Research Poster 36 x 48 - B


Endangered Data Preservation
Organizing and Visualizing Thoreau’s Botanical Observations

Jodi Coalter, MLIS

University of Maryland, College Park

METHODS AND MATERIALS

CONCLUSIONS

DISCUSSION

REFERENCES

ABSTRACT

CONTACT

Jodi Coalter

University of Maryland, College Park

Email: jcoalter@umd.edu

Phone: 301-405-9147

The aim of this work was to create a 

usable data set from botanical data 

gathered in the 1800’s by Henry 

David Thoreau for visualization and 

scientific purposes. A special focus 

was to preserve the work completed 

by Ray Angelo in his botanical index 

for future work. A Python script was 

written to scrape each HTML page on 

Angelo’s website to gather the 

botanical information and index 

information provided. The data has 

been useful in drawing out patterns in 

Thoreau’s exploration of botany. 

Specific plants are watched more 

closely, though his interest wandered 

throughout the botanical world. Future 

data work will be needed or helpful, 

including attribution of dates to 

specific pages and volumes, as well 

as updated botanical terms..

Further research is needed to complete the 

data sets. For example, dates (specially month 

and year) would be helpful in determining what 

Thoreau cited in winter months vs summer 

months. In addition, Ray’s index uses the 

Grey’s Manual of Botany 8th Edition. Since its 

use, other editions have been printed, and 

+plant taxonomy has continued to improve. 

Updating botanical terms will be required.

Photograph by Herbert Gleason

https://www.walden.org/collection/journals/

SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTION

Feb 13th

Skated to Sudbury. A beautiful 

summerlike day. The meadows 

were frozen just enough 

to bear-- -- Examined now the 

fleets of ice flakes close at 

hand. They are a very singu-

lar & interesting phenomenon 

which I do not remember to 

have seen I should say that 

when the water was frozen about 

as thick as pasteboard--a 

violent gust had here & there 

broken it up & while the 

wind & waves held it up on 

its edge--the increasing cold 

froze it in 

seemed for the flakes firmly. So it were 

for the most part turned 

one way--i.e. standing on 

one side you saw only their 

edges on another--the N E 

or S W--their--sides-- They 

were for the most part of a 

triangular form--like a shoul-

der of mutton? sail slightly 

scolloped--{drawing} like 

shells They looked like a 

fleeet of a thousand mack-

eral fishers under a press of 

The 

Data 

Path

Angelo, R. (2017, May 4, 2017). Botanical index to the 

journal of Henry David Thoreau. Retrieved from 

http://www.ray-a.com/ThoreauBotIdx/index.html

Primack, R. B., & Miller-Rushing, A. J. (2012). Uncovering, 

collecting, and analyzing records to investigate the 

ecological impacts of climate change: A template 

from Thoreau's Concord. BioScience, 62(2), 170-

181. doi:10.1525/bio.2012.62.2.10

Figure 3 & 4: Example of Thoreau’s use names normalized by current Genus. 

RESULTS

Figure 1: Distribution of citations by volume Figure 2: Current Genus by volume

This work was completed with significant help from Dr. Peter 

Hook, Cornell University, and Dr. Timothy Bowman, Wayne 

State University.

Acknowledgments

Example journal page from 

Thoreau’s diary.

Ray Angelo’s botanical index of Thoreau’s journals.

http://www.ray-a.com/ThoreauBotIdx/

http://www.ray-a.com/ThoreauBotIdx/