California Academy of Sciences Special Collections
Ynes Mexia Photographs
Table of Contents
Summary Information
- Repository
- California Academy of Sciences Archives
- Creator
- Mexia, Ynes , 1870-1938
- Title
- Mexia (Ynes) photographs
- ID
- MSS.326
- Date
- undated
- Extent
- 2.63 Cubic feet 5 archives boxes, 2 flat archives boxes, 2 photograph boxes
- Stack Location
- AR7/I/1-AR7/I/2 and PR6/C/2
- Language
- English
- Language of materials
- Materials are in English.
- Abstract
- The collection consists mostly of photographs taken by Ynes Mexia throughout her lifetime. The collection includes photographs, negatives, memoirs, correspondence, photo lists, photo notes, and field notes. The collection also includes numerous photo albums and Mexia's plant press.
Biographical note
Ynes Mexia, botanist, was born May 24, 1870 to General Enrique A. Mexia and Sarah R. Wilmer Mexia. Accounts vary on the place of her birth: some say Washington, D.C. and some say Limestone County, Texas. Historians agree that her father was a representative at the Mexican consulate in Washington, and that in 1871 the family moved to Limestone County on a land grant that is today Mexia, Texas. Very little is known of Mexia’s early life. She attended private school in both Ontario, Canada and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended college at St. Joseph’s College in Maryland.
In 1921, she enrolled in botany classes at the University of California, Berkeley. In July of 1925, at the age of 55, Mexia wrote to Alice Eastwood, Curator of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences, informing Eastwood that she was about to accompany Stanford’s Assistant Herbarium Curator, Roxanna Ferris, on a collecting trip to Mexico. Mexia pointed out that she herself had lived for many years in Mexico, and she offered to collect duplicate botanical specimens for the Academy. Mexia made seven more collecting trips during the next twelve years, to Alaska, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina.
When Mexia was home in San Francisco, she gave occasional lantern-slide lectures. One of these took place at the Academy in 1932. Notes on her travels appeared regularly in The Gull, newsletter of the Audubon Society of the Pacific, 1926-35. The Sierra Club Bulletin published two accounts of her adventures. Several accounts of her expeditions were published in Madrono, the journal of the California Botanical Society.
Mexia was a member of the California Botanical Society, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Association of the Pacific, the Sociedad Geografica de Lima, Peru, and a life member of the California Academy of Sciences. Over the course of her career she collected about 150,000 specimens. Her expeditions in Mexico (1925, 1926-27, 1929, and 1937-38), Alaska (1928), and South America (1929-32 and 1934-37) yielded over 500 new species, mostly spermatophytes, of which 50 are named in her honor.
In 1938, Mexia became ill during one of her trips to the mountains of Oaxaca and was forced to return home. Her health did not improve and she died on July 12, 1938 at her home in Berkeley, California. In her will, ahw bequeathed $3,000.00 to the California Academy of Sciences to employ her friend and specimen mounter from Berkeley, Nina Floy Perry Bracelin.
Scope and content
The collection consists mostly of photographs taken by Ynes Mexia throughout her lifetime. The collection includes photographs, negatives, memoirs, correspondence, photo lists, photo notes, and field notes. The collection also includes numerous photo albums and Mexia's plant press.
Administrative Information
Conditions Governing Access
Frozen negatives are unavailable for handling; however, many negatives have been digitized. Please contact the archivist for access to digitized copies of the frozen negatives.
Controlled Access Headings
Corporate Name(s)
- California Academy of Sciences. Dept. of Botany.
Genre(s)
- Photograph albums.
Geographic Name(s)
- Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.)
- Yosemite
Personal Name(s)
- Bracelin, N. Floy, 1890-1973
- Pringle, Cornelia
Subject(s)
- Botanists--California--Archives.
- Botany
- Women in science
- Botanists
- Scientific expeditions
- Scientific expeditions--Alaska.
Collection Inventory
| Box | Folder | ||
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Photos of the Grand Canyon, Farallones Trunk, Tennessee Cove, other locations, and negatives. |
1 | 1 | |
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Notebooks of Trees, Ferns, Fungi, Mammals, Birds, and Flowers. Photographs of birds and animals. |
1 | 2 | |
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Photos Nevada and Palm Springs. |
1 | 3 | |
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Photos and negatives of the Sierras, photo #427. |
1 | 4 | |
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Photo numbers #650-760 (incomplete), negatives of Big Sur and Inverness, photos and negatives from photo class, photos marked "Odds". |
1 | 5 | |
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Photos and negatives of Wilderness Park and "Odds & Ends". |
1 | 6 | |
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Photos and negatives of St. Mary's, UC botany specimens, island teacher, sea urchin, Monterey flower, Monterey lizard, flower prints, #349, 349.5, and 765. |
1 | 7 | |
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Photos and negatives from Tomales Bay, Sierra Club, Monterey trees. Photos and negatives of animal bones. |
1 | 8 | |
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Negatives #1376-1443, "Sierras". |
1 | 9 | |
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Photos from Yosemite and Glacier National Park, Los Banos (nests), and Monterey birds. Botanical photos and field notes. |
1 | 10 | |
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Miscellaneous photos, Yosemite National Park, photos #425, #429, and photo of Harold C. Bryant. |
1 | 11 | |
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Photos and negatives of ferns, fungi, and specimens. Contains #251-253. |
1 | 12 | |
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Photography notes. |
1 | 13 | |
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Photos of specimens, Sierra Nevada, and miscellaneous photos. |
1 | 14 | |
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Sierra photos from scrapbook (duplicates). |
1 | 15 | |
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Photography notes and sandpiper photos. |
1 | 16 | |
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Photo album of travels throughout Colorado, Arizona, and California. ca. 1919-1921 |
2 | 1 | |
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Photo album of travels in Arizona and California. |
2 | 2 | |
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Biography, publications by Mexia, Bracelin correspondence, donation correspondence, and receipts. |
2 | 3 | |
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Photograph lists and postcards from the California Academy of Sciences. |
3 | 1 | |
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CA Botanical Society even menu and bean poem. Photos of woman (Mexia?) in native American dress. "When Portola came over the Pike" poem. 1917 |
3 | 2 | |
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Miscellaneous photos, photo album for Mrs. Bracelin, portraits, field notes from January 6, 1924. 1924 January 6 |
3 | 3 | |
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Family photos. |
3 | 4 | |
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Photos of Agricultural College Vicoas, Minas Geraes, Brazil. 1930 |
3 | 5 | |
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Brazil lecture flyer, J.T. Howell note, field notes, and book plate. |
3 | 6 | |
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Photographs from zoo. "A Few of the Commoner Plants Found in Mount McKinley National Park" essay. |
3 | 7 | |
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Biography, field notes, photo number notes, portfolio of memoirs, and lecture notes. |
3 | 8 | |
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Itinerary of collection trip in western Mexico. Memoirs of trip titled "Botanical Trails of Old Mexico". 1926-1927 |
3 | 9 | |
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Formal portraits "From Bracelin Archive". |
3 | 10 | |
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Field notes and photos from trip to Salt Lake and Arizona parks. 1933 |
4 | 1 | |
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Photos from "German camera", trip to Brazil, Mexico, and prints for Christmas. Miscellaneous papers and photos. |
4 | 2 | |
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Field notes from trip to Brazil. |
4 | 3 | |
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Prints from A#s. nitrate negatives. #A72-930, incomplete. |
4 | 4 | |
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Plant list notebook, A-Z (gardening), postcards, and letter by Joshua Baily. |
4 | 5 | |
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"Brazilian Ferns Collected by Ynes Mexia" by E.B. Copeland. 1932 |
4 | 6 | |
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Wildflower photographs list, letter from Wild Flower Preservation Society, P.L. Ricker, photos. |
4 | 7 | |
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Correspondence with P.L. Ricker of the Wild Flower Preservation Society, Inc. |
4 | 8 | |
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| Box | |||
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Box contains original nitrate negative containers and photo notes. Negatives removed for freezing. Undated |
5 | ||
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2 albums. Yosemite and Birds Studies in bird nests Animals - Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite. |
6 | ||
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Plant press, notebook, album (clippings - So. America, Germany, etc.). |
7 | ||
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Nitrate negatives removed for freezing. Unprinted negatives, 65% scanned, #A1-A115, #81.5-825, #827-1247, #A72-749.5, and #25-964 (incomplete). |
8 | ||
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| 12 | |||
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