Scope and Content Note
The papers of Luther Burbank (1849-1926) span the years 1830-1989, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1880-1926. Known to many of his generation as "the plant wizard," Burbank was popularly classed among the scientific heroes of the early twentieth century. His collection consists of the following series: Family Papers, General Correspondence, Speeches and Writings File, Notes and Sketches, Business Records, Miscellany, an Addition, and a Microfilm series consisting of a small selection of items from the papers which were retained by the city of Santa Rosa, California, for display in the Luther Burbank Home.
The Family Papers series includes a variety of records predating Burbank's birth in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and continuing well after his death in the Northern California town of Santa Rosa. Especially valuable are letters Burbank exchanged with his mother and sister while a prospective emigrant to the West Coast in 1875. The earliest family correspondence, dated as early as 1850, is mostly in the form of typewritten transcripts by Burbank's second wife, Elizabeth Waters Burbank, or by one of his biographers. The transcripts reproduce letters from and between Burbank's brothers and father supplemented by legal, biographical, and other personal data. Also in the Family Papers is travel memorabilia which includes a brief diary by Burbank of a trip to his boyhood New England in 1888. Since Burbank's sister, two brothers, and mother had joined or preceded him in his move to California, his journeys outside the state account for practically all of his family correspondence after 1878.
The General Correspondence series is extensive and, in addition to carbons or drafts of Burbank's replies, contains personal as well as professional letters. There are diverse and sometimes substantive inquiries from farmers interested in his projects, requests for seed catalogs from other nurserymen, fact-finding reports by foreign nationals intent on supplying Burbank with unusual seeds or seedlings, and a great deal of adulatory "fan" mail from friends both prominent and obscure. Burbank wrote and received letters from Harvey S. Firestone, Henry Ford, Charmian London, Joaquin Miller, John Muir, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The largest part of the correspondence concerns scientists and government officials who shared his training or helped in communicating the results of his research. Among the more significant of these individuals were David Starr Jordan, friend and patron at Stanford University, and Robert S. Woodward, head of the Carnegie Institution of Washington when Burbank was funded by that body to free him from the ordinary tasks of nursery administration.
Other scientists whose correspondence appears with some frequency include Liberty Hyde Bailey, David G. Fairchild, Jose D. Husbands, Vernon L. Kellogg, George H. Schull, H. E. Van Deman, and Hugo De Vries. The letters from De Vries are of particular interest, since it was the Dutch botanist's generous writings about Burbank's Santa Rosa experiments which broadcast their significance to the academic and scientific community. California booster organizations, then in their peak phase, also took an active part in the promotion of the plant breeder's achievements, and the evidence of their contact is best seen in the correspondence between Burbank and various officials of state and county chambers of commerce, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle of 1909, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, and the California State Boards of Horticulture and Agriculture.
As a celebrated discoverer of new plant varieties, Burbank depended less on strict scientific methodology than on a prodigious ability to test and experiment on a practical, empirical basis. Although he made sporadic efforts to keep comprehensive records of his research, he often destroyed them once a product was finished. Those accounts which still exist have been organized in a Notes and Sketches series and complement typescripts in the Speeches and Writings File containing narrative descriptions of genera and species which he cultivated at his Santa Rosa and Sebastopol nurseries between 1903 and 1911. Among the Business Records are account books, inventories, stock lists, and plan books related to Burbanks studies. This part of the collection, while focusing mainly on financial aspects of the Burbank operation, shows where and how he purchased seeds, the diligence of his propagation and selection, and the layout of his gardens. As is true of the Notes and Sketches, the Business Records are occasionally illustrated with Burbank's drawings of his techniques and products.
The Speeches and Writings File consists of Burbank's personal writings as well as the printed, near-print, and typescript comments of scientists, friends, and journalists. Prominent among the latter were some of his most devoted admirers, including De Vries, Wilbur Hall Jordan, Kellogg, and Edward J. Wickson. In addition, there is a transcript of a 1913 interview with Burbank by Burt C. Bean. The bulk of the Burbank manuscripts pertains to plant descriptions and what is supposed to be a complete series of his published seed catalogs, but there are also a few copies of statements he made on personal and social issues and a small folder of lectures given at Stanford University between 1904 and 1906. At the end of the collection is a Miscellany series of clippings and scrapbooks which include large quantities of ephemera and some important writings.
The Microfilm series consists of selected correspondence, family papers and genealogies, nursery plans and notes, financial records, scrapbooks, and miscellany. Prominent correspondents in the series include Thomas A. Edison, Helen Keller, Alfred C. Kinsey, Jack London, and Woodrow Wilson.
Correspondents in addition to those listed above include W. Atlee Burpee, Herbert G. Gleason, J. G. Lemmon, W. W. Morrow, Spiegel Samu, F. Harvey Vachell, and F. A. Waugh.
Burbank made extensive use of photography to record the course and results of his plant breeding, and a large quantity of prints and negatives, including glass plates, has been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.