Charlotte M. King

Charlotte M. King was a long-time member of the Iowa State staff. She became an artist for the Iowa Experiment Station in 1894, providing illustrations for botany and entomology bulletins and teaching classes in botanical drawing. She then became the seed analyst for the Botany Department's Seed Testing Laboratory from 1906 to 1930. During this time she also taught seed analysis and served as assistant botanist for the Experiment Station. She served as Experiment Station research assistant professor and chair of the Botany Department editing committee from 1930 until her death in 1937. Throughout her career, she collaborated closely with Louis Pammel, and was a joint author of his Weed Flora of Iowa and Honey Plants of Iowa.

Although King clearly worked within the state park movement, determining the extent and finding evidence of her participation is difficult. Her work ranges from taking photographs documenting the use of Ledges State Park before it became a state park to serving as a special assistant along with Louis Pammel and Ada Hayden on the Iowa Geological Survey staff. King presented scholarly papers at several Iowa Forestry and Conservation Association meetings, through which many of Iowa’s conservationists sought change through the legislature. Although women would play a greater role later on in the organization’s history, King was one of the first women to make presentations to the association.