Organisation(s)
IA (main), BM, BPI, CUP, E, FH (currently GH), ISC, NY
Biography
American botanist and geologist at the Univeristy of Iowa. Thomas Macbride was interested in cycads and slime moulds and collected plant specimens in Iowa, the west coast of the United States and in Mexico. Born in Rogersville, Tennessee, he moved by wagon with his family to live on the prairies of Iowa in 1854. Later attending Monmouth College he received a BA in 1869 before beginning work as a mathematics and modern language teacher at Lennox College. This institution awarded him an MA (1873) and a PhD (1895). From 1878 until his death Macbride worked for the State University of Iowa, initially as an assistant professor in natural sciences, and from 1884 as a professor of botany. In 1914 he was named president of the university and from 1916 until his death served as president emeritus. From 1924, however, he was based in Seattle.
An expert on the saprophytic fungi of eastern Iowa, Macbride also became a world authority on the slime moulds and named numerous new species. Probably his most important work was a monograph entitled North American Slime-Moulds, three editions of which were published between 1899 and 1934. Macbride was also interested in cycads, amassing an impressive collection of herbarium specimens and fossils and he even named several species of fossil plants. He also published numerous botanical text books, works on the history of botany and papers on the geology of numerous counties in Iowa.
A keen conservationist, Macbride published an important paper on country parks in 1896 which resulted in a change in the state park system. He was also president of the Iowa Park and Forestry Association (1902-1904) and helped to restore many public squares and parks. Macbride was also president of the Iowa Academy of Sciences between 1897 and 1898. Responsible for establishing the Lakeside Laboratory at Okoboji Lake, Iowa, in 1909, the laboratory now bears his name. Married to Harriet Deffenderfer, one of his former students, he had four children, two of which survived him.
Sources:
G.B. Rigg, 1935, "Obituary: Thomas Huston Macbride", Science, 81:219-220
B. Shimek, 1934, "In Memoriam: Thomas Huston Macbride", Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Sciences, 41: 33-37
Papers of Thomas H. Macbride, The University of Iowa Libraries: Special Collections and University Archives:
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/archives/guides/RG05/RG05.01.08.htm, accessed 28th July 2011.
References
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 391; Hedge, I.C. & Lamond, J.M., Index Coll. Edindb. Herb. (1970): 105; Knobloch, I.W., Phytologia Mem. 6 (1983): 57; Vegter, H.I., Index Herb. Coll. M (1976): 477;
