Charles Robertson Scientific Correspondence Data

Charles Robertson (1858-1935), a biologist and entomologist from Carlinville, Illinois, is best known for his decades-long study of plant and insect relationships that began in 1884 and culminated with the publication of Flowers and Insects in 1928. His project represents one of the most detailed long-term studies of insect-plant interactions ever conducted in a single locality. To determine the species of the thousands of insects he collected, Robertson exchanged letters and specimens with entomologists throughout the United States and Canada. Records from this correspondence, along with many of Robertson's other papers and specimen logs, are preserved in the University of Illinois Archives and are freely available online. This dataset provides a detailed description of each item of correspondence in that collection, including sent date, correspondent name, content summary, insect specimens referenced, and entomologists mentioned. Page numbers for each item of correspondence are provided along with indexes by correspondent name and specimen number to facilitate navigation of the archival collection. A complete bibliography of Robertson's published works is also included, as well as tables and figures from the associated article and the commented R code used for analysis.