Inventory of the Henry Ashby Rankin Papers, 1920-1949
Collection Number 5317
Manuscripts Department, University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Contact Information:
- Manuscripts Department
- CB#3926, Wilson Library
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890
- Phone: 919/962-1345
- Fax: 919/962-3594
- Email: mss@email.unc.edu
- URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/
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Descriptive Summary
- Repository
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
- Creator
- Rankin, Henry Ashby, 1872-1947.
- Title
- Henry Ashby Rankin Papers, 1920-1949
- Call Number
- 5317
- Language of Materials
- Materials in English
- Extent
-
- Items: About 2000
- Linear Feet: 3.5
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Administrative Information
- Processing Information
- Processed by: Margaret Dickson, July 2007
- Encoded by: Margaret Dickson, July 2007
- Preferred Citation
- [Identification of item], in the Henry Ashby Rankin Papers #5317, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Copyright Notice
- Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Online Catalog Headings
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
- Botanists--North Carolina.
- Businessmen--North Carolina.
- Coker, William Chambers, 1872-1953.
- Cumberland County (N.C.)--Economic conditions.
- Cumberland County (N.C.)--History.
- Cumberland County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
- Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
- Gardening--North Carolina.
- Gardening--North Carolina--Societies, etc.
- Hunt, William Lanier.
- Nurseries (Horticulture) -- North Carolina.
- Rankin family.
- Rankin, Henry Ashby, 1872-1947.
- Small, John Kunkel, 1869-1936.
Biographical Note
Henry Ashby Rankin was born in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1872 to Samuel Rankin and Martha E. Thom. He spent most of his life as the owner of a sawmill and plywood business Cumberland County, N.C. After retirement, he ran a nursery that specialized in native plants of North Carolina. He was an avid amateur botanist and corresponded regularly with members of the botanical community, with whom he exchanged specimens. Two of his major achievements as a botanist were the discovery of a new species of gelsemium, Gelsemium Rankinii, and the re-discovery of a plant first collected and described by the French botanist Andre Michaux, and then lost for 125 years, the Carolina Grass-of Parnassus, or P. Caroliniana. Rankin was a long-time member of the Gray Memorial Botanical Association, at one point serving as president and at another as editor of the Association's bulletin. He died in 1947.
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The collection contains Cumberland County, N.C., businessman and botanist Henry Ashby Rankin's correspondence; writings and notes on plants; papers pertaining to his plant nursery; printed materials pertaining to flora; clippings of garden columns and other articles; and copies of the bulleting of the Gray Memorial Botanical Association, 1933-1944. Correspondence is chiefly between Rankin and fellow botanists such as W. C. Coker, John K. Small, and William Lanier Hunt; his children; nursery owners with whom he did business; and others.
Detailed Description of the Collection
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