__NOTOC__ William Culp Darrah (19091989) was an American professor of biology at

Gettysburg College Gettysburg College is a private liberal arts college in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1832, the campus is adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield. Gettysburg College has about 2,600 students, with roughly equal numbers of men and women. ...

in Pennsylvania. He also had an interest in, and published several works on, 19th-century photography. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, his was a specialist in paleobotany. Darrah was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well a member of

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

and the Botanical Society of America. As an authority on the

history of photography The history of photography began in remote antiquity with the discovery of two critical principles: camera obscura image projection and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or de ...

, he authored several books about 19th-century photo processes and photographers. As part of his interest in early photography, he assembled a collection of over 60,000 cartes-de-visite, which is now held at Penn State University. He died in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Selected bibliography

Biology

*''Principles of paleobotany'' (1960) *''Textbook of paleobotany'' (1939) *''A critical review of the upper Pennsylvanian floras of eastern United States with notes on the Mazon Creek flora of Illinois'' (1969)

Photography

*''Stereo views, a history of stereographs in America and their collection'' (1964) *''A check list of Maine photographers who issued stereographs'' (1967) *''An Album of stereographs : or, Our country victorious and now a happy home : from the collections of William Culp Darrah and Richard Russack'' (1977) *''The world of stereographs'' (1977) *''Cartes de visite in nin eenth century photography'' (1981)

References

External links

Papers of William C. Darrah, MS-128
at Gettysburg College

at Pennsylvania State University Libraries 1909 births 1989 deaths Historians of photography Paleobotanists 20th-century American botanists Gettysburg College faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science People from Reading, Pennsylvania 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Historians from Pennsylvania 20th-century American male writers {{US-sci-historian-stub