Hybrid Event: 'What a nuisance sex is!': Women Plant Collectors in the 19th Century
Women botanists and plant collectors roamed North America looking for plant specimens to share, to sell, and to display in the late 19th听century.听As we learn their stories, we鈥檒l explore why botany was a scientific pursuit that, while vastly popular with both sexes, was seen as a study听辫补谤迟颈肠耻濒补谤濒测听suited to women, and we鈥檒l look at the ways that women used their botanical knowledge as a way to secure employment for themselves out in the frontier. Finally, we鈥檒l see how women used their botanical savvy to expand their social and intellectual networks beyond their limited domestic spaces, especially by writing to professional botanists (usually on the East Coast) and engaging them in years-long discussions about plant science.
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About the speaker
Tina听Gianquitto is an associate professor of environmental humanities at the Colorado School of Mines. She has published a book on women, nature and science,听鈥楪ood Observers of Nature鈥�: American Women and the Scientific Study of the Natural World, 1820-1885听(2007), a co-edited collection听America鈥檚 Darwin: Darwinian Evolution and U.S. Literary Culture听(with Lydia Fisher; 2014), as well as articles on Darwinian botany, evolutionary science and women鈥檚 social reform, and women鈥檚 participation in botanical correspondence networks. She has been awarded fellowships听from听the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program. Current projects include a public plant story site:听Herbaria 3.0: What is your plant story?听() and听a book that examines Darwin鈥檚 plant studies and evolutionary theory in the late 19th-century U.S.
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