Lederle, John William, 1912-

Ray Ethan Torrey. Photo by Frank A. Waugh

Ray Ethan Torrey (1887-1956), an author and Professor of Botany at Massachusetts State College, was born in North Leverett, Massachusetts, in 1887. After earning a BS from Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1912, Torrey taught for several years at Grove City College and Wesleyan College while earning his masters (1916) and doctorate (1918) in Botany from Harvard. In 1919 he returned to the Massachusetts Agricultural College and remained there for the rest of his career, rising to full professor in 1937.

On campus, Torrey was known as a dynamic speaker and excellent teacher. Year after year, he was selected by the senior class as the college's best teacher and his famous Friday evening seminars, where Torrey employed philosophy, religion, literature, art, and music to stimulate thinking, inspired generations of students. Former students of Torrey's became leading figures in botany, filling the faculty ranks at Brown, Harvard, Iowa State, John Hopkins, Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Yale, Antioch and Bennington Colleges, and the Universities of California, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, and Washington. One former student, Oswald Tippo, became a Provost and first Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Torrey's published writings included The Anatomy and Physiology of the Seed Plants (1922), General Botany with an Instructors Manual (1923) and A Set of Botanical Drawings for Laboratory Use (1923), Introductory Botany (Vol. 1, 1925; Vol. 2, 1926), Science and Its Function in Education (1933), The Evolution of Green Plants (1936), and several papers in the field of plant morphology and phylogeny.

In addition to his far-reaching activities as a teacher and writer, Dr. Torrey was an influential member of the Theosophical Society and contributed to the Theosophical Quarterly .

From the guide to the Ray Ethan Torrey Papers FS 121., 1832-1983, 1912-1955, (Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries)