Emma Cole
American botanist, botanical collector and teacher (1845-1910)
Emma Jane Cole (January 23, 1845 – April 25, 1910) was an American teacher, botanist, and curator, and the author of Grand Rapids Flora: A Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns Growing Without Cultivation in the Vicinity of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.
Early life
Emma Jane Cole was born in Ohio on January 23, 1845. During her childhood, her family moved to Vergennes Township, near Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she attended Lowell Union School and Grand Rapids High School.
Her parents were Andrew Cole and Jerusha Cole. She had three siblings, brothers John and Hugh, and sister Mary Cole Altman.
In 1876, Cole enrolled at Cornell University in New York, which had recently begun admitting women. She attended Cornell in 1876–1877 and 1879–1880 and completed coursework in botany, but is not recorded as having received a degree.
Career
Emma Cole worked as a teacher for much of her life. She was one of the first female members of the Kent Scientific Institute (predecessor of the Grand Rapids Public Museum), and served as the vice president and botanical curator.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Emma Cole” is american botanist, botanical collector and teacher (1845-1910). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Emma, Cole and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q67200450. VIAF identifies the subject as 120538070. The Library of Congress control number is no2010059474. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1845, 1910, 2007 and 1876.
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This entry incorporates text from “Emma Cole” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.