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The Photographs by Homer L. Shantz showcases more than 6,400 photographs taken between 1908 and 1955 by American botanist and former president of the University of Arizona, Homer LeRoy Shantz (1876–1958). This digital exhibit highlights his documentation of landscapes, plant life, and environmental change across the United States, Africa, and Mexico. The collection includes images of natural vegetation, cultivated fields, plant specimens, and even microscopic views of plants.
A significant portion of the collection comes from Shantz’s participation in the Smithsonian–Universal Film African Expedition (1919–1920). At the time, Shantz was invited to join the expedition to survey plant resources and create vegetation maps from the interior of Africa and South Africa. During this journey, he produced more than 3,500 photographs that primarily detail the plant and vegetation in Africa.
Born in Kent County, Michigan, Shantz earned a B.S. in botany from Colorado College (1901) and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska (1905). After teaching at the University of Missouri and Louisiana State University, he joined the Bureau of Plant Industry under the United States Department of Agriculture in 1908, where he published “Natural Vegetation as an Indicator of the Capabilities of Land for Crop Production in the Great Plains Area”, among other published pieces. Shantz later served as the 10th president of the University of Arizona (1928–1936), where he helped establish new academic programs and was instrumental in the creation of the Saguaro National Monument.
He also served as the first director of the U.S. Forest Division of Wildlife Management (1936–1944). In 1956, Shantz traveled again to Africa as a member of the Geography Branch of the Office of Naval Research. During this trip, he re-photographed many of the sites he had documented earlier and published his work in Africa in 1958. Homer Shantz died in Rapid City, South Dakota, on June 23, 1958.
Links
An introduction to the Shantz collection from ARIZ, the UA herbarium
Finding aid for the Homer Shantz papers, UAL Special Collections
This is an updated digital exhibit that includes metadata remediation, additional images, and a change in it's organizational structure in order to accomodate the large quantity of items added. View the older digital exhibit: Photographs by Homer L Shantz from the Smithsonian African Expedition, 1919-1920