Arnold Krochmal Papers 1939-1978

Arnold Krochmal was born January 30, 1919, in New York to Morris and Leah Krochmal. He earned a B.S. in Pomology from North Carolina State College in 1942. He then earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University.

Krochmal served as an instructor in horticulture at the New Mexico Agriculture Experiment Station from 1947 to 1949, was a Fulbright professor in Greece, and worked as the chief research advisor of the Wyoming Team, in Kabul, Afghanistan from 1957 to 1959. He was the head of the department of horticulture, Escuela Agricola Panamericana, El Zamorano, Honduras, and worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a research botanist in the Virgin Islands. He was the summer visiting professor at Wisconsin State University in 1966, and the fall visiting professor at Berea College in 1967.

In 1970 he married Connie Brite, a writer from Appalachian Kentucky. The Krochmals shared a deep concern that science and research should do more than serve as a source of esoteric subject matter for rarely read scholarly publications. Dr. Krochmal said of himself and his wife, "We work as a team." Together, through collaborative writing and teaching, they mastered the skill of communicating to a broad audience.

Arnold Krochmal was the principal economic botanist at the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station in Asheville, North Carolina, from 1971 to 1982. Krochmal also served as an adjunct professor of botany at North Carolina State University. Krochmal was a guest lecturer at the Academy of the U.S.S.R., Main Botanical Garden, and served as the chairperson of the Structure of Tropical Rain Forests Working Party, for the International Union of Forest Research Organizations. Additionally he was an adjunct professor at Atlanta University.

Arnold Krochmal published many books, among which are Guide to Medicinal Plants (written with his wife), Tropical Horticulture, and Horticultura Practica. He and his wife donated a sizable collection of books to the D. H. Hill Library for the commemoration and study of Russian and Soviet Jews. Arnold Krochmal died September 2, 1993, in Asheville, North Carolina.

*ADDITIONAL WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:

• Horticultura Practica, Panamerican Agricultural School, 1960. (With Russ Walters and Richard Doughty)
• Guide to Medicinal Plants of Appalachia, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1971.
• Uncultivated Nuts of the United States, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1983. Editor, Caribbean Agriculture and Science and Ceiba.

With wife, Connie Krochmal:

• Guide to Medicinal Plants of the United States, Quadrangle, 1973, revised as A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, Times Books, 1984
• The Complete Illustrated Book of Dyes from Natural Sources, Doubleday, 1974.
• Indoor Gardening: Green Thumb Guide, Drake, 1974.
• Making It: The Encyclopedia of How to Do It for Less, Drake, 1975.
• Caribbean Cooking, Quadrangle, 1975.
• A Naturalist's Guide to Cooking with Wild Plants, Quadrangle, 1975.

The papers of Arnold Krochmal document Krochmal's lengthy and prolific career as an author, botanist, and expert in the field of medicinal plants. The collection contains a lab book and working manuscripts with page proofs for Krochmal's books on botany. Additionally there are detailed notes on medicinal plants, material related specifically to gardening in the Carolinas, and photographs of Dr. Krochmal and his wife Connie Krochmal.

This collection contains four series; Writings, Notes, Photographs, and Newsletters. One unprocessed halfbox was added in August 2014.

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[Identification of item], Arnold Krochmal Papers, MC 00064, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC

Gift of Arnold Krochmal, 1972-1986, and the National College of Natural Medicine, 2008 (Accession no. 2008-0076) and a transfer, accession 2014.0182.

Michael Watts, March 2005

Michael Watts, March 2005

Finding aid updated by Todd Kosmerick, 2008 May