This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
Descriptive Entry:
This collection contains some of Blake's professional and personal correspondence. He corresponded with many botanists and herbarists concerning the identification,
naming, and exchange of specimens. The collection also contains administrative correspondence concerning Blake's position at USDA and substantial correspondence with family
and friends. Additional materials include Blake's salutatory address at Stoughton (Mass.) High School; the 1912 Harvard University Commencement Program; newspaper clippings;
an account of Blake's trip to London during World War I; and photographs of Blake, his wife Doris Holmes Blake, and family and colleagues.
Historical Note:
Sydney Fay Blake (1892-1959) was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts. He studied systematic botany at Harvard, receiving his B.A. in 1912, his M.A. in 1913, and his Ph.D.
in Botany in 1917. He began work as a Botanist at the Bureau of Plant Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1917 and worked there until his death.
He published a number of botanical works and was writing the second volume of his Flora of the World at the time of his death.
