William C. Darrah was, above all, a paleobotanist by both inclination and training. His life and career exemplified an enthusiastic search for knowledge, which was fostered by an unflagging interest in the world around him. His creativity crossed over into several diverse fields, including the history of geology and photography. He will be long remembered for his startling paleobotanical discoveries in the 1930s, his 1969 monographic work on late Carboniferous floras, and his role as an educator and promoter of paleobotany.

William C. Darrah attended both the Sixth International Botanical Congress and the Second International Carboniferous Congress in The Netherlands in 1935. Darrah exchanged ideas with the paleobotanists attending both conferences, and afterwards he was hosted in The Netherlands by W. J. Jongmans and in France by Paul Bertrand. Darrah collected plant megafossils in the coalfields of western Europe and also examined museum collections in The Netherlands and France. The entire experience made a lasting impression on him and set the stage for his interpretations of the stratigraphic paleobotany of the upper Carboniferous rocks of the eastern United States.

William C. Darrah was an avid correspondent. He genuinely enjoyed the exchange of ideas with paleobotanists throughout the world. In 1932, while still a student at the University of Pittsburgh, Darrah began what became a 20-year history of sharing ideas, reprints of publications, and specimens with European paleobotanists. The W. C. Darrah correspondence files—from which this historical account is mainly taken (supplemented by his correspondence in European files)—contain a record of the details of the paleobotanical pursuits of many of the early-twentieth-century European paleobotanists, especially P. Bertrand, W. J. Jongmans, and R. Florin, with whom he had the most extensive correspondence and contacts. The correspondence also contains a record of the shipments and receipts of the plant-fossil exchanges between Darrah and the European paleobotanists.

This chapter discusses nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Carboniferous (Mississippian and Pennsylvanian) collections of plant fossils in the United States. There are two extensive pre-1950 collections of Carboniferous plant fossils in the United States: at the U.S. National Museum of Natural History and at Harvard University. Both of these contain many type specimens. Other less prominent historical collections, which include type or figured specimens of fossil plants, are also included in this overview on Carboniferous paleobotanical collections in the United States. The special significance of the early museum collections is that they include the research collections that contain the type specimens on which later determinations are based. In other words, the type specimens are the permanent records for taxonomic purposes. Thus, this report provides useful information for research paleobotanists who need to determine the locations of type and other specimens for taxonomic and other paleobotanical purposes.

W. J. Jongmans, a botanist, was drawn into the study of Carboniferous compression floras for stratigraphic purposes. He was the founder and director of the Geological Bureau in Heerlen, Netherlands Limburg, where he organized four highly successful international congresses on Carboniferous stratigraphy and geology. Although starting out with a clear commitment to the monographic description of the Carboniferous flora of The Netherlands, he became increasingly drawn into a worldwide documentation of Carboniferous compression floras. These were also used for floral biogeography. His encyclopedic knowledge of the paleobotanical literature was due in part to his prodigious efforts to compile the Fossilium Catalogus—Plantae, an indispensable work of reference for the paleobotanical taxonomist. He also furthered palynological and coal petrographic studies.

Walther Gothan was one of the leading European paleobotanists between about 1910 and 1954. He was a leader in establishing a floral biostratigraphy of the late Paleozoic. He did not visit North America, but his cooperation with W. J. Jongmans and W. C. Darrah considerably influenced the interpretation of late Paleozoic floras of North America. Gothan published more than 350 papers, including a number of excellent contributions intended for the general public.

Professor Paul Bertrand was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding French paleobotanists of the twentieth century. He spent most of his professional career at the University of Lille (1903–1938) and ended it in Paris (1938–1944), when he was nominated to the National Museum of Natural History. Paul Bertrand’s interests and knowledge were broad, not just restricted to paleobotany. He taught general paleontology, and his research areas included stratigraphy, botany, and coal geology. He was very concerned about the transmission of knowledge to the general public through museum displays and special exhibitions. By the time of his death, in February 1944, more than 125 publications and 25 book reviews attest to the great productivity that gave him international fame. His national and international renown resulted in numerous awards and honorary citations. His death, hastened by wartime conditions, came at a time when he had reached full scientific maturity. It was a great loss to paleobotany, but his impact on this field is indelible.

Carl Rudolf Florin (1894–1965) received his education from the University of Stockholm. During the early years, Florin was a “docent” (lecturer) at the Riks-museum (Swedish Museum of Natural History) and served under Thore G. Halle, who was director of the Paleobotanical Department. In 1942, Florin received his professorship, and he became the director of the Bergius Foundation in 1944. Florin was a pioneer in fossil-conifer studies. Recognition of his great expertise on primitive conifers and their relationship to the Cordaitales came late in life. His interpretations and concepts are widely utilized today. Florin’s magnum opus, entitled “Die Koniferen des Oberkarbons und des unteren Perms,” consists of eight parts totaling 729 pages and 186 plates. Florin described about two dozen new genera, of which the best known are Ernestiodendron and Lebachia; the latter name is now regarded as illegitimate.

Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century. She will be remembered more for her work in pioneering the defense of women’s rights and birth control than for her contributions to paleobotany. Three aspects of her research on fossil plants are relevant to the development of that subject in North America; her revision of the Carboniferous “Fern Ledges” flora of New Brunswick, Canada; her work on the origin of coal balls; and her studies on coal petrology.

David White was a model for excellence in the geological profession. From his early years with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) under the paleobotanist Lester Ward to his rise to chief geologist of the USGS and chairman of the Division of Geology and Geography of the National Research Council, he displayed a gift for paleobotanical and fossil-fuel research and the ability to combine it with administrative service. His research in paleobotany was focused on the Paleozoic, although his investigations extended into the Cretaceous and the Precambrian. He guided the USGS’s geological research program during World War I and directed activity into oil-shale research and geophysical methods in oil exploration. His carbon-ratio theory led to his recognition as an expert on coalification and petroleum geology. He conducted a longtime study of Pottsville floras and was the foremost expert on correlations of coal beds in the basins of the eastern United States. Notably, he discovered seeds attached to the genus Aneimites. He also established the early Permian age of the Hermit Shale of the Grand Canyon and was the first to identify and recognize the significance of Gigantopteris Schenk in North America. White’s enthusiasm for research was contagious, and he inspired a new breed of paleobotanist, coal geologist, and petroleum geologist. His prolific research activity led to his presidency of several scientific societies, membership in the National Academy of Science, honorary membership in foreign societies, and three honorary Doctor of Science degrees. For his research he received several medals from national and international scientific organizations. White, who served under four USGS directors, made an indelible mark as a U.S. government scientist, and his contributions continue to influence the fields of paleobotany, coal geology, and petroleum geology.

Reinhardt Thiessen pioneered the thin-section method of coal petrography in the United States as well as the application of spores to the correlation of coal beds. His scientific career, mainly with the U.S. Bureau of Mines, spanned three decades during which he investigated the petrographic and botanical composition of American coals and conducted related research on peat and oil shale. He was the first in North America and, perhaps, worldwide to relate the macroscopic bands in coal to a microscopic classification of coal. Thiessen’s published record of about 82 items and the Thiessen coal thin-section slide collection, which consists of about 19,000 slides of both American and foreign coals, are a rich legacy of his monumental work in organic petrology. For his research on coal microscopy, he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Society of Arts (London). The Reinhardt Thiessen Medal of the International Committee for Coal and Organic Petrology honors his name as a pioneering coal petrologist. His research in stratigraphic palynology is recognized by a tree-fern spore, Thymospora thiessenii (Kosanke) Wilson and Venkatachala.

Elias Howard Sellards (1875–1961) was born in Kentucky but moved to Kansas as an adolescent. He received the B.A. (1899) and M.Sc. (1901) degrees from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1903. He taught at Rutgers College, the University of Florida, Gainesville, and the University of Texas at Austin. He was the first state geologist of Florida (1907–1918), and he was staff geologist (1918–1925), acting director (1925–1932) director (1932–1945), and director emeritus (1945–1961) at the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology. From 1938 to 1957, he was simultaneously director of the Texas Memorial Museum. His broad interests included Paleozoic paleobotany and palynology, Paleozoic insects, vertebrate paleontology, early humans in the Americas, and meteorites, to mention several. He made notable contributions to the study of the Permian floras of Kansas and to the study of seed ferns, establishing with David White, Felix Oliver, and others the gymnospermous nature of that group. He named the Permian genus Glenopteris and also named the fructification Codonotheca. He also advanced the study of fossil cockroaches and of economic geology, vertebrate paleontology, and anthropology of Florida and Texas.

Maxim Konrad Elias was an important paleobotanist, paleontologist, and biostratigrapher. He was born in Minsk, Russia, as Maxim Konradovich Eliashevich. He received the degree of Engineer of Mines from the Imperial School of Mines, St. Petersburg, in 1917 and worked at the Ural Mining Institute and as a coal company geologist. In 1920 he moved to Vladivostok, where he taught at the Polytechnic Institute and was a member of the Russian Geographical Society. He came to the United States in 1922. Elias was a geologist with the Kansas State Geological Survey from 1927 to 1937 and became a U.S. citizen in 1930. In 1938 he led a geological exploration party in Colombia, South America. He received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1939. He was paleontologist with the University of Nebraska Conservation and Survey Division from 1939 to 1958 when he retired and became adjunct professor at the Research Institute, University of Oklahoma, Norman. He died in Alliance, Nebraska, May 6, 1982, at the age of 93.

Adolf Carl Noé von Archenegg was born in Graz, Austria, in 1873. He emigrated to the United States in 1899 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1899, Noé began his long and distinguished academic career at the University of Chicago where he earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1905. He was an instructor and assistant professor of Germanic languages from 1903 to 1923, when he turned his interest to paleobotany and established the paleobotanical program at the University of Chicago. Noé was vice president of the Paleontological Society in 1931. He was elected as the first chairman of the Paleobotanical Section of the Botanical Society of America in 1936. Noé contributed considerable work on the fossiliferous nodules of the Mazon Creek flora of the Illinois basin, pioneered coal-ball discoveries in North America, and established the Carboniferous stratigraphy of the Eastern Interior basin of the United States. Noé’s revision and translation of Stutzer’s textbook, Geology of Coal, has become a classic.

Fredda D. Reed was one of the first students of Adolph Noé and was responsible for some of the early work on Carboniferous coal-ball plants in North America. As a faculty member for 35 years at Mount Holyoke College, she touched the lives of generations of students through her strong work ethic, tenacity for detail, and unending sense of humor.