Description: C. S. Rafinesque daybook

C. S. Rafinesque daybook

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Rafinesque, Constantine Samuel (1783-1840) (Creator)
Collection:	C. S. Rafinesque Daybook
Collection Number:	LCP.in.HSP6
Format:	Manuscript
Language:	English
Subjects and Genres:	Natural Science > Philadelphia > 19th century
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Physical Description:	0.1 Linear feet 0.1 linear feet, 1 volume
Summary:	Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, naturalist and ichthyologist, made the United States his home in 1815, and became one of the outstanding American natural scientists. He numbered among his friends the scientific elite of his day, a circle which included Zaccheus Collins, the great Quaker naturalist, with whom Rafinesque entered into a law suit in 1832. In 1818, Rafinesque became a professor of botany, natural history, and modern languages at Transylvania College, Lexington, KY. Here he continued the extensive field trips which carried him over a large portion of the eastern and trans-Appalachian states. From 1826 to his death, Rafinesque lived in Philadelphia where he devoted much time to writing and publishing. Although most of his literary efforts were of a scientific nature, he wrote also on banking, economy, and the Bible, and published a great amount of periodical material and some verse. Rafinesque was a man of imagination and great ability, but for all this, like so many pioneers in the field of learning, he died inconspicuously and unrewarded. The daybook of Rafinesque, kept for the years 1832-1834, might more accurately be called an account book. It is a daily record of expenses and business transactions which cast brief but considerable light on the activities of the author during this period. The volume opens with a statement of Rafinesque's properties as of January first, 1832. This statement includes entries of claims and debts, medicines in the hands of agents, books sent abroad for sale, and an evaluation of his library, manuscripts, maps and engravings, herbarium, shells and fossils, drugs and minerals. Accounts with the United States Bank, expenses for paper, specimens, publications, notes on the sales of Pulmel (his remedy for consumption), an account of his books sold at auction in 1834, entries of expenses for rent, clothing, furniture, and milk are all to be found. Notations on his suit against Zaccheus Collins and the expenses incurred in the course of it are also itemized.

Physical Description:

0.1 Linear feet 0.1 linear feet, 1 volume

Summary:

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, naturalist and ichthyologist, made the United States his home in 1815, and became one of the outstanding American natural scientists. He numbered among his friends the scientific elite of his day, a circle which included Zaccheus Collins, the great Quaker naturalist, with whom Rafinesque entered into a law suit in 1832. In 1818, Rafinesque became a professor of botany, natural history, and modern languages at Transylvania College, Lexington, KY. Here he continued the extensive field trips which carried him over a large portion of the eastern and trans-Appalachian states. From 1826 to his death, Rafinesque lived in Philadelphia where he devoted much time to writing and publishing. Although most of his literary efforts were of a scientific nature, he wrote also on banking, economy, and the Bible, and published a great amount of periodical material and some verse. Rafinesque was a man of imagination and great ability, but for all this, like so many pioneers in the field of learning, he died inconspicuously and unrewarded. The daybook of Rafinesque, kept for the years 1832-1834, might more accurately be called an account book. It is a daily record of expenses and business transactions which cast brief but considerable light on the activities of the author during this period. The volume opens with a statement of Rafinesque's properties as of January first, 1832. This statement includes entries of claims and debts, medicines in the hands of agents, books sent abroad for sale, and an evaluation of his library, manuscripts, maps and engravings, herbarium, shells and fossils, drugs and minerals. Accounts with the United States Bank, expenses for paper, specimens, publications, notes on the sales of Pulmel (his remedy for consumption), an account of his books sold at auction in 1834, entries of expenses for rent, clothing, furniture, and milk are all to be found. Notations on his suit against Zaccheus Collins and the expenses incurred in the course of it are also itemized.

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C. S. Rafinesque daybook

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