Robert_Almer_Harper

Robert Almer Harper

Robert Almer Harper

American botanist

Robert Almer Harper (January 21, 1862 – May 12, 1946) was an American botanist.

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

The younger brother of Edward Thompson Harper,[1] Robert was born in Le Claire, Iowa to Congressional Minister Almer Harper and Eunice Thompson.[2] The family moved to Port Byron, Illinois in 1863, where Robert attended local schools.[3] He matriculated to Oberlin College, his father's alma mater,[3] where he graduated with a A. B. in 1886.[2] During the Fall of 1886 he performed graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University,[3] then he was professor of Greek and Latin at Gates College in Neligh, Nebraska during 1886–88.[4]

In 1889–91 he was an instructor at the Lake Forest Academy.[2][3] After receiving his A. M. degree from Oberlin, he was appointed professor of botany and geology in 1891–98 at Lake Forest University.[1] During the period 1894 to 1896, took a sabbatical to attend graduate school at the University of Bonn in Germany[5] where he studied cytology and mycology;[3] he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1896.[2]

Harper became Professor of Botany at the University of Wisconsin in 1898, where he taught until 1911. On June 25, 1899, he was married to Alice Jean McQueen; she died in 1909.[2] Harper was elected to the American Philosophical Society that same year.[6] After a stint as visiting professor at the University of California in 1911,[3] he was named Torrey Professor of Botany at Columbia University,[1] becoming head of the botany department. The same year, Professor Harper was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[7]

A member of the Torrey Botanical Club since 1911, he was named president during 1914–16.[3] He served as president of the Botanical Society of America in 1916.[8] Harper remarried in 1918 to Helen Sherman;[5] they had one son, who became a farmer in Bedford, Virginia. Beginning in 1918, he served as head of the board of scientific directors for the New York Botanical Garden.[4] He was named professor emeritus in 1930, then in 1938 he retired to a farm in Bedford.[3][5] During his career he was awarded honorary doctorates from Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.[3]

Bibliography

He published the following works:[3]

  • Opuscula, 1895
  • Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Kerntheilung und Sporenbildung, 1896
  • Die Entwickelung des Peritheciums bei Sphaerotheca Castagnei, 1896
  • Ueber das Verhalten der Kerne bei der Fruchtentwickelung einiger Ascomyceten, 1896
  • Kerntheilung und freie Zellbildung, 1897
  • Cell-division in Sporangia and Asci, 1899
  • Cell and Nuclear division in Fuligo varians, 1900
  • Binucleate cells in certain Hymenomycetes, 1902
  • Nuclear divisions and nuclear fusion in Coloesporium sonchi-arvensis, 1903, with R. J. Holden
  • Hamilton Greenwood Timberlake, 1904
  • Sexual Reproduction and the Organization of the Nucleus in Certain Mildews, 1905
  • Sex-determining factors in plants, 1907
  • The Organization of Certain Coenobic Plants, 1908
  • Nuclear phenomena of sexual reproduction in fungi, 1910
  • The structure and development of the colony in Gonium, 1912
  • Some current conceptions of the germ plasm, 1912
  • Cleavage in Didymium mclanospermum, 1914
  • Physical factors in cleavage of coenocytes, 1914
  • Starchy and sugary foods, 1914
  • On the nature of types in Pediastrum, 1916
  • Organization reproduction and inheritance in Pediastrum, 1918
  • The evolution of cell types and contact and pressure responses in Pediastrum, 1918
  • Binary fission and surface tension in the development of the colony in Volvox, 1918
  • The structure of protoplasm, 1919
  • Inheritance of sugar and starch characters in corn, 1920
  • The Stimulation of Research after the War, 1920
  • The species concept from the point of view of a morphologist, 1923
  • Cytology, 1924
  • Morphogenesis in Dictyostelium, 1926
  • Significance of taxonomic units and their natural basis, 1929
  • Morphogenesis in Polysphondylium, 1929
  • The nature and functions of plastids, especially elaioplasts, 1929
  • Organization and light relations in Polysphondylium, 1932
  • Plant Science in the Service of Art, 1933
The standard author abbreviation R.A.Harper is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[9]

References

  1. [1]
    Leonard, John William; Marquis, Albert Nelson, eds. (1910), Who's who in America, vol. 6, Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Company, p. 844.
  2. [2]
    Leonard, John William; Marquis, Albert Nelson, eds. (1908), Who's who in America, vol. 5, Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Company, p. 821.
  3. [3]
    Thom, Charles (1948), Biographical memoir of Robert Almer Harper (PDF), vol. 25, National Academy of Sciences, pp. 225–240, retrieved 2013-04-27.
  4. [4]
    "Robert Almer Harper Papers (PP)", Archives of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New York Botanical Garden, 2005, retrieved 2013-04-27.
  5. [5]
    A Guide to the Robert A. Harper Collection c.1910-c.1930, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, retrieved 2013-04-26.
  6. [6]
    "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-12-11.
  7. [7]
    Faculty Awards & Honors, University of Wisconsin-Madison, archived from the original on 2013-05-22, retrieved 2013-04-26.
  8. [8]
    Presidents of the Botanical Society of America, The Botanical Society of America, retrieved 2013-04-26.
  9. [9]
    International Plant Names Index.  R.A.Harper.
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