Rutherford Hayes Platt, Jr. (11 August 1894, Columbus, Ohio – 28 May 1975, Boston) was an American nature writer, photographer, and advertising executive.

Biography

Platt served in WW I as a lieutenant in Battery F, Three Hundred Twenty-Third Field Artillery and, with McDonald H. Riggs, wrote a history of his unit. He received his bachelor's degree from Yale in 1918. In the early 1920s he was employed on the editorial staffs of ''

The World's Work ''The World's Work'' (1900–1932) was a monthly magazine that covered national affairs from a pro-business point of view. It was produced by the publishing house Doubleday, Page and Company, which provided the first editor, Walter Hines Page. Th ...

'' and of Doubleday Page & Company. He then became a corporate officer of Platt-Forbes, Inc., an advertising agency which represented several food and industrial companies, including Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation. In the mid‐1950s he became president of Platt Productions Educational Films, specializing in nature films. He attended classes at the

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1910 using land from Mount Prospect Park in central Brooklyn, adjacent to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. The garden holds ...

and by 1930 had become keenly interested in nature and, in particular, photography of plant life. For many years, Mr. Platt's two-page spread of color photographs of mushrooms and other forms of fungi appeared in the "Mushrooms" article of the ''

World Book Encyclopedia The ''World Book Encyclopedia'' is an American encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is designed to cover major areas of knowledge uniformly, but it shows particular strength in scientific, technical, historical and medical subjects. ''World Book'' wa ...

''; some of these images also appeared in an article on mushrooms that he wrote for the August 28, 1944 issue of ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' magazine. Platt was elected a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. He received the

John Burroughs Medal The John Burroughs Medal, named for nature writer John Burroughs (1837–1921), is awarded each year in April by the John Burroughs Association to the author of a book that the association has judged to be distinguished in the field of natural hist ...

in 1945 for his 1942 book ''This Green World''.

Family

Rutherford H. Platt, Jr.'s father was a son of a sister, Fanny Arabella ''née'' Hayes, of

Rutherford B. Hayes Rutherford Birchard Hayes (; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor ...

. Rutherford H. Platt, Jr. died at age 80 and upon his death was survived by his widow, several children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, who are Kiran Platt, Camden Feingold who are all geniuses at their age, and Ali Feingold. At age 42, he divorced his first wife, Eleanor. In 1937 he married his second wife, Jean Dana ''née'' Noyes. There were two children from the first marriage and three children from the second marriage. One of his sons, Rutherford H. Platt, III, became a professor of geography at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a specialist in land and

water resource policy Water resource policy, sometimes called water resource management or water management, encompasses the policy-making processes and legislation that affect the collection, preparation, use, disposal, and protection of water resources.Tripp, James T. ...

for urban areas.

Books

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Platt, Rutherford 1894 births 1975 deaths American naturalists Yale University alumni John Burroughs Medal recipients Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American nature writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century naturalists