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When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Coulter, John Merle. Papers
John Merle Coulter (1851-1928), was born in China to Presbyterian missionaries Moses and Caroline Coulter. He received an AB (1870) and an AM (1873) from Hanover College, then completed a PhD at Indiana State University in 1882.
Coulter served as Professor of Natural Sciences at Hanover College from 1874 to 1879 and Professor of Biology at Wabash College from 1879 to 1891. From 1891 to 1893, he was President of Indiana State University, then of Lake Forest College, from 1893-1896. In 1896, he became Chair of the Botany Department at the University of Chicago, where he remained until his retirement in 1925. In retirement, Coulter worked with the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Yonkers, New York.
In addition to his academic appointments, Coulter served as Assistant Geologist and Botanist for the Hayden Survey of what is now Yellowstone National Park (1872) and, in 1875, co-founded the Botanical Bulletin, soon renamed the Botanical Gazette. A staunch evolutionist and Presbyterian, he had a particular interest in the correlation of science and religion.
The John M. Coulter Papers contain the correspondence and personal papers of Coulter’s parents. These items relate mainly to the brief missionary tour of the Coulters at the Presbyterian Mission at Ningbo, China, which was terminated by Moses Coulter's death in 1853. The collection also includes letters and school mementos, drafts of many of Coulter's postwar lectures and articles, and miscellaneous papers relating to his activities during the last five years of his life. These activities included a trip to China and Japan in 1923, a project to write biographies for college students of important men of science, and the directorship of Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Yonkers, New York. The Collection is divided into two series.
The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections:
This series includes letters and personal papers evidently preserved by Mrs. Caroline E. Coulter. They relate mainly to the brief missionary tour of the Coulters at the Presbyterian Mission at Ningbo, China, which was terminated by Moses Coulter's death in 1853. The highlight of this portion of the collection is a small group of letters written to Mrs. Coulter by friends still in Ningbo following her return to the United States in 1854 with her two small sons, John and Stanley (sometimes referred to as "Diddi" in the letters). These letters describe the continuing activities of the mission in the mid- and late 1850's and early 1860's and give some picture of the attitudes of the missionaries themselves.
This series comprises the principal portion of the collection is made up of letters and school mementos preserved by John M. Coulter’s mother and his mother-in-law, Anna M. Gaylord, drafts of many of Coulter's postwar lectures and articles, and miscellaneous papers relating to his activities during the last five years of his life: a trip to China and Japan in 1923, a project to write biographies for college students of important men of science, and the directorship of Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Yonkers, New York.