Background

Charles E. Bessey was born on May 21, 1845, on a farm in Milton Township, Wayne County, Ohio, the son of Adna Bessey, a schoolteacher of Huguenot ancestry, and Margaret Ellenberger.

Education

In July 1866 Bessey entered Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University), where he came under the influence of Albert Nelson Prentiss and William James Beal, two botanists noted for their teaching skills. He graduated from the scientific course in 1869.

Bessey also studied at Harvard University under Asa Gray, in 1872 and in 1875 - 1876.

Career

Charles Bessey came to the Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in 1870, the year after the college opened. He was hired to teach horticulture, botany, and zoology. Apparently, his first botany students were required to collect and identify plants; these collections were the beginning of the Iowa State Herbarium. By 1872, Bessey had become professor of botany and zoology. During his tenure, the herbarium grew to nearly 15,000 specimens. In addition to the herbarium, Doctor Bessey also saw the need for laboratory study of botany. Up until this time, undergraduate study was limited to the library, lecture hall, and field. He started the first "botanical laboratory" in the United States for undergraduate study, and the laboratory included the use of microscopes. In 1884, while Bessey was serving as vice-president of the college, a disagreement arose between him and the state legislature.

In 1884, Bessey accepted the chair of botany at the University of Nebraska (now University of Nebraska–Lincoln), which he held until 1915. There he developed the experimental study of plant morphology that the recently founded university immediately became one of the nation’s outstanding centres for botanical research.

In 1901, Charles Bessey became head dean at the University of Nebraska (now University of Nebraska–Lincoln). He also served as Chancellor of the University of Nebraska (now University of Nebraska–Lincoln) from 1888 to 1891 and again from 1899 to 1900. Charles Edwin Bessey died on February 25, 1915, in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States.

Achievements

• 

  Charles Edwin Bessey was a botanist who introduced to the United States the systematic study of plant morphology and the experimental laboratory for botanical instruction on the college level. His arrangement of angiosperm (flowering plant) taxa, emphasizing the evolutionary divergence of primitive forms, is considered by many as the system most likely to form the basis of a modern, comprehensive taxonomy of the plant kingdom. Because of its emphasis on North American species, however, Bessey’s taxonomy in its original form, representing 23 years of development (1893 - 1915), has found application only in the north-central region of the United States.
  
  In 1967, Iowa State University built a Plant Industry Building, which was named after Bessey. Today the building is used by departments in the biological sciences.
  
  In 2009 he was inducted to the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
  
  The standard author abbreviation Bessey is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Botany for High Schools and Colleges 1880
  • The Essentials of College Botany 1884
  • The Literature Of North American Systematic Botany 1913
  • The Forests And Forest Trees Of Nebraska
  • The Botany of the Apple Tree
  • New Elementary Agriculture; an Elementary Text Book Dealing with the Problems of the Farm
  • Report of the Botanist On the Grasses and Forage Plants, and the Catalogue of Plants (Of Nebraska)

Membership

• In 1888, Charles E. Bessey became president of the State Teachers’ Association of Nebraska.

  State Teachers’ Association of Nebraska , United States

  1888

• In 1903, Charles Bessey served as president of the American Microscopical Society.

  American Microscopical Society , United States

  1903

• In 1908, Charles Bessey became president of the American Microscopical Society again.

  American Microscopical Society , United States

  1908

• 

  Charles Bessey served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1911.

  American Association for the Advancement of Science , United States

  1911

Connections

On December 25, 1873, Charles Edwin Bessey married Lucy Athearn of West Tisbury, Massachusetts, by whom he had three sons.

Father:

Adna Bessey

Mother:

Margaret Bessey (Ellenberger)

Wife:

Lucy Bessey (Athearn)

Son:

Edward Bessey

Son:

Carl Bessey

Son:

Ernst Athearn Bessey

Ernst Athearn Bessey was an American mycologist, botanist and plant pathologist, who served Professor of Mycology and Botany and Dean of the Graduate School at Michigan State University.