The collection includes photographs of the University of Michigan Class of 1899 at its ten-year reunion. Also present are photographs of students on a botanical excursion to Third Sister Lake, near Ann Arbor, Michigan; Burnham in a rural area just outside Ann Arbor; and an Ann Arbor lodging house.
Stewart Henry Burnham was born in New York in 1870. After attending Stanford University, he later enrolled in the University of Michigan and graduated with a B.S. in 1899. Burnham moved to New York after receiving his degree and studied at Cornell University from 1904-1905, where he focused on mycology.
Burnham worked at several New York institutions during his career, including the New York Botanical Gardens (circa 1901-1903), Cornell University (1904-1905), and the New York State Museum (circa 1905-1913). He later returned to Cornell, where he worked first as an Assistant in Botany (1920-1922) and later as the Assistant Curator of the Cornell University Herbarium (circa 1922-1943).
In addition, Burnham developed a personal herbarium of approximately 75,000 specimens that he later gifted to Cornell. In addition, he was involved with several societies—including the New York State Historical Association and the American Fern Society—and published a number of works, including one that he and botanist Roy A. Latham co-authored: The Flora of the Town of Southold, Long Island, and Gardiner's Island.
Stewart Henry Burnham retired in 1943 and passed away that same year in New York.
