:
- Ostrander, Remsen B.
- Porter, Henry
Subjects:
- Book collecting
- Cookery (Herbs)
- Herb gardening
- Herbs
- Women authors, American
- Women travelers
- Women--Diaries
Document Types:
- Diaries
- Photographs
VCL Categories
- Literature and Writing
- Nature and Natural History
- Travel
Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
Rosetta Shear Clarkson Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Vassar College Libraries.
Processing Information
Original processing date unknown
Acquisition Information
Gift of Eleanor P. Clarkson.
Container List
| Folders 1.1-1.4 | Biographical information: personal documents, honors, Kingston Academy, 1908-1910 |
| Folder 1.5 | Pictures |
| Folder 1.6 | Collection of pressed plants |
| Folder 1.7 | Accounts, 1937-1939 |
| Folder 1.8 | Letters from Remsen B. Ostrander, 1918 |
| Folder 1.9 | Correspondence relating to selection, 1937 |
| Folder 1.10 | Book-collecting correspondence, 1937-1938 |
| Folder 1.11 | Correspondence relating to publications, 1937-1948 |
| Folder 1.12 | Correspondence with the Macmillan Company, 1939-1956 |
| Folder 1.13 | Herb Lovers Book Club |
| Box 1 | 22 diaries and engagement books, 1904-1947 |
| Box 1 | Travel diary, 1932 |
| Folders 2.1–2.2 | Magazine articles, brochures, and charts by R.S.C. |
| Folder 2.3 | Printing, binding, and publicity |
| Folder 2.4 | Manuscript of Green Enchantment (NY: Macmillan), 1940 |
| Folders 2.5-2.9 | Manuscript, typescript, galley proof and page proofs, Herbs; Their Culture and Uses (NY: Macmillan), 1942 |
| Folders 2.10-2.11 | The Herb Journal and copyright correspondence, file of this publication edited by R.S.C. 1936-1938 |
| Box 2 | 2 notebooks of information on individual herbs |
| Folders 3.1-3.2 | Manuscript and typed copy of Magic Fragrance (Limited edition), consisting of first 12 issues of The Herb Journal, 1937 |
| Folders 3.3-3.4 | Master thesis, New Facts about Henry Porter and His Work (Columbia University), Issue of PMLA Related correspondence, 1942 |
| Folders 3.5-3.9 | Miscellaneous manuscripts and notes relating to herbs, Sept 1927 |
| Box 4 | Two scrapbooks relating to activities and publications |
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Details
Photographs, clippings, manuscripts, correspondence, and scrapbooks relating to Clarkson's study and cultivation of herbs.
