Berry, Edward Wilber

Berry, Edward Wilber (1875–1954) paleobotanist; born in Newark, N.J. When he was fifteen, his formal education ended and he pursued a career as a journalist. He also expanded his childhood interest in botany and geology by reading and making detailed observations. He published scientific articles on the systematic paleobotany of New Jersey fossils, and won a Walker Prize for his book on the diversity and ancestry of the tulip poplar (1901) while working as president, treasurer, and manager of the Passaic, N.J., Daily News (1897–1905). He spent the rest of his career at Johns Hopkins (1907–42), serving as dean (1929–42) and provost (1935–42); during most of those years he also worked as a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the state of Maryland. His specialties included taxonomic paleobotany and the paleobotany of South America. His success despite his lack of an advanced education made him antagonistic toward what he perceived as irrelevance in college curricula; he felt that learning should be a lifetime pursuit, and should not end with the obtaining of a degree.