Emma G. Cummings

Emma Gertrude Cummings (December 2, 1856[1] – October 12, 1940[2]) was an American horticulturalist and ornithologist.[3]

Early life and education

Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lived mainly in the town of Brookline.[3] She was educated at Boston Art School.[4]

Career
"A street in Nassau" from her 1898 trip to the Bahamas

Cummings was an active participant in Brookline civic life. In 1897 she contributed a chapter on botany to the town's publication Brookline: The History of a Favored Town.[4] The following April she published an account of the people and flora of the Bahamas, "A Spring Visit to Nassau" in Popular Science Monthly.[5]

Cummings was the first woman to hold a town office in Brookline, when she was elected a member of the town's tree planting committee.[6] Cummings was elected an Associate of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1903.[7] Also in 1903, she gave a lecture to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society about trees in the Southern United States.[8] In 1904 her ornithological pocket guide Baby Pathfinder to the Birds, co-authored with Harriet E. Richards, was described in The Auk as "a convenient and helpful vade mecum",[9] praised in the Journal of Education as a valuable guide that "no beginner or would-be beginner should be without",[10] and cited by the Boston Herald as evidence of Cummings' exemplary status as a "twentieth century woman."[11] She was a member of the tree planting committee from 1902 to 1939, and in 1938 published a book on the committee's history and notable trees of the town.[3][12] Her book Brookline's Trees was praised by The Boston Globe,[13] and the Boston Herald noted that it was "much used by teachers and in schools."[11] Cummings was also a member of the Brookline Historical Society and gave talks to the membership on her travels, such as to Hawaii in 1923, and she was on the science sub-committee of the Brookline Education Society.[14][15]

Personal life

Cummings lived with her sister Mabel Cummings, and died in October 1940 in Westfield, Massachusetts.[3][16]

Selected works
picture from "Baby bird-finder by Harriet E. Richards and Emma G. Cummings
  • Brookline's Trees: A History of the Committee for Planting Trees of Brookline, Massachusetts and a Record of Some of Its Trees, 1938[17]
  • Baby Pathfinder to the Birds (with Harriet E. Richards), 1904[18]
  • Trees in Brookline, Massachusetts: Map and Index (with Frances Prince), 1900[19]

References
  1. Mooar, George (1903). The Cummings memorial, a genealogical history of the descendants of Isaac Cummings. New York: B. F. Cummings. p. 470.
  2. Palmer, T. S.; Palmer, Ralph S.; Rapp, William F.; Schorger, A. W. (April 1943). "Obituaries". The Auk. 60 (2): 312–318. doi:10.2307/4079693. JSTOR 4079693.
  3. "New England Naturalists: A Bio-Bibliography". Harvard Library. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
  4. Bolton, Charles Knowles (1897). Brookline: The History of a Favored Town. C.A.W. Spencer. p. 169.
  5. A Spring Visit to Nassau, Cummings, 1898
  6. "Miss Emma G. Cummings, who was". The Buffalo Review. 5 July 1901. Retrieved 2018-09-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. Hicks, Lawrence E.; Boulton, Rudyerd (1942). "The Fifty-Ninth Stated Meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union". The Auk. 59 (1): 143–156. doi:10.2307/4079201. JSTOR 4079201.
  8. "Interesting Southern Tree". The Nebraska State Journal. 1 March 1903. Retrieved 2018-09-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. J.A.A. (1904). "The 'Baby Pathfinder to the Birds'". The Auk. 21 (3): 395. doi:10.2307/4070217. JSTOR 4070217.
  10. Richards, Harriet E.; Cummings, Emma G. (1904). "Baby Pathfinder to the Birds". Journal of Education. 60 (4): 79. doi:10.1177/002205740406000435. JSTOR 44062273. S2CID 220785805.
  11. "The Chatterer". Boston Herald. May 18, 1904. p. 6.
  12. Brigham, Dave (2 May 2017). "The Backside of America: Who Was Emma Cummings?". The Backside of America. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  13. "Twigs From Chateau Thierry Now Trees in Brookline". The Boston Globe. 21 December 1938. Retrieved 2018-09-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Brookline Historical Sociery". Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  15. Year Book of the Brookline Education Society: Constitution, Officers and Members, with a Record of Meetings and Reports of Committees. Brookline Education Society. p. 5.
  16. The Smith Alumnae Quarterly. 32–34: 113. 1940. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. "Brookline's Trees: A History of the Committee for Planting Trees of Brookline, Massachusetts and a Record of Some of Its Trees. by Emma G. Cummings: The Brookline Historical Society and the Committee for Planting Trees, Brookline, MA Hard Cover, First Edition. - art longwood books". www.abebooks.co.uk. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  18. Barrow, Mark (2000). A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology After Audubon. Princeton University Press. p. 286.
  19. "Cultural Landscape Report for John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site" (PDF). Retrieved 16 September 2018.
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