By Evie McAllister
The University Archives at Illinois houses a collection of approximately 150 life-sized paintings of fruit. Created between 1903 and 1907, these paintings depict over 100 different varieties of apples and plums from multiple separate projects. One of these projects was a seven-month-long UIUC study on the effects of refrigeration on the longevity of fruit (Farm Home, 1904). In this study, the artist of the Agronomy Department at UIUC, Flora M. Sims appears to have painted a portrait of each fruit monitored by the scientists; in figures 1 and 2 below, the first depicts one of the study’s apples stored at 31° for 247 days, and the second depicts one stored at 35° for 231 days. The results demonstrated to local farming communities that refrigeration between 31° and 37° preserves fruit remarkably well.
This scientific study of fruit preservation occurred during the final decade of the second American Industrial Revolution, a time throughout which scientists were incentivized to develop technology that would improve industrial production. In July of 1902, Willis Carrier invented the “first modern cooling unit” (US Dept. of Energy, 2015). With this invention, departments across the U of I became increasingly involved in studies concerning cold storage preservation of produce. In December of 1902, the Horticulture Convention at UIUC featured a lecture titled “Results from Cool and Cold Storage Experiments” (Daily Illini, 1902). Farmers recognized that advancements in preservation technology would increase the shelf life of their produce and therefore extend its marketability far beyond harvesting season. With this in mind, many students joined in studies exploring aspects of refrigeration; research included finding the optimum conditions of cold storage, determining the efficacy of insulation materials, and similarly related topics (Daily Illini, 1904).
Artist, Scientist & Social Reformer: Flora E. Morris Sims
Flora E. Morris Sims was born on the 9th of March 1868, in Oakland, IL, to Reverend Nathan S. Morris and his wife, Matilda A. Morris (nee Patton). As a child, Flora attended Urbana High School where she pursued geometry, advanced English literature, history, composition and rhetoric, free hand drawing, zoology, botany, physiology, physics, and three years of Latin.
On the 16th of July 1889, Flora E. Morris changed her last name to Sims upon marrying Charles Blackburn Sims (Find a Grave, 2018). The couple had a son, Charles Blackburn Sims Jr., on April 26, 1892. This marriage was brief, however, and the couple divorced before Charles went on to marry Claire Sims Sims in 1898. Throughout the rest of her life, Flora retained her ex-husband’s last name.
During the summer of 1897, when Flora was 28 years old, she enrolled for the upcoming Fall Term at UIUC. Her student records indicate that between 1897 and 1899, she primarily studied Art and Design under the college of Liberal Arts and Science. To diversify her coursework, she participated in two courses in the Animal Husbandry Department during the Fall of 1899. Although her official student records list her as having left UIUC in 1900, she is listed in multiple sources as a member of the class of 1901. It is possible that she completed her course work in the fall term of 1900 but participated in the following spring convocation.
In the Alumni Record files at the University Archive at UIUC, a couple of newspaper clippings that describe Flora’s time at the university were found. A clipping from May of 1900 describes her as having spent the “past year” “studying stock judging at the University of Illinois.” In an article from September 8, 1948, the day after her passing, a colleague shared that Flora “studied art on the campus for three years” and “specialized in the painting of horses, in which she won recognition of art critics” (News Gazette, 1948). During her time as a student, she assisted professors Davenport and Holden by creating large agricultural illustrations for their projects. A 1900 article from The Illini reports that for these two professors, Flora made one 6’x8’ illustration of corn cultures and one 4’x6’ illustration of a “horse in motion” (The Illini, 1900).
From 1891 to 1898, Flora worked at UIUC as an Art and Design instructor (University of Illinois, 1897). After this period, in 1902 she became the official artist of the university’s Agronomy Department, retaining this title until 1914. For this department, she created soil survey maps that were the first of their kind in Illinois. She also created “Animal Charts” for the Dominion Department of Agriculture at Ottawa and for the Provincial Department of Agriculture at Halifax (The Illini, 1900). Throughout her career, she was often invited to give lectures and “chalk talks” across the Midwest by the Literary and Scientific circle of the Chautauqua and Lyceum Bureau (News Gazette, 1948; Urbana Daily Courier, 1910).
Outside of work, Flora kept herself busy with many projects related to the civil rights movement and her church. She dedicated much of her time to her church, the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Urbana, and was highly involved in their chapter of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society. She often filled positions on the chapter’s executive board and directed the group in playlets. Flora also frequently filled the role of Sunday school teacher. Later in life she became an honorary trustee of the church. Aside from churchwork, Flora served a term as the State Chairman of the Illinois Federation of Women’s Clubs and volunteered as a member of Cunningham Children’s home board.
On September 7, 1948, after an 11-month long battle with illness, Flora passed away at 80 years old. She was survived by her sister and son and interred in Mount Hope Cemetery.
Flora E. Morris Sims is remembered through her contributions to the Agronomy Department and her late-life efforts assisting Urbana’s Half Century Club as their secretary, during which she researched the history of Urbana and published a club brochure in 1947. Her work for the university is best recorded through the many newspaper articles from the Courier and Daily Illini that admire her work and through a series of paintings housed at the University Archives of UIUC. Series 8/12/16, “Fruit Paintings, 1903-1907,” contains life-sized paintings of plums, cherries, and apples that she illustrated alongside an unnamed individual, who signed their art only as “CNB.” It appears the paintings depict fruits at various stages of decay and were part of an agricultural study regarding the longevity of fruit.
Although a Courier article from September 8, 1948, found in the University Archive’s holdings cites her as an artist best known for her paintings of animals and sculptures, none of these artifacts are housed at the University Archives. If any of these pieces still survive, their locations are unknown.
The Unidentified Artist
While the vast majority of these works were painted by Flora Morris Sims, approximately 5% of them were painted by an unidentified artist who only signed their work with what appears to say “CNB,” as depicted in this close-up scan of an illustrated Charles Downing plum (fig. 4). Furthermore, while it appears that Flora labeled the back of each piece in pencil, marked with her signature S’s and D’s, approximately 20% of all the paintings are unsigned. This leaves an estimated 25% of the collection attributed to anonymous artists.
Works Cited:
Daily Illini. (1902, Dec. 16). “Fourth Annual Convention. That of Illinois State Horticulture Society.” Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections. https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=DIL19021216.2.7&srpos=2&e=——190-en-20-DIL-1–txt-txIN-cold+storage+experiment—-1902—–
Daily Illini. (1904, Feb. 1). “Engineering Experiments. Some of the problems which are being studied.” Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections. https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=DIL19040201.2.14&srpos=1&e=——190-en-20-DIL-1–txt-txIN-cold+storage+experiment—-1904—–
Farm Home. (1904, June 1). “Cold Storage for Farmers.” Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections. https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=FFH19040601.1.3&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN———-
Gardens of Memory841. (2018, Nov. 21). “Charles Blackburn Sims.” Find A Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/194877342/charles_blackburn-sims
The Illini. (1900, May 23). “Flora M. Sims, Animal Artist.” Daily Illini. https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=DIL19000523.2.7&e=——190-en-20-DIL-1–txt-txIN-flora+sims———
The Illini. (1899, Nov. 15). “Discussions by Representatives of Various Institutions.” Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections. https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=DIL18991115.2.4&srpos=2&e=——189-en-20-DIL-1–txt-txIN-flora+sims———
News Gazette. (1948, Sept. 8). “Mrs. Sims, Artist Half Century Club Leader, Dies.” Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections.
University of Illinois. (1897). Course Catalog – 1897-1898. UIHistories Project. https://uihistories.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/rview_browsepdf?REPOSID=8&ID=8054&pagenum=291
Urbana Daily Courier. (1910, May 11). “An Urgent Meeting”. Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections.
US Department of Energy. (2015, July 20). “History of Air Conditioning.” Energy. https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-air-conditioning