{"id":4147,"date":"2016-03-07T15:27:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T23:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/?p=4147"},"modified":"2025-09-13T14:46:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T14:46:53","slug":"tiffany-lois-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/2016\/03\/tiffany-lois-h\/","title":{"rendered":"Lois H. Tiffany, More than a “Mushroom Lady”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lois Hattery Tiffany, March 8, 1924\u2013September 6, 2009<\/strong>
\nThis post is part of a series for Women\u2019s History Month, March 2016. See all related posts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the later years of her long and celebrated career at Iowa State University, popular field classes (mushroom walks and prairie wildflower trips) gave Dr. Lois Tiffany the title \u201cMushroom Lady,\u201d by which she is still remembered. Despite specializing in mycology, Dr. Tiffany was an accomplished botanist and field ecologist whose contributions as a teacher as well as a researcher are diverse and abundant.<\/p>\n

Dr. Tiffany is also featured this month on the Special Collections blog<\/a> at the Iowa State University Library.<\/p>\n

She was especially interested in fungi in prairies and changes in prairie systems, including those resulting from burning, and susceptibility of different ecotypes of big bluestem to particular plant pathogens. The long-term work she, Knaphus [a colleague] and her students did on prairie fungi is unique among prairie ecological and fungal biosurveys. \u00a0\u00a0\u2014RA Healy et al., obituary in Mycologia<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Education<\/strong>
\n1945 B.S., Botany, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
\n1947 M.S., Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
\n1950 Ph.D., Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (Dr. Joseph C. Gilman, adviser)<\/p>\n

I did not realize until much later how very fortunate I was to have the opportunity to learn and grow under the demanding guidance of Dr. Gilman. Although he was very much a gentleman of the old school, he considered a good mind to be a talent that should not be wasted.
\n\u2014Dr. L H Tiffany, 1985<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Career highlights<\/strong>
\nDr. Tiffany faced challenges early in her career. Healy et. al (2010) report that \u201cWhen she was first hired as faculty, the chairman of the department suggested that she work for no pay because her husband had a job. She declined\u2026\u201d (Healy et al., 2010) She started as an instructor\u2014with pay\u2014in 1950, coincidentally the same year as Iowa State\u2019s herbarium curator Dr. Ada Hayden<\/a> died. She was promoted to full professor in 1965.<\/p>\n

\"Lois<\/a>

Lois Hattery Tiffany (1924-2009) Iowa\u2019s Mushroom Lady sparked interest in nature and the outdoors. Courtesy Jean Tiffany Day.<\/p><\/div>\n

As faculty advisors to the Botany Club, Dr. Tiffany and Dr. George Knaphus led annual camping and botanizing trips to faraway national parks and other botanically interesting locations. She took on a field botany course for non-majors that became immensely popular, teaching skills like winter twig and wildflower identification\u2014in addition to a full teaching load and her own research. She chaired the Botany Department for six years, and served on 27 committees or advisory boards at the university. In 1977-78, she served as president of the Iowa Academy of Science; she and her students often contributed to its journals.<\/p>\n

Dr. Tiffany reviewed the role of women in the Iowa Academy<\/a> in 1975, commenting that \u201cWomen have been active contributors to the Iowa Academy of Science from its earliest days.\u201d However, she noted that \u201cThe women who were long-term regular contributors to the Academy or active in its programs are few.\u201d She herself had \u201cpossibly been the most active woman member of the Academy in its history,\u201d the editors added in a footnote.<\/p>\n

In 1985, she described some of her experiences and compared three generations of women in science, including Dr. Ada Hayden<\/a>, in a speech to the American Association of University Women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are times when I know that opportunities have not developed that potentially could have\u2014and I ponder why. At such times I think of Dr. Hayden and consider how much more diverse and potentially richer my life has been. I have had the experience with the good times and the bad, of having my own family. Dr. Hayden<\/a>, and most other professional women of her era, did not have such an opportunity. I have had the friendship and challenging working relationships as equal contributors with a number of fine scientists, almost all of them men. \u00a0\u00a0 \u2014Dr. L H Tiffany, 1985<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Upon retirement from Iowa State in 2002, Dr. Tiffany continued to maintain a lab and teach classes until 2005, after which she continued to share her enthusiasm for nature, and especially fungi, through informal field trips.<\/p>\n

Selected awards<\/strong><\/p>\n