All posts tagged with hernaturalhistory

Three hundred and seventy-four years ago on 2 April 1647, a remarkable woman was born: the artist and naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian. In the 17^th and 18^th century world of male-dominated science, Merian had to fight for her place in the natural sciences. Against all odds, she became a trailblazer, especially in developmental biology.

Merian’s legacy was recently explored during a 4-week student-project at the library of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The project was part of a master’s program for the University of Applied Science in Leipzig to enlarge the student’s experience in the historical holding field and give a glimpse into the planning and conducting of a project. The aim of the project itself was and is the digitization of two different editions of Merian’s work Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium as well as a restorative and provenance research summary about the volumes. Both editions show Merian’s talent in painting and observing insects and plants.

Since its inaugural event on 22 April 1970, Earth Day has grown to an international annual celebration of the Earth and a movement to raise awareness about and support for environmental protection. This year’s theme, Restore Our Earth, emphasizes that, “As the world returns to normal, we can’t go back to business-as-usual.” As we face widespread climate change and unprecedented biodiversity declines—with more than a million species threatened with extinction—immediate, online access to essential literature is ever-more important, allowing scientists to conduct research more quickly and efficiently and improving our ability to respond to these crises. For fifteen years, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) has worked as a global consortium to provide this vital access, empower research, and make a real difference in our ability to improve the health of our planet for every species that calls it home.

This year, several of our global partners have selected a few titles and authors from the BHL collection to commemorate Earth Day. From exploring Asia’s vast and unique biodiversity to inspiring conservation through a popular publication on birds, providing practical methods for conducting surveys and using the data to support conservation practices, and marveling at the extraordinary biodiversity of past ages, these titles highlight the richness of our planet’s biodiversity and remind us of the importance of protecting the wonderful, wild, and beautiful life on Earth.

“To her mind the truths of science seem revealed.”

That’s how Phebe A. Hanaford, author of Daughters of America (c. 1882), described naturalist Graceanna Lewis, one of the first three woman to be accepted into the Academy of Natural Sciences. But Lewis was not only one of the first professionally acknowledged women naturalists; she was also an abolitionist and social reformer who worked for the advancement of science as well as human rights. Researchers can find many publications by and about this intriguing woman in the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ Digital Library and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Dr. Margaret S. Collins (1922-1996), a renowned expert on termite ecology and distribution, taught as a professor and administrator at Howard University, Florida A&M University, and Federal City College (now University of The District of Columbia) for over 35 years. Upon her retirement from teaching, Collins continued her work on termites at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as a research associate from 1983 to 1996.

Over the course of her career, Collins published more than forty articles spanning the biogeography, physiology, chemical defenses, and taxonomy of termites. Collins also collected specimens in the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Barbados, Belize, Suriname, the Cayman Islands, Guyana, Guatemala, and Panama. When she contracted dengue fever on an expedition in Guyana in 1983-1984 and was forced into a long hiatus from field work, she turned her focus to updating and preserving the termite specimens at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Eventually Collins returned to field research in 1994 when she once again traveled to Guyana to collect termites. In April 1996, Collins died while conducting field work in the Cayman Islands.

Michelle Marshall is an independent researcher and creator of Historical SciArt, a research initiative dedicated to women in historic scientific illustration. In this guest post, Marshall shares more about how BHL helps empower her research on women in science.

Join us on 25 March 2021 (1-3pm ET) for Wikipedia & Women in Science: Smithsonian Groundbreakers Edit-a-thon, an online Wikipedia editing workshop hosted in conjunction with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative and the Smithsonian Institution Archives of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

The Language of Flowers genre is at the intersection of botany, horticulture, natural history, art, poetry, and women’s studies. This 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. A properly arranged bouquet was said to convey a “secret message” for the recipient. The “social media” of its day, this Victorian fad, led to many editions of works published, with multiple titles by successful authors.

Frances Sargent Osgood edited two works in this genre, Poetry of Flowers and Flowers of Poetry and The Floral Offering.