In today's throwback Thursday photograph, Liberty Hyde Bailey, considered the father of agriculture at Cornell University, sits at his desk. Bailey was born outside South Haven, Michigan on March 15, 1858. In 1882, he graduated from what is now Michigan State University and went on to work with Asa Grey, one of the most prominent botanist of his day, at Harvard. After teaching horticulture at Michigan State, Bailey took a job as a professor at Cornell University.While at Cornell, Bailey greatly expanded the agricultural programs and in 1903 he established the State College of Agriculture at Cornell. Bailey served as its first Dean until 1913. Among his many distinctions, Bailey was one of the five founding members of the Botanical Society of America, the founder and first president of the American Society for Horticultural Science, and the first president of the American Nature Study Society.Liberty Hyde Bailey died on December 25, 1954 in Ithaca at the age of 96, and is still remembered as one of the most influential figures in horticulture to this day.
Follow Bailey's travels using the map below.
StoryMap Created by Miranda Materazzo.
Images courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University.