Papers of Elso Barghoorn

Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn (1915-1984), paleobotanist, taught at Harvard University from 1946 until his death in 1984. He graduated from Miami University, Ohio in 1937, then received his Harvard AM in 1938, and his PhD in 1941. After completing his education, he joined the faculty of Amherst College as Instructor, becoming Assistant Professor in 1944. His teaching at Amherst was interrupted to join the Army Quartermaster's Corps in 1943; Barghoorn was stationed in Panama, spending the duration of World War II studying the deterioration of textiles in the tropics, which was a significant issue for the Allied South Pacific troops. After the war, Barghoorn accepted an Assistant Professorship at Harvard University, and three years later, in 1949, he was appointed Associate Professor. In 1955, Barghoorn became Professor of Biology, and in 1973, he was named Fisher Professor of Natural History, Harvard's oldest chair in the sciences. During his time at Harvard, Barghoorn also served as a member of the Geology Faculty and as Curator of the Paleobotanical Collection in the Harvard Botanical Museum.

Barghoorn's main field of concentration was the structure of cells and wood, and his publications are still frequently cited as classic works in the field of wood anatomy. His wide-ranging research spanned topics on archaeological botany, including investigations of the colonial Saugus Iron Works; decomposition of plant materials, including a series of papers on the origin of coal; archaeological maize pollen, including a study which established the American ancestry of modern cultivated maize; and fossil vascular plants, including the discovery one of the only records of Tertiary vegetation in northeastern North America. Barghoorn also completed pioneering work on the early history of life, including the discovery of fossil remains of bacteria preserved in rocks from the Gunflint Iron Formation, Ontario, which increased the known age of the Earth back to three and half billion years and established that life has been present on the Earth almost since the planet's beginning. Barghoorn died in 1984.