{{Short description|American scientist and historian (1909–1989)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}} __NOTOC__ '''William Culp Darrah''' (1909{{spnd}}1989) was an American professor of biology at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He also had an interest in, and published several works on, 19th-century photography.
Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, his was a specialist in paleobotany. Darrah was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well a member of Sigma Xi and the Botanical Society of America.<ref name="obit">{{cite journal | title=William Culp Darrah 1909-1989 | author=Collins, Kathleen | journal=History of Photography | year=1989 | volume=13 | issue=4 | pages=383 | doi=10.1080/03087298.1989.10442498}}</ref>
As an authority on the history of photography, he authored several books about 19th-century photo processes and photographers. As part of his interest in early photography, he assembled a collection of over 60,000 cartes-de-visite, which is now held at Penn State University.
He died in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
==Selected bibliography== ===Biology=== *''Principles of paleobotany'' (1960) *''Textbook of paleobotany'' (1939) *''A critical review of the upper Pennsylvanian floras of eastern United States with notes on the Mazon Creek flora of Illinois'' (1969)
===Photography=== *''Stereo views, a history of stereographs in America and their collection'' (1964) *''A check list of Maine photographers who issued stereographs'' (1967) *''An Album of stereographs : or, Our country victorious and now a happy home : from the collections of William Culp Darrah and Richard Russack'' (1977) *''The world of stereographs'' (1977) *''Cartes de visite in nin[e]teenth century photography'' (1981)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/manuscripts/collections/ms128.dot Papers of William C. Darrah, MS-128] at Gettysburg College *[https://www.libraries.psu.edu/findingaids/1515.htm William C. Darrah collection of cartes-de-visite, 1860-1900 HCLA 1515] at Pennsylvania State University Libraries {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darrah, William Culp}} Category:1909 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Historians of photography Category:Paleobotanists Category:20th-century American botanists Category:Gettysburg College faculty Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Category:People from Reading, Pennsylvania Category:20th-century American historians Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:Historians from Pennsylvania Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century American science writers
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