Jump to content

Clara H. Hasse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clara Henriette Hasse
Born1880
Died10 October 1926
Muskegon, Michigan
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Known forIdentified the cause of citrus canker
Scientific career
FieldsBotanist focused on plant pathology
InstitutionsBureau of Plant Industry, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Florida Agricultural Experiment Station
Author abbrev. (botany)C.H.Hasse

Clara Henriette Hasse (1880 – 10 October 1926) was an American botanist whose research focused on plant pathology. She is known for identifying the cause of citrus canker, which was threatening crops in the Deep South.

Biography

[edit]

Hasse attended the University of Michigan. While at U of M, she was appointed an assistant in botany in 1902.[1] Hasse was a founding member of the Women's Research Club at U of M as women were not allowed in the Research Club at the time.[2] After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1903 with a PhB,[3][4] she went to Washington, D.C., to take up an appointment as assistant horticulturist and botanist in the Bureau of Plant Industry at the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Erwin Frink Smith, the USDA's pathologist-in-charge.[3] Hasse was one of the twenty assistants that Smith hired during his tenure at the USDA. She later worked at the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station.[5] Hasse died at her home in Muskegon, Michigan, aged 46.[6]

Research

[edit]

Her paper "Pseudomonas citri, the cause of Citrus canker", published in the Journal of Agricultural Research in 1915, was the first to identify the cause of citrus canker. While originally it was believed that citrus canker was of fungoid origin, Hasse found that bacteria are at its source.[7] Hasse isolated the bacteria, now known as Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri[8][9]. Her work was included in Department of Agriculture bulletins to index the diseases of economic plants.[10]

Thomas Swann Harding credits this research with resulting "in control methods which prevented this disease from wiping out the citrus crop in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas."[11]

Partial bibliography

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ University of Michigan. Board of Regents. "Proceedings of the Board of Regents (1901-1906)".
  2. ^ Michigan, University of (2000). The University of Michigan, an encyclopedic survey ... Wilfred B. Shaw, editor.
  3. ^ a b Rossiter, Margaret W. (September 1980). ""Women's Work" in Science, 1880-1910". Isis. 71 (3). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society: 381–398. doi:10.1086/352540. JSTOR 230118. S2CID 143706974.
  4. ^ Michigan, University of (1900-01-01). Calendar of the University of Michigan for ... The University.
  5. ^ "Clara H. Hasse (1880?-1926)". Collection Record. Smithsonian Institution Archives. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
  6. ^ The Michigan Alumnus (1926), Volume 33, p. 284
  7. ^ PSEUDOMONAS CITRI, THE CAUSE OF CITRUS CANKER (archive.org book reader)PSEUDOMONAS CITRI, THE CAUSE OF CITRUS CANKER (archive.org text version), Clara Hasse, Journal of Agricultural Research, 2015-10, Volume 4, p. 97.
  8. ^ Jordan, Edwin Oakes (1918). A text-book of general bacteriology. Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders company. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.68463.
  9. ^ "Citrus canker". Citrus canker. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  10. ^ Killough, Hugh Baxter (1926). "Department Bulletin No. 1366". United States Department of Agriculture.
  11. ^ Thomas Swann Harding (1947). Two Blades Of Grass. Norman University Of Oklahoma Press. p. 324.
  12. ^ International Plant Names Index.  C.H.Hasse.
[edit]