Following her death in 1997, Ethelind Pope Brown (Mrs. William Carroll Brown, Jr.) was memorialized by the Pope Brown Foundation with the establishment of an endowment in her name. The Ethelind Pope Brown Natural History Endowment for the University Libraries perpetuates her interest in natural history and her loyalty to her alma mater ('26).
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| Prickly Pear of South Carolina |
Several years earlier, in 1991, Mrs. Brown had given to Thomas Cooper Library a unique collection of eighteenth-century natural history watercolors illustrating South Carolina birds and flowers. The portfolio, which features 32 original watercolors, is believed to be the earliest group of natural history watercolors to survive from South Carolina. Images of the watercolors can be viewed in the University'sDigital Library.
Building on this generous gift, the Ethelind Pope Brown Natural History Endowment provides funds each year for the acquisition and preservation of material relating to natural history and related subjects.
Among the items purchased from the Endowment in past years have been:
![Tsubaki [camellia] from Kaempfer, 'Amoenitatum Exoticarum' (1712)](/develop/images/kempfero2sm.jpg) |
| Tsubaki [camellia] from Kaempfer, Amoenitatum Exoticarum (1712) |
- Engelbert Kaempfer, Amoenitatum Exoticarum Politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V (Lemgo: Meyer, 1712), the first European book to describe and illustrate the camellia.
- Sir James Smith, A Grammar of Botany (London: Longman, 1821).
- J. C. Loudon, Loudon’s Hortus Britannicus: A Catalogue of All the Plants Indigenous to, Cultivated in, or Introduced in Britain(London: Longman, 1832).
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres, 3 vols. (Paris: Ballière, 1845).
- Charles Darwin, Geological Observations on South America, first edition (London: Smith Elder, 1846).
- Robert Chambers, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 3rd ed. (London: Churchill, 1845), and the same title in the illustrated and much-revised final tenth edition (London: Churchill, 1853).
- Asa Strong, Illustrated Natural History of the Three Kingdoms, Containing Scientific and Popular Descriptions of Man, Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, &c. (New York: Green and Spencer, 1852-53).
- Asa Strong, The American Flora: or History of Plants and Wild Flowers . . . designed as a Book of Reference (New York: Hull & Spencer, 1855).
- J. J. Audubon, Red Winged Starling or Marsh Blackbird (New York: Bien, 1860), an example of the later chromo-lithographed double-elephant folio Audubon, supplementing the South Careolina College set of the engraved Havell edition (1827-1838).
- Charles Darwin, The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, 2nd ed revised (London: Murray, 1875).
For more information about this or any other library endowment, please contact us.
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