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Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Dowell, Philip
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Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1864–1936
History
Dr. Philip Dowell was a distinguished American botanist and naturalist whose career spanned the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although most of his academic and professional work was centred on the East Coast, particularly in New York and Pennsylvania, his association with Stanford University reflected the close network of early American biologists who regularly exchanged, identified, and curated specimens among leading university herbaria.
Born in Indiana, Dowell graduated from Augustana College before earning a Ph.D. from Muhlenberg College in 1900. He subsequently joined the faculty there as the Asa Packer Professor of Natural and Applied Sciences. Later relocating to New York, he taught botany and biology at George William Curtis High School in the New Brighton neighbourhood of Staten Island. Renowned for his expertise in ferns and hybrid violets, Dowell worked closely with fellow botanists Nathaniel Lord Britton and Arthur Hollick. Today, his extensive and highly specialized collections of preserved hybrid violets and ferns are housed in the Staten Island Museum Herbarium, where they remain an important resource for botanical research.