“Language of Flowers”, a popular literary trend in the 19th century, presented the world of botany through dictionaries of flowers and associated meanings, floral poetry and prose, offering a sentimental view of natural history.  These charming books with colorful illustrations of flowers and bouquets are at the intersection of botany, horticulture, natural history, art, poetry, and women’s studies.  This Victorian fad saw many editions of works published, with multiple titles by successful authors.  The following provides a glimpse into the work of four women authors of this genre.

Sarah Carter Edgarton Mayo (1819-1848) was an American writer.

Born in Shirley, Massachusetts, she was the tenth of fifteen children, and her mother was her father’s second wife.  The household offered many intellectual opportunities, and Sarah was home-schooled.  Her gift for language launched her writing career, which began when she was 16 years old.  Sarah’s early works were crafted for the Universalist church, her family’s faith.  She wrote poems and short stories for The Universalist and Ladies’ Repository and later served as the associate editor from 1839-1842.

With her deep interest in botany, combined with her love of poetry, she wrote three language of flower genre books. The Flower Vase, The Fables of Flora, and Floral Fortune-Teller.

Floral Fortune-Teller:  A Game for all Seasons is an imaginative book assembled with poems and phrases of well-known English and German writers, each assigned to a particular flower, in alphabetical order, in five parts.  Readers are instructed to assemble a bouquet of five different color flowers, one each of white, blue, purple, yellow, and red. Each part reveals one’s fortune based on the flower.

Sarah married Amory Dwight Mayo in July 1846, and they had one daughter who was born in September 1847. Sarah died nine months later at the young age of 29 years. Following her death, her husband honored her memory by publishing a memoir entitled Selections From the Writings of Mrs. Sarah C. Edgarton Mayo: With a Memoir.  The work contains many of her poems and prose. She had a deep connection and love of natural history, which is felt through her writings.

In Selections… her husband describes her as such:

“Geography and the natural sciences were her favorite studies, and among these she was most interested by astronomy and botany. She also read poetry with great taste and feeling. As she grew up, a love for nature grew with her. She had a passionate fondness for flowers and animals of all kinds, and the earliest verses I have seen of hers were addressed to a favorite dog. She was a part of nature, rather than an admirer of it…” [page 14.]

Other Language of Flower women authors were prolific writers.

Mrs. Anna Christian Burke (Mrs. L. Burke) wrote several books in the genre including The Coloured Language of Flowers (1886), The Illustrated Language of Flowers (1858), and The Miniature Language of Flowers (1865). Each work contains floral poetry, lists of flowers with their meanings, and sketches of flowers, all in a similar style.

Lesser known women authors are Estelle Davenport Adams and Mary Keble Grant.

Estelle Davenport Adams is referenced in the 1904 Edition of Who’s Who, but under her husband’s entry, William Davenport Adams. She is however, listed in Allibone’s Supplement, under her own name and entry.

Mrs. Adams’ language of flower work, The Illustrated Floral Text Book: Being a Birthday Book of Flowers and their Language With Selections from the Poets, was published in 1885. She authored additional works on other subjects including Sea Song and River Rhyme from Chaucer to Tennyson.

Mary Keble Grant’s The Language of Flowers Birthday Book from 1895 is a charming work.  Flip through it to find your birth date and its associated flower, poem and sentiment!

The four women featured here are among many other women and men who wrote language of flower works. The 19^th century fascination with natural history and floriography offered numerous opportunities for writers and compilers to produce titles and editions in this genre.

The Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden is digitizing 62 rare and unique “language of flower” books published in the 19th century as part of a grant from a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded to the Chicago Horticultural Society. Over the three-year project period, the volumes are being conserved and digitized by expert staff at the Northeast Document Conservation Center. The volumes highlighted in this post are the first of those digitized for the project. You can explore these and other titles as they are digitized within the Language of Flowers collection on BHL.

References

American Council of Learned Societies. Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995.  Volume 6, pages 463-464.  Accessed online.

Benbow-Pfalzgraf, Taryn. American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, from Colonial Times to the Present. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000.  Volume 3, p.100-101. Accessed online.

Biography and Genealogy Master Index. Detroit MI: Gale, 2016.  Accessed online.

Kirk, John Foster, and S. Austin Allibone. A Supplement to Allibone’s Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors… Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1892. Volume 1, p. 9, 251. Accessed online.

Low, Sampson. The English Catalogue of Books. Volume 5, 1898.   Accessed online.

Mayo, Sarah C. Edgarton, and A. D. Mayo. Selections from the Writings of Mrs. Sarah C. Edgarton Mayo: With a Memoir, by Her Husband. Boston: A. Tomkins, 1855.

Who’s Who 1904: An Annual Biographical Dictionary. Fifty-Sixth Year of Issue. London: Adam and Charles Black; New York: Macmillan Company, 1904. p. 15-16.  Accessed Online.

During the Victorian era, many gifted women participated in what has been called the “Golden Age of botanical art,” reflecting both a surge in gardening interests across English society, as well advances in book-making technology (Burns, Kramer). Though virtually unknown today, Anne Pratt (1806-1893) was one of the most prolific and popular artists and writers of this time, ultimately producing twenty published works that were loved for their handsome and accurate illustrations, and helping to create interest in flower study in the general public.

Born in 1806 in Strood, Kent, Pratt was the second of three daughters to Robert Pratt, a successful wholesale grocer, and Sara Bundock, who helped instill a love of gardening, plants and flowers in her daughter (Kramer). Due to poor health, Pratt was often confined indoors, where drawing became a favorite pastime (Wikipedia). A friend of the family, Dr. Dodds, introduced her to botany, a subject in which women were encouraged to participate and considered particularly well suited – collecting, illustrating, decoupage, and writing were all acceptable activities during a time when society imposed more restrictions than not (Burns).

Unmarried until the age of sixty, it is likely that Pratt’s only source of income was her botanical writing and illustrations (Burns). Pratt became a household name with Wild Flowers of the Year, issued in 1852-1853; after seeking her permission, she dedicated the book to Queen Victoria, who praised it and requested copies of all of Pratt’s works as a result (Burns). Pratt’s The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Great Britain is credited with generating a lot of interest in the general public in British flora by combining “easily digested science with miscellaneous romantic flower-lore” (Blunt & Stearn). Originally five volumes covering the entire British flora, a sixth supplemental volume The British Grasses, Sedges, Ferns and their Allies the Club Mosses, Pepperworts, and Horsetails was published in 1873. Pratt begins volume one telling her readers that “one of the chief objects is to aid those who have not hitherto studied Botany,” and she briefly compares the Linnaean system of classification with various natural systems currently in vogue (Burns).

Flowering Plants… also employed a new method for mass market book printing called the Baxter method. Patented by George Baxter in 1835, it “combined the two processes of intaglio and relief” and a “relatively cheap color printing process for the mass market” (Burns). Acknowledged as a landmark book in many ways with far reaching influence: “…this work had a remarkably long life as a standard reference work: the illustrations of ferns in the final volume continued to be used into the second half of the twentieth century” (Wikipedia). There are also numerous references to the use of plants for medicinal purposes as well as folkloric information, e.g. that of Tamarisk (Támarix), “thought to improve the flavour of ale; the spit made of its wood imparted an excellence to the meat roasted upon it; and its use was considered so beneficial to persons afflicted with diseases of the spleen, that physicians ordered patients to eat from dishes made of Tamarisk wood” (Pratt). Tamarisk is also mentioned in classic literature: “Homer mentions it as the tree against which Achilles laid his spear before he rushed into Xanthus to pursue the fleeing Trojans.” (Pratt)

So plunged in Xanthus, by Achilles’ force,
Roars the resounding surge with men and horse;
His bloody lance the hero cast aside,
Which spreading Tamarisks on the margin hide.

Though she is generally lauded for her artistry, Pratt has been criticized for lacking scientific credentials and it’s been debated whether or not she may be considered a true botanist (Kramer). And, in some cases her illustrations have also been criticized; the illustrations for The Flowering Plants, for example: “are pleasantly composed, though owing to the limitations of the newly popular technique of chromolithography, not always very accurate in colour…the drawings which illustrate her book are her own work, though in their published form no doubt owe a good deal to the artists of the firm W. Dickes and co. who redrew them on stones” (Blunt & Stearn).

As was typical for the Victorian era, Pratt downplayed her own work, such as in the opening of Flowers and Their Associations (1840) with the “hopes these pages may not be unacceptable” (Kramer). Though considered a “suitable ladylike pursuit” in the eighteenth century, the field of botany was also changing, “Botany, like other natural history avocations, was in the process of professionalization and was dominated by men” (Lindsay).

Ultimately, Pratt was read by a wide audience, with the ability to “blend botany with the romance of nature–and thus fulfill two marketing niches–the demand for nature writing and flowers and the need for botanical knowledge for ladies” (Kramer). Regardless of any controversy over her credentials, most importantly Pratt’s books were appreciated on multiple levels, and reviving interest in Pratt’s substantial body of work is an important example of the BHL’s ongoing endeavor to preserve biodiversity literature and bring to light forgotten authors and illustrators.

References

Blunt, Wilfrid, and William T. Stearn. 1994. The Art of Botanical Illustration. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Burns, Mary. 2017. “Printing and Publishing the Illustrated Botanical Book in Nineteenth Century Great Britain.” Cogent Arts & Humanities 4: 1364058.

Lindsay, Debra. 2018. Maria Martin’s world: Art & Science, Faith & Family in Audubon’s America.

Pratt, Anne, and Edward Step. 1905. The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, & Ferns of Great Britain and Their Allies, the Club Mosses, Horsetails, etc. London: F. Warne.

Shteir, Ann B. 1996. Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science: Flora’s Daughters and Botany in England 1760 to 1860.

Walpole, Josephine. 2006. A History and Dictionary of British Flower Painters, 1650-1950. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club.

Wikipedia, “Anne Pratt,” accessed March 12, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Pratt.

Nearly 100 years ago, a young journalism student at the Southern Branch of the University of California (now UCLA) walked into Ms. Pirie Davidson’s biology classroom (Campbell, 2000, 775). This young woman was not particularly interested in biology and, really, why would she have been? At the time, women were barred from attending any off-site field trips and science was thought to primarily be the work of men. However, it was not long before Hildegarde was captivated by the subject — so much so that she became Ms. Davidson’s lab assistant. Young Hildegarde Howard was soon offered a position as a part-time day laborer sorting fossils for renowned paleontologist Chester Stock at the Museum of Science, History, and Art of Los Angeles County (now the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) at Rancho La Brea.

Rancho La Brea, or as it is also known, the La Brea Tar Pits, is a group of natural asphalt seeps that have been bubbling up from the ground for tens of thousands of years in what is now the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. Throughout this time, the asphalt has seeped into a layer thick enough to trap animals. The tar would become camouflaged under dirt, debris, or water.  Then, an unsuspecting animal might accidentally happen into the pool and find itself ensnared in an inescapable mess. This attracted scavenger animals like dire wolves or birds of prey, who also became entrapped. The layers of asphalt would again seep up to completely cover the animals and the cycle would continue.

During the early development of Los Angeles, landowners allowed scientists including Stock to dig and do research on fossils at Rancho La Brea. In 1924, the land was donated to the museum. When Hildegarde was through counting her first lot of avian fossils, she had identified over 4,000 individual birds in the pits (Sutton, 1929). The wealth of fossils demonstrated that nearly as many birds met the same fate as mammals in the pits and in much the same way. The pits captured flora and fauna indiscriminately and left a sticky snapshot of the diversity of life over time in Los Angeles. Hildegarde was enraptured. It was at this time that she found her life’s passion in paleontology.

When Hildegarde graduated, she came  back to Los Angeles where her part-time research associate position was waiting for her (Downs, 1980, 7). During her careful work measuring and examining avian fossils, Hildegarde wrote her first published paper on the extinct California turkey, Parapavo californicus, which was a fossil turkey at Rancho La Brea that Hildegarde had labored over (Campbell, 1980a, 11). She described the extinct bird from more than 800 specimens. This abundance of specimens required her to account for osteological (bone) variation within the species and impressed her mentor, who allowed the paper to count as credit towards a master’s degree, which she would finish two years later.

Her dissertation, “The Avifauna of Emeryville Shellmound”, included drawings of fossil birds with clearly labeled osteological features. This was a huge boon to avian osteology, as it was the first time there had been a standardized terminology to use as a point of reference. Howard’s illustration would remain the principal reference until 1979 when Nomina Anatomica Avium was published (Campbell, 1980b, 27).

Hildegarde had remained working at the museum over school breaks while she was completing her advanced degrees (Staff Records, NHMLA). In 1929, Howard received her PhD and became “Dr. Howard”. She returned once again to the museum, this time as a junior clerk tasked with curating the fossils from Rancho La Brea and the research birds that had been collected in the American Southwest.

1929 marked the start of the Great Depression in America, and the Museum was not exempt from hard times. Hildegarde’s paychecks took increasingly sharp cuts until there were no paychecks at all for several months. Near the end of the Depression, in 1938, Dr. Howard was officially promoted to senior curator, a position that came with a title change but no pay increase from her previous position as a junior assistant (Staff Records, NHMLA). However, once the depression was over and museum work was beginning to stabilize, America found itself in World War II, and the Los Angeles County Museum once again faced aggressive budget cuts to help support the war effort. Hildegarde remained vigilant and remarkably prolific in her work. Between 1929 and 1939, Dr. Howard had published twenty-four papers on fossil birds in the American Southwest (Campbell, 1980a, 12-15) and in 1942, the prehistoric bird fossils she had assembled were exhibited in the Museum’s Hancock Hall (Los Angeles Times, 24 May 1942).

In 1944, Dr. Howard was promoted to the curator of Avian Paleontology (Campbell, 2000, 777). Hildegarde would serve in that role until 1951, when she would again be promoted to Chief Curator of Science, wherein she would not only continue to publish new work and further her research, but also serve as the leader of the Science Division for the Museum. Jean Delacour, the director of the museum throughout the bulk of Hildegarde’s tenure as Chief of Sciences wrote, “I sincerely believe that no one could have done it better” (Delacour, 1980, 8) and by all accounts museum research thrived under her leadership (Friedmann, 1980, 9).

Just two years later, Dr. Howard became the first woman to receive the Brewster Medal for outstanding research in ornithology by the reputable American Ornithologists Union (Oliver, 1988). By the time of her retirement in 1961, Dr. Howard had described two families, 6 genera, 23 species, and 1 subspecies, published ninety-nine papers of avian fossils, and embraced the technology of Carbon-14 dating to target the age of specimens and Rancho La Brea and help create a timeline of avian extinctions during the late Pleistocene (Howard, 1960).

Never one to slow down, Dr. Howard stayed on as an emeritus curator and continued her research. As California continued to rapidly develop, marine Miocene and Pliocene strata was exposed. Hildegard was free of administrative distractions and could devote herself full time to both the fossil birds of the American southwest and Tertiary marine birds of Southern California. She said of retirement, “When your life’s work is a hobby, you don’t need other hobbies” (Loper, 1980).

Retirement proved to be a fertile time for research and writing. Dr, Howard became a Guggenheim fellow (“Up Close”, 1989) and contributed titles such as “A Comparison of Avian Assemblages from Individual Pits at Rancho la Brea“, “Fossil Birds from the Anza-Borrego Desert“, and “Tertiary Birds from Laguna Hills, Orange County, California.” In total, after retirement, Dr. Howard would go on to write over forty more papers, describe another family, 7 genera, 34 species, and another subspecies (Campbell, 1980a, 11-15). These statistics would be remarkable as one’s career accomplishments. As post career statistics, these figures are a testament to Dr. Howards true passion for her field.

Little is known about Dr. Howard’s personal life. She was a very private person who shied away from the spotlight and publicly shared little of herself beyond her ardor for avian paleontology. Of the little that is known, one certainty is that she met the love of her life, Henry Anson Wylde, on that first fateful day sorting fossils (Downs, 1980, 7). He was also a day laborer who would go on to become the Chief of Museum Exhibits. They married in 1930 and remained together until his passing in 1984. It is also known that after retirement, Hildegarde also published in another medium: poetry (Howard, 1972). However, her mind never strayed far from birds, even in her private musings.

Dr. Hildegarde Howard led an extraordinary life and remains highly regarded as one of the foremost experts in her field. She published her last paper, “Middle Miocene Marine Birds from the Foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, Orange County, California“, in 1984 when she was 83 years young. Dr. Howard passed away on February 28, 1998, but her contributions and legacy as a pioneer in the field of avian paleontology will not be forgotten.

References

Campbell Jr., Kenneth. September 15, 1980a. “The Contributions of Hildegarde Howard.”  Contributions in Science, Papers in Avian Paleontology Honoring Dr. Hildegarde Howard, No 330, pp. 11–15.

Campbell Jr., Kenneth. September 15, 1980b. “Illustrations of Avian Osteology Taken from The Avifauna of Emeryville Shellmound.”  Contributions in Science, Papers in Avian Paleontology Honoring Dr. Hildegarde Howard,No 330, pp. 27.

Campbell Jr., Kenneth. 2000c. “In Memoriam, Hildegarde Howard 1901-1998.” The Auk, vol.117, no.3, 775-779.

Delacour, Jean. September 15, 1980. “A Tribute to Dr.Hildegarde Howard.”  Contributions in Science, No 330, pp. 8.

Downs, Theodore. September 15, 1980. “Appreciations: Hildegarde Howard.” Contributions in Science, No 330, 7-8.

Friedmann, Herbert. September 15, 1980. “Hildegarde Howard and the Museum: Fifty years.”  Contributions in Science, No 330, pp. 9.

Howard, Hildegarde. 11 Mar 1960. “The Significance of Carbon-14 Dates for Rancho La Brea”  Science, Vol. 131, Issue 3402, pp. 712-714, DOI: 10.1126/science.131.3402.712.

Howard, Hildegarde. 1972-1976. “Poetry.” Box 38, folder 2, Hildegarde Howard papers, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Archives.

Loper, Mary Lou. 25 Nov 1980. “Dedicating a Lifetime to Fossils: FOSSILS: A Lifetime Dedicated to Science” Los Angeles Times (1923-1995); f1. Accessed 18 March 2019.

Oliver, Myrna. 04 Mar 1998.“Obituaries; Hildegarde Howard; Avian Paleontologist, Curator.” Los Angeles Times [Home Edition], pp. 18. Accessed 7 March 2019.

“Prehistoric Birds Will Be Displayed: Museum Experts Have Taken Bones From Pits.” Los Angeles Times (1923-1995); Los Angeles, Calif. [Los Angeles, Calif] 24 May 1942: A8. Accessed March 7, 2019.

“Staff Records”, 1911- 1986. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Archives.

Sutton, Ransome. Nov. 10,1929. “Tar Tripped Birds Tallied: Bones of More Than 4000, Many Now Extinct, Trapped in Asphalt, Identified by Scientist.” Los Angeles Times (1923-1995). ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times, C7, accessed 4 March, 2019.

“Up Close: HIldegarde Howard Wylde. An intimate look at one of south Orange County’s interesting personalities.” Orange County Register [ZONE 7 Edition]; Santa Ana, Calif. 08 June 1989: pp. 09.

The Harvard Botany Libraries recently acquired and digitized Henrietta Page’s [Sketchbook of drawings of fungi], volume II. The sketchbook was a gift from the Boston Mycological Club (BMC) where Page was a member and served on the executive committee for a time. She was also a member of the Boston Society of Natural History. The sketchbook mostly describes fungi collected during July and August when Page attended three-week long natural history classes held in Alstead, New Hampshire under the Alstead School of Natural History from 1899-1903. The mycology section was taught by Hollis Webster, secretary and co-founder of the BMC and Harvard graduate (class of 1884); phanerogamic botany by Merritt Lyndon Fernald; ornithology by Ralph Hoffmann; and physiography and biology by William Lusk Webster Field. The school ran from 1899-1904.

The sketchbook was originally unattributed, but Jason Karakehian (BMC archivist) discovered that the sketchbook connects to specimens that are now housed in the fungarium at New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). The specimens were originally part of the Alstead School of Natural history fungarium, which was integrated into the BMC fungarium after the Alstead School’s closing. Jason was able to attribute the sketchbook to Ms. Page by searching the NYBG’s online database of specimens for fungal collections made in Alstead in the years 1900-1903, which yielded a few collections whose labels referred to Henrietta Page by name and referenced specific pages in her sketchbook “Vol. II.”

There are a number of glass plate negatives, prints, and lantern slides of fungi in the BMC archive which were made by Hollis Webster in the 1902 and 1903 sessions of the School. These have been cleaned, organized, placed in archival negative envelopes, and listed in a spreadsheet. The specimens photographed do not appear to match those drawn by Ms. Page, but there is some overlap in taxa.

The sketchbook is a popular new acquisition and has already been used for several classes interested in field notes, women in science, and scientific illustrations.

As we celebrate the role women have played in the natural history sciences, we can find many examples of successful women who have been under-appreciated for the meaningful work they did during their lives. Women like Maria Sibylla Merian, Mary Margaret Smith, and Evelyn Cheesman significantly advanced a variety of sciences, even if they have only recently been gaining attention for doing so. But historic relegation of women has also meant that countless people throughout history were denied the tools to achieve success in these fields. How many women could have been published artists or scientists, if it weren’t for societal expectations that never gave them the chance?

Within the collections of rare botanical texts and seldom seen manuscripts housed at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation is a beautiful work by a largely unknown artist, Dorothea Eliza Smith. Her Fruits of the Lima Market – a collection of watercolors that she completed between 1850 and 1853 – stands out as an exemplary creation made even more impressive by her relative obscurity and the sparse details of her life.

Dorothea was born to Joseph and Dorothy Peers on January 29, 1804, in Wales – the third child and first girl born to the couple. In 1828, when she was twenty-four, she married William Kerr who was a merchant trading primarily out of Caracas, Venezuela, but their marriage was cut short as Kerr seems to have died sometime before 1840. That year, Dorothea married Dr. Archibald Smith, who also had extensive experience living and working in South America.

Smith was born in 1797 in Scotland, received his medical degree from the University of Glasgow in 1820, and moved to Peru five years later. Once there, he was employed by a British mining company to help its workers adjust to the high altitudes at which they worked, but the company’s bankruptcy in 1827 meant that Smith needed to find new work. To this effect, he rented some land and began to grow sugar cane, but by 1830 he had moved to Lima and the next year took a job overseeing the health of British and American sailors stationed in and around the Peruvian capital. (Peru became an independent country in 1824, so the sailors were not part of an occupying force.) At some point during this time he must have become acquainted with Dorothea as they married in Scotland in 1840 where they continued to live for the next few years.

While their marriage appears to have been strong, they both faced an enormous loss when Archibald and the couple’s daughter Dorothy – who was eight – were shipwrecked off the Peruvian coast, and Dorothy drowned. Dorothea wrote from Liverpool to her husband shortly after the loss in 1849 that “we are all improving in strength not withstanding our recent trial” and would soon join her husband in Peru with their other children – Sophia, Isabella, and John. Interestingly, Dorothea and the children decided to sail around Cape Horn on their journey to South America rather that land in Panama, walk across the isthmus, and catch another ship to Peru. Both trips took similar amounts of time, but supposedly with three children, Dorothea would have rather not tried to keep track of them on an overland trek. The details of the Smiths’ time in Peru are sparse, other than that Dorothea worked on her watercolors of the fruits of the Lima market from 1850 to 1853, and at any rate they all seemed to have returned to the United Kingdom by 1855. Dorothea would die about nine years later, in 1864, and her husband would join her in 1868, both in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dorothea Smith’s The Fruits of the Lima Market are significant and worthy of study both for their quality and for their commentary on botanical science and British economic reach. To begin, Dorothea’s watercolors are impressive in that they are thoughtfully detailed in their depiction and with regards to their associated scientific information (Each painting includes notes on its fruit’s scientific name, local name, height, and fruiting months), and in that they have a refined artistic sensibility to them as pertains to the ways in which Smith plays with the juxtaposition of the different colors of the fruits. Smith also provided drawings of cross-sections of the fruits and their seeds. It is further interesting that Smith chose to draw the fruits of the Lima market as opposed to other flora from the Peruvian countryside. Her choice seems to be wrapped up both in her assumedly easy access to such fruits and in her life as spouse to first a merchant then a medical doctor and one-time farmer who both left Britain for opportunities in South America. Even her trip to arrive in Peru followed established trade and tourist routes from Europe to the western South American coast. Her watercolors work on two levels then – the first as an expression of her high scientific and artistic acumen and secondly as a reflection of her proximity to British commercial interests throughout the world. Smith’s manuscript was maintained by her husband after her death as he worked to make it known to knowledgeable scientists (even citing her in his own work), and as such kept it from disappearing into complete obscurity. Thus, the remarkable work of Dorothea Eliza Smith remains and whose story, though very much incomplete, understates the significant contributions of so many unknown female scientists and illustrators to the collected advancement of Western science.

References

Vega, Fernando, Kimberly Fisher, and Tony Willis. “Dorothea Eliza Smith, artist of ‘The Fruits of the Lima Market’” Archives of Natural History 41.2 (October 2014): 223-229.

When Louise Rienzi wrote her guide on General Instructions for Rearing Silkworms, in 1887, she was part of a movement attempting to establish a viable silk industry for the United States. The epicenter of the new industry was California, where Louis Prevost, a French botanist, was the first to grow silkworms and produce cocoons, in 1860. The physical environment was favorable, and the industry saw some success before it eventually faded.

Several groups were formed to promote the industry, including the State Board of Silk Culture in San Jose. This organization was responsible for printing and distributing Louise Rienzi’s sericultural manual in the late 1880s.  Louise Rienzi also served as Secretary of the State Board and issued official reports on the monthly and annual meetings as well as the contributions of various committees, such as the Committee on Mulberry Trees, Eggs and Cocoons.

General Instructions for Rearing Silkworms is a straightforward and detailed guide to the practicalities of raising silkworms. Instructions for successful cocooneries include descriptions of the types of trays, rack, and shelves needed, methods for keeping the air pure and clean, and instructions for feeding the worms. There is also a lengthy section titled Treatise on the Selection of Healthy Silkworm Eggs, which gives instructions for microscopic examination of the eggs and blood of the chrysalis. The entire manual is illustrated with numerous sketches of the equipment needed and the various stages of the eggs, worms, and moths themselves.

Raising silkworms according to this manual is very much a labor-intensive undertaking. To start, a constant supply of fresh mulberry leaves must be available to the silkworm rearer.  Rienzi states that “the worms from an ounce of eggs will consume from twelve hundred to thirteen hundred pounds of mulberry leaves.”  At first, the worms must be fed every few hours with fresh leaves.  The worms go through four moultings, each lasting about a week, and throughout this time period, the temperature, cleanliness and general welfare of the silkworms must be closely monitored.

Rienzi includes detailed descriptions of the changes in appearance which worms and eggs go through as they mature. Her practical advice for what to watch for also gives color to this business-like black-and-white manual: the silkworm egg itself is “the color of ash wood, and of the form of a lentil,” and a “pale lavender” hue to the eggs indicates that they will soon hatch, while a mature silkworm that is ready to spin will stop eating and take on a “golden, transparent color.”

Despite her detailed knowledge of silkworm rearing and enthusiastic support of the California silk industry, the value of Rienzi’s work seems to have been overlooked for some time. It was not until 1895 that the California legislature voted to appropriate funds for the pay claim of Louise Rienzi “for services rendered the State Board of Silk Culture as Secretary, Instructress, and Silk Expert, from December 12, 1885- to April 2, 1887”. Her compensation was set at $87.50 per month.

Further Readings

Klose, Nelson. California’s Experimentation in Sericulture. In Pacific Historical Review, v. 30 (Aug. 1961) 213-227

Klose, Nelson. Sericulture in the United States. Agriculture History, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct. 1963), 225-234.

Klose, Nelson. Louis Prevost and the Silk Industry at San Jose. In California Historical Society Quarterly, v.43 (Dec. 1964) 309-317

Mason, Frank R. The American Silk Industry and the Tariff.  American Economic Association Quarterly, 3rd Series, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec. 1910) 1-182

Onaga, Lisa. Silkworm, Science, And Nation: A Sericultural History Of Genetics In Modern Japan.  Dissertation: Cornell University, 2012. (https://hdl.handle.net/1813/29385)

Wyceoff, William C. Review: The Silk Industry in the United States. Science. Vol. 3, No. 57 (Mar. 7, 1884), pp. 290-292

The Journal of the Assembly during the Thirty-first Session of the Legislature of the State of California, 1895   (GoogleBooks)

A version of this post was originally published on the blog of the Margaret Smith Library, SAIAB. It is reproduced with permission from the author, Sally Schramm.

The Library at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity is named for Mary Margaret Smith (née Macdonald), the first Director of the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology. Macdonald attended Rhodes University College in Grahamstown from 1934 to 1937. She was awarded her B.Sc. degree in 1936, majoring in physics and chemistry (with distinction), and became a senior demonstrator in the Chemistry Department.

James Leonard Brierley (JLB) Smith (1897-1968), Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry, and Mary Macdonald, were married in 1938. With her not liking the new name “Mary Smith”, she was from that time always known as “Margaret Smith”.

JLB Smith, a keen angler, developed a more formal interest in ichthyology, the study of fishes. His young wife soon became involved in his hobby and accompanied him on fishing trips and collecting expeditions.

In 1946, the Department of Ichthyology was established at Rhodes University and J.L.B and Margaret Smith were able to devote all their energies to the production of an authoritative book on the sea fishes of southern Africa.

One of their greatest problems was a lack of suitable illustrations. Undaunted, despite no artistic training, Margaret Smith, took on the task. The first edition of The Sea Fishes of Southern Africa, published in 1949, contained her exceptional illustrations.

She in turn taught what was to become a group of acclaimed natural history artists.

After the death of JLB Smith in January 1968, Margaret Smith continued her ichthyological research in Grahamstown. At the end of 1968, the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Rhodes University decided to establish the J.L.B Smith Institute of Ichthyology. Margaret was appointed the first Director of the new Institute, now the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB).

The Margaret Smith House, a women’s residence at Rhodes University, likewise honours her contribution to our local university and to international science.

Margaret Smith died in 1987. She had given 49 years of service to ichthyology.

Margaret’s achievements, the fine building, the reference collection of fish which she so adequately preserved, the status of the institute as a museum of international standing, are there for all to see. What is less known is the woman herself in her private life which few could know much about. This may be summed up in two words: for all her public flamboyance, she was a kind woman. Nobody with a hard-luck story was ever turned away … she helped innumerable people. If something was needed and could not otherwise be got she would dip into her pockets, and never say a word. [1]

The Biodiversity Heritage Library holds a collection of JBL Smith’s Ichthyological Papers, edited by his wife, Margaret Smith, and published in 1969, the year after his death. Contributed by the Library of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, the two volume work was published by the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology.

One of the highlights of the publication is the description of the “re-discovery” of the coelacanth, believed to have become extinct in the Late Cretaceous, around 66 million years ago, but rediscovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938. Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator of the East London Museum, discovered a specimen from amongst the catch of a local trawler, Captain Hendrick Goosen, and contacted J.L.B. Smith regarding the discovery. Smith subsequently named the species Latimeria chalumnae after Courtenay-Latimer.

You can read more about the life and achievements of Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer as part of the #HerNaturalHistory campaign.

Reference

[1] PBN Jackson. 1997. Variations on a theme: the three directors of the first fifty years of the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology. Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr., 51:40.