Northrop, Alice Rich, 1864-1922.

Botanist Alice (Rich) Northrop attended New York City public schools and Hunter College and taught briefly in the New York City school system. In 1889, she married John Isiah Northrop, an instructor of botany and zoology at Columbia University. The couple undertook a series of wide-ranging field trips, but in 1891 Dr. Northrop was killed in a laboratory explosion at the Columbia School of Mines. Their only child, John Howard Northrop (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1946), was born shortly after his father's death. By this time an instructor of botany at Hunter, Alice Northrop travelled widely in the American and Canadian west and northwest, and in Central America and the Caribbean, often accompanied by her son. Throughout her adult life she endeavored to make the joys of nature available to people confined to cities, and for this purpose founded the School Nature League in 1917. The Northrop Memorial Nature Camp was eventually established at her property in Mt. Washington, Mass., to continue that work.

Northrop helped write two books: A Naturalist in the Bahamas (1930) and Through Field and Woodland (1925). She also contributed articles to botanical journals and donated plant specimens to several major research institutions. Northrop was killed in a car accident on May 6, 1922.

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