Marie Clark Taylor and the Wonder of “Aliveness!”

Have you ever looked at a live on plant life cadre under a microscope ? Though science classes across the rural area offer this opportunity routinely now , it was once a quite rarified occurrence . If you have done so ; that may be in big part due to the work of one woman — Marie Clark Taylor . Dr. Taylor ’s work to thrive hands - on science education in lowly schools help prompt the use of life specimens in the classroom . Her contribution do not end there , however . She was also a antecedent in the skill of how to provide perfect plant conditions in suboptimal surround – a challenge most gardener conflict with day by day .

At a sentence when many educational and professional door were keep out to Black Americans , especially Black women , Taylor pursued her rage and succeeded in becoming a botanist . She was the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in phytology and the first woman of any airstream to earn a Ph.D. at Fordham University , her alma mater , in any field of honor .

An pedagogue who do it didactics , Taylor felt the natural science were pivotal to the development of the succeeding wellness of U.S. society . She instruct other teachers how to bring the natural world into the classroom in Holy Order to personalise the experience of plant scientific discipline . Her ingenuity can inspire us to take on the challenges facing the training organisation , specially in reigniting students ’ love for hand - on learning after a year of learning remotely in a fractured and mostly hand - off “ classroom . ”

Early life and research

Marie Clark was born in Sharpsburg , Pennsylvania , on February 16 , 1911 . After calibrate from gamy school , she attend Howard University , where she have her unmarried man ’s and master ’s degrees in botany . In the late 1930s she went to work as a teacher at Cardoza High School in Washington , D.C. , but soon decided to pursue a doctor’s degree .

Her dissertation at Fordham University was on photomorphogenesis , or how the light spectrum affect the bodily structure and processes of increase , flower ontogeny , and cum output in plants . This is separate from photosynthesis , which describes the process by which flora turn sunlight into vigor . Her focus was on length of exposure to light , or photoperiodism . That industrial plant could be grown under electric lights was a comparatively recent breakthrough at the meter and opened up new opportunity to examine plant outgrowth in controlled experiments . “ The majority of the experiments with seeded player - plants have been devise to show how certain plants might be forced into earlier prime , ” Dr. Taylor publish . “ There is definite need for accurate record showing the influence of photoperiodism upon the development of blossom and fruit . ”

In her dissertation , Taylor focalize her attempt on define how long a point of sparkle per sidereal day was need to induce flowering ( a photoperiod ) for three plant varieties : scarlet salvia ( Salvia splendens , Zones 10–11 ) cosmos ( Cosmos bipinnatus , annual ) and ‘ Orange Flare ’ universe ( C.bipinnatus‘Orange Flare ’ , annual ) . As Taylor explained , “ These experimentation were project to distinguish the influence of definite photoperiods of six , ten , and sixteen hours upon the efflorescence that develop from floral anlage expose to these photoperiods . ”

Salvia splendens‘Van Houtter ’

creation bipinnatuscv .

Experiments like this one aid place the secure stipulation for plants to produce healthy and strong , and they can help oneself explain cause and effect with regard to plant wellness . Taylor ’s thesis shows that a photoperiod has substantial effect not only on flower evolution but also on seed development . For example , Taylor found that many of the ruddy salvia plant expose to 16 hours of light a daylight answer by not producing heyday heads at all , and that “ only empty ejaculate were find in the fruits of the 16 - minute group that did develop . ” Conversely , ‘ Orange Flare ’ cosmos in reality had increase efflorescence sizes in the 16 - hr full stop compared to the other meter frames tested . In that test , seeds developed in both the 10- and 16 - hour easy picture groups ( but the 10 - minute grouping had larger seeds ) .

For home gardeners , such information is utilitarian in selecting plant species and determining where to site works for optimum carrying out . For nursery , agriculturalist , and seed companies , this study and ones like it provide essential selective information to the industriousness .

Howard University and summer science institutes

After joining the Army Red Cross in 1942 and service during World War II in New Guinea , Taylor bring back to Washington and bring together the flora department at Howard University as an adjunct professor , where she taught undergraduate course of instruction in botany , biology , and microbiology . Taylor became president of the botany department in 1947 . During her tenure at Howard , she would oversee the enlargement of the botany and zoology departments , as well as the edifice of a new greenhouse on the roof of the biota building .

Taylor was a much - beloved teacher . She could often be find in the greenhouse , helping student , or cleaning up after year . Norma Williams , a former educatee , recalls that Taylor always hold on food on helping hand in case her students were hungry — a practice Williams took up when she became a prof at Howard herself .

Taylor was passionate about providing access to needed resources in the college classroom and beyond . In 1956 , she compiled a leaning of instructional films for teaching flora , include titles on life oscillation , physiology , conservation , cytology , seed dispersal , and bacteriology . But the most important resources for Taylor were the plants themselves , and she believed it almost inconceivable that if given the chance to hit the books actual living plant , students would n’t find them to be entrancing .

In a 1965 newspaper bring out by the American Biology Society entitle “ Live Specimens , ” she lamented the state of biological science training : “ Eighty to eighty - five per centum of the teacher of high school biology are unacquainted with the most easily usable and most versatile specimens for dynamic education in ‘ liveness ! ’ Having never contemplate life flora , many are invalid in designing the requisite laboratory investigations into biography that characterize the newest trends in biology direction . ”

Taylor ’s heat for heighten science breeding found a young outlet in 1953 when the National Science Foundation lead off issuing grants to educators who wished to track down summertime science institutes . These institute would grow over the next 10 yr from four programs each summer to well over 200 and finally would go on to be offered not only during the summertime month but also on weekend during the schooling yr and at night . Taylor was award multiple Duncan Grant in the fifties and ’ LX to run institutes on botany . In a 1958 clause , Taylor estimated that “ by 1960 about 42,000 participant will have attended NSF Institutes , represent about 30 % of the 140,000 junior and fourth-year high school scientific discipline and mathematics teachers in the country . ”

One gets the impression from reading Taylor ’s writing that no amount of picture to botany would be too much . In that same 1958 article , she write , “ In general , we may reason that botany receives a fairly fair amount of attention in the NSF Institutes . . . . though since most high-pitched schooltime biological science teachers are not as well prepared in botany as fauna a greater accent on botany would certainly seem desirable . ”

Taylor ’s body of work with the National Science Foundation even won her an invitation from President Lyndon B. Johnson to teach seminars internationally . She travel as far aside as India , which mean that her love of botany potentially has had a substantial effect on the development of scientific discipline programs , as well as scientists , across the earth .

Legacy

It ’s not surprising to learn that Taylor ’s enthusiasm revolutionize many of her student to follow doctorates or become professors themselves . Ray Hill , a former student and mate professor , put it wonderfully in a letter he wrote to Taylor when she retired in 1976 : “ Like plants that disperse ejaculate from yr to year , of which some germinate and thrive topically and others are carry by various vectors to far away places , you have scatter students annually from the flora section at Howard throughout the United States and the World . . . . So many of the seeds you have broadcast are germinating , and will remain your employment for generations to descend . ”

Based on this legacy , it may be dissatisfactory to hear that the phytology department at Howard was eventually suck up by the biology department , following a vogue in university across the country . As Phys.org reported in 2015 , “ Since 1988 , the number of inquiry university offering flora degrees has dropped by half , according to National Science Foundation research financing statistics . ” And in 2018 , only 231 bachelor ’s academic degree were awarded in botany , according to the National Center for Education Statistics .

Taylor ’s passion for her flying field , for her students , and for the beauty of living flora was contagious , and her notion that there can always be more botany in education seems like sage wiseness for our school systems today . Moreover , her accomplishments in the W. C. Fields of botany and science education are noteworthy considering all of the barriers she overcame as an complete contraband fair sex in a theater that at the time had few disgraceful citizenry and even fewer Black woman .

Howard University offers the M.C. Taylor Scholarship for Minority Women in Science ( MWIS ) . “ The encyclopedism is named in honor of Dr. Taylor as an acknowledgment of her tremendous contributions to the growth of the Botany program at Howard . ”Learn more .

Sources :

give thanks you to Dr. Ray Hill , Dr. Norma Williams , and Lucy Dinsmore for your service uncovering information about Dr. Taylor . give thanks you to the President Lyndon B. Johnson ’s library for their assistance . Thanks to theCrazy Botanistand thePlant Kiki Podcast for helping to beam a light on Black botanists and plantsman who have gone uncelebrated .

Marie Clark Taylor in the Fordham yearbook.

Botanical Society of America , and Christine Milot . Botany for the Next Millennium . Botany.org , 1995 , botany.org/home/publications/botany-for-the-next-millenium.html .

Dinsmore , Lucy . “ Woman of Firsts : Marie Clark Taylor . ”Womeninhorticulture , 11 Mar. 2019 , www.womeninhorticulture.com/post/woman-of-firsts-marie-clark-taylor .

Gill , Tara . “ Black History Month Garden Column : Botanist Marie Clark Taylor . ”Newark Advocate , 13 Feb. 2021 , eu.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/local/2025-04-01/black-history-month-garden-column-botanist-marie-clark-taylor/6729530002 .

Marie Clark Taylor in the Fordham yearbook.

Marie Clark Taylor in the Fordham yearbook.

Institute of Education Sciences . “ Bachelor ’s , Master ’s , and Doctor ’s Degrees Conferred by Postsecondary Institutions , by Sex of Student and Discipline Division : 2017–18.”National Center for Education Statistics , Department of Education . , 24 Dec. 2019 , nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_318.30.asp .

Lauer , Claudia . “ few Students Study Botany , More Plant Collections Closing . ”Phys . Org , The Associated Press . , 3 January 2025 , phys.org/news/2015-05-students-botany.html .

Quinlisk , Katie . “ Fordham ’s First Female Ph . D.”The Fordham Ram , 20 Sept. 2017 , thefordhamram.com/56782/culture/fordhams-first-female-ph-d .

A slide from Marie Clark Taylor’s dissertation.

A slide from Marie Clark Taylor’s dissertation on Photomorphogenesis. Credit: Marie Clark Taylor.

Taylor , Marie C. “ Botany in the National Science Foundation Institutes for High School Teachers . ”Plant Sciences Bulletin Volume 4,December 1958,file:///Users / calexander / Downloads / PSB_1958_4_6.pdf .

Taylor , Marie C. “ Live Specimens . ”The American Biology Teacher , vol . 27 , no . 2 , 1965 , pp . 116–17.Crossref , doi:10.2307/4440852 .

Christine Alexander is the digital content manager .

Salvia Splendens ‘Van Houtter’

Salvia splendens‘Van Houtter’

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