Benjamin Smith Barton
Benjamin Smith Barton (1766–1815) was a Philadelphia physician, botanist, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who tutored Meriwether Lewis in natural history and botanical classification before the expedition. He lent Lewis reference books, including his own "Elements of Botany" (1803), the first American botany textbook, and instructed him in methods for preserving and describing plant specimens. Many of Lewis's detailed botanical descriptions during the expedition reflect Barton's training.
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Cross-Narrator Analyses
AI-assisted scholarly analyses that cite or discuss Benjamin Smith Barton — showing 3 of the most recent matches.
Stolen Elk and Studied Firs: Three Voices at Fort Clatsop
On a damp February day at Fort Clatsop, three expedition journals record the same events with strikingly different priorities — meat hauled…
Two Botanists at Fort Clatsop: Ferns, Licorice, and the Limits of Shared Authorship
On a damp January day at Fort Clatsop, Lewis and Clark file nearly identical reports on hunters and salt — then diverge…
The Sweet Thistle Root: Parallel Botany at Fort Clatsop
On a quiet winter day at Fort Clatsop, Lewis and Clark produced near-identical botanical descriptions of the shan-ne-tahque thistle root. Their parallel…
From Heacock's Writings
1 mirrored articles by Robert Heacock that mention Benjamin Smith Barton.
