Robert Hagelstein records

Robert Hagelstein was born May 16, 1870 in Brooklyn, New York. He was Honorary Curator of Myxomycetes at the New York Botanical Garden from 1930 until his death in 1945. He accompanied Nathaniel Lord Britton on the Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico in 1926, 1928 and 1929. His Diatomaceae of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands was published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 1939.

Hagelstein's first interest was microscopy, which he at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. After graduating from high school in Brooklyn, Hagelstein joined J. and D. Lehman Co., a glove manufacturer located at 15 Union Square West in New York City. He retired as manager in 1925 and dedicated himself full-time to his scientific studies.

His attention was captured by the Myxomycetes, then known as Mycetozoa. At first he studied them concurrently with the diatoms. His first publication on Mycetozoa appeared in 1927. Eventually they became his primary interest. He made collecting trips from Canada to Florida, concentrating primarily on Long Island and Pennsylvania. His constant collecting partner was Joseph H. Rispaud. In 1931 he collected in the West Indies.

Hagelstein served as President of the New York Microscopical Society during 1923 and 1924. At the time Hagelstein was engaged in the study and photomicrography of diatoms. Nathaniel Lord Britton, a member of the Society, invited Hagelstein to participate in the Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Throughout his career he continued to do his own photomicrography. The photographs in his monograph The Mycetozoa of North America, based on the specimens in the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden are examples of his mastery of microphotography

Concurrent with his service as Honorary Curator of Myxomycetes, Hagelstein was, unofficially the curator of microscopic devices. He was also, unofficially, the curator of the microscopic devices in the NYBG collection. In 1936 the New York State Museum invited him to survey, verify and make determinations for its myxomycete collections including materials collected by Charles H. Peck.

When he began his curatorship, the New York Botanical Garden's myxomycete collection consisted of 2000 specimens collected by J. B. Ellis. Hagelstein oversaw the purchase of the W. C. Sturgis collection of 3200 specimens. By 1943 the collection had grown to 13, 207 specimens. Of those, Hagelstein collected 4,970 and 2,700 were gained through exchange of materials he had personally collected. Of the 319 accepted world species at the time, 304 could be found in the New York Botanical Garden herbarium. Hagelstein kept detailed records of the collection including microscopical study of sporangia and spores.

It was upon this collection that he drew in the writing of The Mycetozoa of North America… A reviewer at the time called it "a momentous revelation of painstaking study…" and said, "The air has been cleared of confusion in the validity of many species by the author's scrupulous examination and comparison of countless specimens in the world's largest collection of Myxomycetes."

In 1940, he lent his collection of 15,000 slides of Diatoms, which included the collections of D. B. Ward and W. A. Poysner and others that he had purchased over the years to the NYBG. On January 11, 1941 a room in the Cryptogamic Herbarium was dedicated to Hagelstein's two interests-Diatoms and Myxomycetes.

Throughout his career, Hagelstein enthusiastically shared his interests with amateurs. He is remembered for the entertaining and informative field trips he led for members of the NYBG.

He died on Oct. 20, 1945 in Mineola, L.I., N.Y., survived by his wife Marsha and a sister Charlotte Hagelstein of Brooklyn, N.Y.