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"If One Could Only Go on with Original Work": Women, Science, and Nature * |
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| FEATURED SOURCES | EXPLORE FURTHER |
From J. L. Hammett Co., Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of School Furniture, Black Boards, &c., [1872?]. |
This trade catalog "Bryant's Celestial Indicator" "Heliotellus" "Lunatellus" "Long's Patent Tellurian" "Movable Planisphere" "Holbrook's Orrery" "Microscopes and Objects" "Philosophical Apparatus" Catalogue of School Furniture [1872?] Catalog record Memoir and biography "I knew most of the birds"  "I made a collection of shells" Personal Recollections from Early Life (1874) "Maria learned the use of the sextant" Maria Mitchell (1896) Texts "Geography is connected with astronomy" "No science more calculated to exalt the soul" The Fireside Friend, or, Female Student (1840) "Nature" The New England Offering (Feb. 1850) "Natural Philosophy is too wide a field" A Golden Legacy to Daughters (1857) ^ TOP |
The sources above and below help to document a time when serious study of the natural sciences could be undertaken at home--when, even in schools and colleges, it included large amounts of time spent outdoors collecting specimens and making concrete observations, and was understood to be inseparable from appreciating the beauty of nature and the power of God. Concern for young women's physical health and religious and aesthetic training, and descriptions of their affinity for details and record-keeping, helped justify their sometimes extensive participation in botany and astronomy. For these arguments, and for more sources describing women's opportunities and experiences in the natural sciences at this time, click the links in the right-hand column above and below.
 "Analysis of stellar spectra," 1891, Harvard College Observatory. From the Harvard University Archives. |
This photograph Zoomable version Catalog record More photographs "Observatory women computers" (1891) Harvard College Observatory, Harvard University Archives Texts "Women's Work at the Harvard Observatory" The National Exposition Souvenir (1893) All Scientists Illustrations "Interior of Botanical Laboratory" Higher Education in Indiana (1891) Frontispiece Our Famous Women (1884) ^ TOP |
Women hired to attend to the details of scientific work in turn-of-the-century observatories and laboratories sometimes found time for their own original research. These sources (above and below; click the links in the right-hand column for more examples) describe their work and workspaces and the frustrations and excitement they experienced.
 "The Nature-Study Club--Early Wild Flowers" from Woman's Home Companion (March 1903).  From "The Flower School at Corlear's Hook" in Curious Schools (1881). |
This illustration "The Nature-Study Club" (1903) Woman's Home Companion Catalog record This text "The Flower School" Curious Schools (1881) Catalog record More illustrations "A Botany Lesson" Curious Schools (1881) "Work, Play, and Nature Study at Hillcrest Farm" Annual Report of the New York Probation and Protective Association (1920) More texts "We studied botany under the trees" Happy School Days (1912) "Introduction to Nature Study" "Flower Finder" Scouting for Girls (1920) "Teachers' Leaflets on Nature Study" "What Is Nature Study?" Reports of the Industrial Commission on Immigration (1901) "She is to study Nature" The Education of Women (1923) ^ TOP |
As distance grew between science and religion and between theory and direct experience, and as fields like botany and astronomy were increasingly rationalized and professionalized, the old arguments for women's participation created fewer opportunities for them. While some still managed to pursue the natural sciences, many instead chose the nature-study movement, which enlisted large numbers of early twentieth-century women and girls as teachers and students.
But "nature study is not the study of a science, as of botany, entomology, geology, and the like. ... It is wholly informal and unsystematic.... It is entirely divorced from definitions or from explanations in books. ... It simply trains the eye and the mind to see and to comprehend the common things of life; and the result is not directly the acquirement of science, but the establishing of a living sympathy with everything that is" ("What Is Nature Study?" 1901).
For more sources related to nature study and a few that contrast with it, click the links in the right hand column above and below.
 From How Girls Can Help Their Country (1917) by Juliette Gordon Low. |
This book Star chart "Star Gazer" "How to Find the Time by the Stars" How Girls Can Help Their Country (1917) Catalog record All Girl Scouts Texts "Machines That Feel and See" (1903) Woman's Home Companion "Science" Women Workers at the Bryn Mawr Summer School [1929] Illustrations "A Science Class" Women Workers at the Bryn Mawr Summer School [1929] ^ TOP |
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Selected Bibliography for "If One Could Only Go on with Original Work": Women, Science, and Nature * Creese, Mary R. S. Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1998. See chapter 10, "Observers, 'Computers,' Interpreters, and Popularizers: Women in Astronomy." The first section of that chapter, "American Women," includes profiles of Maria Mitchell (pp. 225-226), Williamina Fleming (pp. 231-232), and some of Fleming's colleagues. "The important stellar catalogs produced by the three early Harvard women astronomers Fleming, Maury, and Winlock undoubtedly constitute the major contributions by women to turn-of-the-century astronomical research in the United States. Rossiter, Margaret W. Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. See especially chapter 1, "Women's Colleges: The Entering Wedge," and chapter 3, "'Women's Work' in Science." Tolley, Kimberley. The Science Education of American Girls: A Historical Perspective. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. See chapter 2, "Science for Ladies, Classics for Gentlemen," chapter 3, "'What Will Be the Use of This Study?,'" chapter 5, "The Rise of Natural History," and chapter 6, "'Study Nature, Not Books.'" Each chapter closes with a helpful and more concise conclusion. ^ TOP Related Learning Standards for "If One Could Only Go on with Original Work": Women, Science, and Nature * Standards: National Center for History in the Schools Standards: California Standards: Massachusetts National Center for History in the Schools National Standards for History Standards in Historical Thinking (Grades 5-12)
United States History Standards (Grades 5-12)
Standard 1: How the rise of corporations, heavy industry, and mechanized farming transformed the American people. Standard 1D: The student understands the effects of rapid industrialization on the environment and the emergence of the first conservation movement.
Standard 3: How the United States changed from the end of World War I to the eve of the Great Depression. Standard 3A: The student understands social tensions and their consequences in the postwar era.
California History-Social Science Academic Content Standards Analysis Skills: Research, Evidence, and Point of View (Grades 6-8)
8.6 Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced, with emphasis on the Northeast.
Analysis Skills: Research, Evidence, and Point of View (Grades 9-12)
11.5 Students analyze the major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s.
Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework Concepts and Skills (Grades 8-12): History and Geography
Social, Political, and Religious Change, 1800-1860
* "If one could only go on and on with original work" is a quote from The Journal of Williamina Paton Fleming, March 5, 1900, p. 9. The journal is housed in the Harvard University Archives. ^ TOP nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women astronomers, nineteenth- and early-twentieth century female astronomers, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women botanists, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century female botanists, history of women in astronomy, history of women in botany, women in physics, female physicists, women in chemistry, female chemists, history of women in science, history of women in the sciences, women scientists, female scientists, women in the nature-study movement, primary sources for teaching history and social studies, primary sources for history and social studies teachers, primary documents for teaching history and social studies, primary documents for history and social studies teachers |