The Smithsonian Institution named Mary Agnes Chase an Honorary Fellow, honoring her decades of work on its grass collections.
On 21 April 1959, Mary Agnes Chase was named an Honorary Fellow of the Smithsonian Institution, recognizing her decades-long collaboration with the U.S. National Herbarium and her leadership in grass taxonomy.[7][12] Although she had formally retired from the USDA in 1936, she continued to work at the Smithsonian as an honorary curator of grasses, maintaining and expanding its globally significant collections.[3][12]
The honorary fellowship acknowledged her central role in building the Smithsonian’s grass herbarium into a premier reference for researchers worldwide. Chase had annotated and organized tens of thousands of specimens, produced keys and catalogues, and advised visiting scientists from the Americas and beyond.[8][12] Her expertise helped standardize nomenclature and ensured that the collections remained scientifically useful across generations.
As one of the few women to receive such recognition from a major national museum at mid-century, Chase’s appointment carried substantial symbolic importance.[2][7] It affirmed that a woman without formal degrees could nonetheless be considered a senior authority within one of the United States’ leading scientific institutions. The 21 April 1959 honor thus marks both the culmination of her institutional service and a milestone in the slow inclusion of women scientists in the high ranks of museum and herbarium leadership.