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These are primarily the papers of Mira Lloyd Dock (1853-1945), who was a prominent
figure in promoting forest conservation, founding the Pennsylvania State Forest
School and tirelessly advocating for the beautification of Harrisburg. She was
the first woman appointed to the State Forestry Reservation Commission, serving
from 1901 to 1913. Much of her correspondence relates to the American Forestry
Association, the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry, the Pennsylvania Forestry
Association, the State Forestry Academy at Mt. Alto, the Women's School of Horticulture
at Ambler, the State Federation of Pennsylvania Women, and the General Federation
of Women's Clubs. Major correspondents include Mary Colston, Robert S. Conklin,
A. Boyd Hamilton, Florence Keen, J. Horace McFarland, Warren H. Manning, Frederick
Law Olmsted, Marlin E. Olmsted, Gifford Pinchot, William H. Rau, Joseph T. Rothrock,
and Miss F. R. Wilkinson. Related items include State Forestry Reservation Commission
minutes, 1913; reports and speeches, 1902-13; school notebooks; and professional
and personal diaries, 1869-1918, (32 volumes). There are a large number of photographs,
ca.1880-1940, including images of various Dock family members, Joseph T. Rothrock,
and Pennsylvania Governor William A. Stone; trees and forest reserves throughout
Pennsylvania; and urban scenes including Coudersport, Harrisburg, Johnstown,
and Philadelphia. Also present are views of churches, commercial and public
buildings, and scenes relating her travels.
Also present are extensive materials relating to Mira Dock's grandfather, William
Dock (1793-1868), and father, Gilliard Dock (1827-1895); her uncle George Dock
(1823-187?) who was a physician and professor of medicine at Jefferson Medical
College in Philadelphia; and Mira's younger brother George Dock (1860-1951),
also a physician and teacher of medicine. The papers of Gilliard Dock contain
travel notes covering trips to Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, the Rocky
Mountains, 1845-1894; comments on the depressions of the 1850s, 1870s, and 1890s;
and observations concerning Gilliard's career as a machinist and as a mine superintendent,
1849-1880. The latter papers shed considerable light on Gilliard's experiences
as a partner in the firm of Hickok and Dock, a general machine business operating
in Harrisburg in the early 1850s; as the operator of a machine shop business
at Hopewell from 1856-61; as a private in the Civil War, 1862; and as the superintendent
of coal mines at Lorberry, 1863-66, Lykens, 1866-70, and Shamokin, 1871-73.
Relating to the last of these positions, when Gilliard was an employee of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, there is a letter press book, 1871-72, with copies of
letters directed to W. B. Fowle, general manager of the Shamokin operation.
For related materials see the J. Horace McFarland Papers (Manuscript Group 85).
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