April 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Organizations around the world have commemorated the occasion by participating in the global Earth Optimism movement — an initiative spearheaded by the Smithsonian to “turn the conservation conversation from doom and gloom to optimism and opportunity”.

Throughout 2020, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and our partners are joining the movement by sharing conservation success stories from and made possible by the BHL collection. Follow our blog for conservation stories — past and present — and visit our website for more information and to explore our Earth Optimism book collection.

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Anna Botsford Comstock, a naturalist educator who championed childhood curiosity in nature. The conservationism of Comstock fueled the impetus of her work for children to understand nature and take ownership of their environment. Her’s was to celebrate one’s kinship with the earth by being a positive ecological participant of nature, and not just a spectator. Photo taken by Karen Penders St. Clair at Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University Library.

Anna Botsford Comstock (1854-1930) held a significant role as a proponent of nature education at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, at the turn of the 20th century. Comstock was born in New York State, the only child to Quaker parents at the edge of the pioneer era. The doctrine of her parents, Marvin and Phoebe Botsford, was one of appreciating a higher creation in all things natural. It is in this philosophy in which a young Comstock was raised, and it was her mother who particularly influenced her child’s curiosity, and knowledge, of the surrounding natural wonders of the world.

Comstock was a voracious reader and was deeply influenced by the romanticism writings popular in her youth. Her own nature writing mirrors the technical and collective philosophical influences of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), James Russel Lowell (1819-1891), and William Wordsworth (1770-1850) (she always carried Wordsworth’s Prelude (1850) in her travels). However, it was Comstock’s admiration of the writing of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), with his detailed notes, language, and observations, which guided Comstock’s hand in the nature lessons she wrote and the nature literature courses she lectured.

The conservationism of Anna Botsford Comstock lies not in one particular focus of activism to preserve a particular aspect of our natural world.  She shared in inspiring the collective belief of her time that it was crucial our imprint as humans on our wild and natural landscapes be understood. Instilling this love and appreciation of the natural world around us, and to know that we also play a crucial part as participants, is the capstone achievement of Comstock’s work.

Comstock’s “Nature is full of surprises” approach appealed to children directly, as it did with her contemporaries. She believed that “future citizens” should be set on inheriting our Earth by learning of its environments, and of the interactions of the living systems therein. She shared with her peers that earthly care was a moral responsibility to be built upon with each successive generation. Comstock emphasized that children should discover their environment through the use of their five senses and careful observation. Through their own individual investigations, the child could thereby cultivate a sense of connection and responsibility for our Earth. Comstock expressed, “It is a great asset to the conservation of our natural resources to have the children of our land be interested in the wild life in such a chummy and intimate manner.”

Early in her career, Comstock captured the range of plant life with dozens of Cornell Rural School curricula leaflets (in active publication from 1896 to 1956) through The New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University. The topics in her botanical leaflets included seeds, wildflower study, cultivated and flowerless plants, and trees. Additionally, through her artistic association with the entomological research and writings of her husband, John Henry Comstock (1849-1931), founder of the department of entomology at Cornell University, Comstock broadened her educational base to include insects.

Penning her detailed nature articles and lesson plans, Comstock was systematically inclusive of earthborne, waterborne, and airborne species, emphasizing humanity’s connection to microbes, insects, plants, animals, earth, and sky. Comstock’s work kept to principles of observation and trusting one’s senses. Comstock’s pedagogy encouraged the development of a child’s curiosity by “opening one’s eyes to our natural surroundings.” Her appeal to the parents and teachers of these progeniture was in helping these adults foster their childrens’ awareness of, and interactions with, nature. This was a shared advocacy of many conservationists of Comstock’s time including, but not exclusive to, John Muir (1838-1914), John Burroughs (1839-1921), and Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1948).

Title page. Comstock, Anna Botsford. Handbook of Nature-Study for Teachers and Parents, Based on the Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets, With Much Additional Material and Many New Illustration. 1911. Contributed in BHL from MBLWHOI Library.

To encourage children to become explorers, Comstock worked closely with other nature educators at Cornell University for several years and ultimately compiled her collective work and publications into her inspiring The Handbook of Nature Study (1911). Still in print today and in its 24th edition, this notable book is used throughout the world and has preserved the work of these early nature study initiatives. In this tome of natural life, Comstock wrote about diverse topics of the earth with her modules “Stone and Minerals”, “Soil”, and “Water” (in all its forms). Practical instruction of the sky includes the seasons, weather, and astronomy. Lessons geared towards small mammals, birds and their habitats, invertebrates, and fish are also included within the gigantic book. Her lessons are timeless and poignant still today as The Handbook of Nature Study continues to inspire new generations of nature lovers.

“He holds the bowl of the spoon with both front paws while he drinks the milk.” Editor’s proof of an original pen & ink image of Furry, the red-squirrel, first drawn by Anna Botsford Comstock for publication in Boys & Girls (January, 1903), and later used in her Handbook of Nature Study (1911). Photo taken by Karen Penders St. Clair at Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University Library.

Lesson XLIII: The Tadpole Aquarium. Comstock, Anna Botsford. Handbook of Nature-Study for Teachers and Parents, Based on the Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets, With Much Additional Material and Many New Illustration. 1911. Contributed in BHL from MBLWHOI Library.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) has access to several of the earliest issues of The Handbook of Nature Study and other notable works by both Comstock and her husband, John Henry Comstock, whose entomological writings she helped to illustrate. Included in the BHL collections are most of Comstock’s scientific writing, and of particular interest for budding naturalists is her Syllabus of Lecture Series: Nature Study (1900).

Pre-dating her magnum opus, the Lecture Series lessons helped pave the way for Comstock to communicate directly with the educators of her time and listen to what they demanded for their students. This small book lends itself as a great portable field-book for those wanting to take their classes, or their family, out-of-doors. Supplementing the Lecture Series notebook with the larger Handbook of Nature Study as a reference tool combines two wonderful pieces of nature literature that are as timeless and relevant to conservation appreciation today as they were over one hundred years ago.

“What nature-study does for the child.” Comstock, Anna Botsford. Syllabus of Lectures. Nature Study. 1900. Contributed in BHL from University of California Libraries via Internet Archive.

Comstock carries the voices of nature study educators, along with her own, to inspire all generations to learn about and appreciate their immediate natural surroundings. These are the voices that remind us to be mindful of our own conservational impact on the environment, and like Comstock, to think beyond our own sphere of home, fields, or woods towards a collective fellowship and world community. Her’s is a voice that transcends time with her appreciation for our Nature resources and lends towards our conservationist efforts into the 21st century.

To learn more about Anna Botsford Comstock, a woman who was an artist, philosopher, educator, naturalist and conservationist, explore The Handbook of Nature Study  (1911), Syllabus of Lecture Series: Nature Study (1900), and her other notable works, within the auspices of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Author’s Note: Dedicated to Dr. Betty Jean McKnight (1928-2020, Cornell ’65) who was a pioneer in her own right. Betty was an educator, naturalist, and conservationist in the best sense of each. Above all, Betty was my friend and mentor who never failed to sparkle with my stories of Mrs. Comstock during my doctoral research. You will be missed.

“Towards the latter end of November, 1860, a proposal was made to organize a Botanical Society. There being no such Institution in operation in Canada, it was thought that much benefit might result from its establishment.”

So begins the first volume of the Annals of the Botanical Society of Canada, published in 1861 following the Society’s founding in Kingston, Ontario in 1860.

The Botanical Society of Canada’s botanical garden at Queen’s College, Kingston. Queen’s University Archives V28-B-Summ-2.1.

The Society—founded by members of the Queen’s College (now Queen’s University) natural history department—welcomed men and women as equal members and met regularly in Kingston. One hundred people attended the first meeting in January 1861, despite temperatures of –20 Celsius! The following month, 200 people were in attendance, including a young woman named Catharine (Kate) Crooks. She joined the Society on that occasion, along with her brother-in-law, Alexander Logie. Crooks and Logie had travelled from Hamilton, Ontario—southwest of Toronto—and presented the Society with a flora of Hamilton.

Undated Daguerreotype portrait of Catharine McGill Crooks. Robert Milne, Hamilton, Ontario.

This flora included several plant species Crooks recorded in the southwestern Ontario communities of Cambridge, London and St. Thomas, and their presentation was accompanied by a large collection of specimens (roughly 500!) prepared by Crooks. The following year, Crooks’ collection was exhibited in London, England, as part of the official Canadian display at the International Exhibition of 1862. She received an Honourable Mention for her herbarium of native Canadian flowers, shrubs and trees.

Crooks documented several rare species native to Canada’s Carolinian ecozone, such as Andromeda polifolia, Liatris cylindracea, and Lupinus perennis. In fact, her observations captured a record of southwestern Ontario’s flora before the landscape changed forever. Today, some parts of southwestern Ontario have only 12.1% forest cover, and its wetlands are much-reduced, due to agriculture, urban sprawl, and aggregate extraction [1].

While the Annals of the Botanical Society of Canada offers a tantalizing glimpse into Crooks’ contributions to the documentation and study of southwestern Ontario’s flora, her name is all but unknown today. Those details that are recorded in the Annals’ pages, however, inspired librarian Anna Soper’s quest to learn more about this elusive woman in science.

Anna Soper, librarian, artist, writer. Photo credit: A. Soper.

The sole librarian operating a small, special library in Kingston, Ontario, Soper has a personal interest in botany and environmental history. This interest was further nurtured by her discovery of the Biodiversity Heritage Library while obtaining her Master of Library and Information Science degree. Whilst exploring the Annals in BHL, she was introduced to Crooks—and was both intrigued and baffled by what she read.

“I asked myself, ‘How come I’ve never heard of Kate Crooks?’,” recalls Soper. “She lived and worked in Ontario in the same era as Catharine Parr Traill—arguably Canada’s most prominent nineteenth-century naturalist. In fact, Crooks and Logie published their flora years before Parr Traill published her 1868 text Canadian Wildflowers. Parr Traill’s book was subsequently praised as ‘one of the greatest botanical triumphs which anyone could achieve.’ So what happened to Crooks’ specimens? How could her legacy have been so forgotten?”

Motivated by these unanswered questions, Soper began an intensive personal research project on Crooks, but found that very little of Crooks’ life and work appeared to have survived the years since her death.

“Sadly, not a single piece of her original (ca. 1860) collection has turned up,” shares Soper. “I contacted many curators who said they just don’t have complete records of their herbarium collections, so it is hard to assess whether any of Crooks’ specimens might be in their care.”

Eventually, Soper was able to locate a single botanical specimen attributed to Crooks—a pressed cutting of Sabatia angularis held in the collection of McGill University Herbarium. While this specimen is mentioned in a 1982 publication, Atlas of the rare vascular plants of Ontario, it might have been mis-catalogued when it was added to Canadensys (a database for Canadian biodiversity data), where it is attributed to an “M. Crooks”. Upon receiving a photo of the specimen and its label, Soper realized that what had been interpreted as an “M. Crooks” was actually a “Miss Crooks”.

A specimen of Sabatia angularis, pressed by Miss Crooks in 1865. This native plant is now extirpated from Ontario. Photo credit: Dr. Frieda Beauregard, McGill Herbarium, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.

Since then, Soper has continued to piece together more of Crooks’ story, which she shared in an article for Atlas Obscura last year. Sadly, Crooks died at the young age of 38, eight days after the birth of her third child. She is buried in Hamilton, where, in 1865, she is believed to have collected the only known Ontario specimen of Sabatia angularis—a native plant now extinct in that province.

Thanks to Soper’s research, Crooks’ legacy is now emerging from the shadows of obscurity under which it had fallen over the past century. BHL played an important role in making this happen.

“The Biodiversity Heritage Library kick-started my research on Kate Crooks, and I know that without this valuable resource it would have been much harder to work on this project,” asserts Soper.

Soper’s interest in BHL’s collections extends beyond her research on Crooks. She regularly uses the Library, either to browse the image collections or to retrieve some piece of information for her other research interests.

“The sheer variety of botanical illustrations and natural history texts in BHL is what initially sparked my interest in the collection,” recalls Soper.

BHL offers many services that facilitate Soper’s research and reuse of the collections—particularly full text search and the availability of DOIs for many titles. She also appreciates BHL’s efforts to curate and provide context to its materials, such as through its image collections on Flickr and themed social media campaigns.

Soper regularly posts content from BHL to her own Twitter feed (@Flora150Project), where she explores botanical subjects around folklore, scientific illustration, and local flora. In fact, it was her activity on Twitter that first led her to the Annals of the Botanical Society of Canada, and by extension Kate Crooks.

“I originally began my Twitter page in 2017, during Canada 150, the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation,” explains Soper. “I planned to create a flora of Kingston, and started posting photos from rambles around the city. I turned to BHL’s catalogue to see whether I could find an earlier example of Kingston’s flora, and that’s what led me to the Annals of the Botanical Society of Canada.”

Anna Soper. Detail from A Flora of Kingston, 2018. The series featured digital and analogue photographs of Kingston’s flora, layered over blank sheets from the Smithsonian Field Notes collection. In 2018, Soper exhibited photos from A Flora of Kingston as part of a temporary public art installation created by the City of Kingston. Whilst creating A Flora of Kingston, Soper discovered that a teenage member of the Botanical Society of Canada had published his flora of Kingston in the Annals. This gave her an historic precedent with which to compare her work. As Soper shares, “I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the same species he had recorded, including two plants (Rubus odoratus and Staphylea trifolia) in the same wooded area in which he found them!”

More recently, Soper’s interests have turned towards phenological records — specifically, calendars of flora. Published in 1762, Miscellaneous tracts relating to natural history, husbandry, and physick… includes two calendars of flora—one recorded in Norfolk, England, and the other, in Uppsala, Sweden.

“Each calendar dovetails with the other; evoking a sense of time unfolding from one season to the next,” shares Soper. “There’s also a rather poetic quality in the writing.”

For example, one entry, from September 1755, reads almost like a haiku:

1. 21. SWALLOWS gone. Full moon. 
   22. Autumnal æquinox. 
   23. WOOD LARK… sings.

There was a useful function to these calendars. According to the Swedish calendar, May 13th was “The best time for sowing barley, and the seeds of garden plants.” Since the Wheat Ear (Oenanthe spp.) had recently arrived from its winter home, it was unlikely any further frosts would follow.

Shortly after the world went into lockdown, in the winter of 2020, Twitter user @VenetiaJane posted a prompt for her followers: “Please share your favourite nature-related photographs, poems, quotes…Let’s spread a little #joy and #positivity around the world at a time when we all really need it.’” The hashtag #SolaceInNature was born.

“At the time—mid-March—not much was blooming where I live; just a few willow catkins on a tree near my home. So I turned to the Biodiversity Heritage Library for content,” explains Soper. “Using the hashtag, #CalendarOfFlora, I have been posting these centuries-old documents on my Twitter feed. In fact, a calendar of flora lends itself to sharing on social media, since you can match the content with that day’s date!”

On April 1, 1755, Alex Berger saw signs of spring: “Moss…sheds its dust”, he wrote. By the 3rd, Berger saw stones loosened from the ice. On the 6th, “Hills begin to appear, the snows being melted,” and serpents came out of their holes. #CalendarOfFlora #OTD #SolaceInNature pic.twitter.com/W4c5FpAj2U

— Anna Soper (@Flora150Project) April 1, 2020

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“People are finding new ways to relate to each other—and the world around us—at this time,” remarks Soper. “Since I could not contribute much #SolaceInNature at the start of this crisis, I turned to the work of others; keeping vigil with their words as they, too, waited for spring.”

Anna Soper. Detail from A Flora of Kingston, 2018.

With centuries of knowledge captured within its pages, the annals of natural history are a rich resource for anyone interested in exploring the natural world. As Soper’s experience shows, any turn of a page could inspire new and unexpected discoveries. We are proud to work with a global network of partners to ensure that anyone, anywhere can be empowered to feed their curiosity, uncover the history of natural history, and be inspired by biodiversity.

“Since I’m outside of academia, I have no opportunities to take time off for research and writing,” shares Soper. “Online, open access resources like the Biodiversity Heritage Library are crucial to piecing together a story like Kate Crooks’, while giving me much-needed leads for in-person research in my spare time.”

Anna Soper. Detail from A Flora of Kingston, 2018.

References

Illustration of a Cactus Dahlia from Revue horticole (1908). Contributed in BHL from the New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library. This image is one of over 160,000 that are freely available for download and reuse through the BHL Flickr.

BHL’s digital library provides free and open online access to over 250,000 volumes from the 15th-21st centuries on a wide range of biodiversity subjects. These collections offer great resources to support distance learning.

All of our content can be accessed online for free and in full through our digital library portal at biodiversitylibrary.org. No login, account, or membership is required. You can also freely download anything in our library in a variety of formats. Our FAQ provides information on how to search the library and download content.

In addition to our general collections, we’ve identified a selection of materials that may be of particular interest to educators and students. Explore these resources below.

Thematic Collections

Looking for curated content? Our Collections offer a pre-selected set of materials on a variety of subjects, from Antarctic Exploration & Discovery to Seed & Nursery Catalogs and Latino Natural History.

Explore over 50 thematic collections on a range of subjects.

Image Resources

If you need image resources for your distance learning activities, we have a rich collection of over 160,000 free nature images in our Flickr. Here’s how to search and download those collections.

Instructions on how to search for specific subjects and species in the BHL Flickr.

Looking for an educational activity to do online around nature art? Tagging images in the BHL Flickr with species and artist names is a great option. It’s not only a fun way to learn about taxonomy, investigate individual species, and explore artists and artistic practices, but it also makes these images more accessible and discoverable for others to support their research and educational activities.

Learn more about tagging and get started with our instructional guide.

Coloring Books

Looking for more hands-on educational resources? Explore and download our free coloring books created from images in our collection.

Our “Female Illustrators in Natural History” coloring book is one of several freely available from BHL. Explore and download our coloring books.

Women’s History Month Educational Resources

Looking for resources to support educational activities around Women’s History Month? Our #HerNaturalHistory collections offer a range of content related to women’s contributions to natural history. Explore our book and image collections, coloring book, Facebook videos, and blog series.

Our Her Natural History collections on women in science include book and image collections, a coloring book, Facebook videos, and informative articles.

Illustration by Agnes Dunbar Moodie Fitzgibbon Chamberlin from Catharine Parr Traill’s Canadian Wild Flowers (1868). Contributed in BHL from the Canadian Museum of Nature Library.

In 1868, one of the first serious botanical works in Canada was published. Entitled Canadian Wild Flowers, the work treated nearly three dozen of “the most remarkable” wildflowers found in Canada. The publication is notable for more than its position as an early work on Canadian botany. During a time when women were largely unwelcome in the male-dominated scientific world, this pioneering book was written and illustrated by women.

Canadian Wild Flowers was authored by naturalist Catharine Parr Traill (1802-99), a trailblazer in research on Canada’s natural history. The plates were drawn and lithographed by her niece, Agnes Dunbar Moodie Fitzgibbon Chamberlin (1833–1913). An expensive undertaking and sold by subscription, the work went on to be published in several editions.

“Catharine Parr Traill is arguably Canada’s most famous 19th century botanist, though she never thought of herself as a professional botanist because women weren’t employed as such in those days,” explains Dr. Dawn Bazely, University Professor in the Department of Biology at York University in Toronto.

Dr. Dawn Bazely, University Professor in the Department of Biology at York University in Toronto, attending the Lieutenant Governor’s Christmas Tree reception at the Ontario Legislature.

Bazely, an ecologist and botanist, began her biology career as a field assistant in 1980. For the past forty years, she has conducted research around plant-animal interactions (herbivory), plant defences, and introduced and invasive plants. Collaborations with colleagues in diverse fields have resulted in contributions to science policy work and research on climate change impacts. In addition to her work at the University, Bazely also works as an onboard botanist for ecotourism expeditions in the arctic and Europe.

Much of Bazely’s more recent work has been dedicated to the study and promotion of women in STEM.

In early February 2019, to mark the International Day of Women & Girls in Science, Bazely gave a presentation at the Gerstein Science Library at the University of Toronto entitled “Writing Women Back Into the History of STEM.” The presentation discussed the history of women in STEM, early policies to promote women’s participation in the sciences and the reasons that those efforts were not as successful as anticipated, current activities to champion women in STEM, and suggestions for future strategies in these areas. Bazely highlighted important female figures in the history of botanical science, including Traill; Carrie Matilda Derick (1862-1941), Canada’s first female science professor (appointed Professor in Botany at McGill in 1912); and women responsible for early flower field guides, such as Julia Wilmotte Henshaw (1869-1937), Alice Lounsberry (1873-1949) and Maude Gridley Peterson (1871-).

Notably, Bazely highlighted social media and Wikipedia as powerful ways to champion women in STEM today and discussed her efforts to organize annual Ada Lovelace Day events in Canada. Ada Lovelace Day, recognized annually on the second Tuesday of October, was founded by Suw Charmin-Anderson in 2009 to celebrate and raise the profile of women in STEM. A major component of the annual Ada Lovelace Day events organized by Bazely and her colleagues are Wikipedia Editathons designed to increase the representation of women in STEM by having participants create and enhance Wikipedia articles.

As an open access library with robust collections dedicated to women in science—e.g. the Women in Natural History Book Collection and the Female Illustrators in Natural History Flickr Collection—the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a valued resource for Bazely’s women in STEM research and Wikipedia activities, including for example those related to Traill.

“I’m currently chipping away at linking Catharine Parr Traill’s books in BHL to her Wikipedia page during Women in STEM Editathons,” shares Bazely.

For Bazely, an appreciation of open access archives is deeply rooted and personal. In 2011, she co-founded the open access digital archive The Churchill Community of Knowledge, which provides a wealth of data and media about the history, people, and biodiversity of Churchill, Manitoba. The archive includes research theses and journal papers as well as videos and even digitized copies of old Kodachrome slides.

Bazely digging drainage ditches at Camp Finney. Photo from Bazely’s fifth field season (1984) at La Perouse Bay, on the shores of Hudson Bay, in what became Wapusk National Park of Canada in 1996. Digital image from original Kodachrome slide available via the The Churchill Community of Knowledge archive. Source: http://hdl.handle.net/10315/15250.

The archive is hosted by the Yorkspace Institutional Repository, which was launched in 2009 by then-YorkU Digital Initiatives Librarian, Andrea Kosavic. The Repository first hosted reports from York University’s Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS), which Bazely directed for seven years.

“I have been a long time open access advocate, ever since Yorkspace was launched in 2009,” affirms Bazely. “So, ever since I first learned about BHL, I have been aware of its broad significance as a large-scale open access collaboration.”

Bazely first discovered BHL in 2014 via Twitter. A few years later, an invitation from Ann Shteir—author of the 1996 publication Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science : Flora’s Daughters and Botany in England, 1760-1860, dedicated to women in botany—sparked her use of the Library for research around women in science. Shteir, who had consulted Bazely during her writing of Flora’s Daughters, invited Bazely to participate in a conference and contribute to an edited book about the history of botany in Canada in the 19th century.

In particular, Shteir asked Bazely to contribute a chapter about how social media and new technologies were creating space for women in STEM to find each other and how other 19th century technologies had, in their turn, made science more accessible to various publics.

BHL was a valuable research tool and source of inspiration for this project. Bazely not only consulted books in the Library for her research, but she also made use of BHL’s efforts to highlight women in science on social media. Through campaigns such as Her Natural History and the hashtag #WomenInBHLib on Instagram, BHL has been diligently working to increase awareness about the role of women in natural history—something Bazely particularly appreciates.

“Within our chapter on women in Ontario’s botany and horticulture scene from 1870 to 1920, I mentioned BHL and the #WomenInBHLib hashtag on Instagram,” affirms Bazely.

Research notes along with some of the books about women in botany and science that Bazely and McPherson used for their research into women in 19th century Ontario Botany and Horticulture.

The chapter, written in collaboration with Bazely’s friend and colleague, Kathryn McPherson, Professor in the Department of History at York University, is entitled “Women, Citizen Science and Botanical Knowledge in Ontario, 1870-1920.” Given the importance of Catharine Parr Traill to Canada’s botanical legacy, it’s not surprising that she features prominently in the chapter. Bazely and McPherson relied on BHL to access copies of Traill’s work for their research.

Additionally, the chapter discusses women’s evolving participation in botany and horticulture, particularly as evidenced through the Canadian Horticulturist magazine.

“The Canadian Horticulturist reveals the fascinating history of the struggles among different factions in Ontario agriculture to access and block access to government funding,” explains Bazely. “For example, the male-dominated fruit grower’s association tried to hijack the magazine subscriptions of the horticulture community—which had more women in it—by controlling the Canadian Horticulturist magazine, but it had very little horticultural content and mainly articles on fruit growing.”

In 1879, the Canadian Horticulturist was fighting off complaints that they didn’t cover horticulture—this article discusses just that. See a copy of this volume (v. 2, 1879) in BHL, contributed by the University of Toronto – Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

The 1879 volume of Canadian Horticulturist provides a glimpse into these debates through an article drawing attention to the magazine’s pomology focus alongside an appeal to include more horticulture as a means to expand the readership base, particularly among women. The article asserts such an approach would “at once interest the ladies (a great point gained,) and they would induce their husbands to become members of the society.” A few years later, the 1881 volume shows some effects from this proposal, as color plates were incorporated in an effort to lure female readers.

This copy of the 1881 volume of the Canadian Horticulturist illustrates how the magazine continued to focus on fruit growing, but brought in colour plates to lure women readers, hoping that their husbands would become subscribers to the magazine.

Bazely and McPherson’s chapter also discusses the role of women as botanical artists, their prominence in emerging gardening and landscape businesses, and the vital role women played in the development of field guides.

“Women basically invented the genre of the modern field guide for flower ID in Canada,” asserts Bazely. “This was before they could be professional botanists.”

Photo from Julia Wilmotte Henshaw’s Mountain Wild Flowers of Canada (1906). Contributed in BHL from the New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

One such example highlighted by Bazely and McPherson is Julia Wilmotte Henshaw, author of the popular guide Mountain Wild Flowers of Canada, published in Toronto in 1906. Thanks to BHL, these important field guides and other works authored by pioneering women in science are freely available to the world.

By creating collections highlighting the publications, archival materials and illustrations of women in natural history; working to improve metadata in the Library about these women’s contributions; and through initiatives like Her Natural History, which included several citizen science events aimed at improving online information about these women, BHL is deeply invested in raising awareness about the contributions of women to science. The Library’s efforts in these areas have clearly been beneficial to Bazely and others researching the role of women in STEM. We are proud to know that BHL’s open access collections are contributing to progress towards breaking down gender barriers in the sciences and “Writing Women Back Into the History of STEM.”

The first edition of The Fishes of Illinois was published in 1908 by the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, representing several decades’ work to document species, distributions, and ecology. The work features detailed, color paintings of fishes attributed to Lydia M. (Hart) Green and Charlotte M. Pinkerton. The first edition included 55 images representing 53 species, with 20 images representing 18 additional species added for the 1920 second edition. Images were not credited to specific artists in either edition.

Large Mouthed black Bass. Forbes, S.A. and R.E. Richardson. Fishes of Illinois. 1908. Illustration by Lydia Moore (Hart) Green. Digitized in BHL by University Library, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

Most of the originals were kept by State Laboratory (now Illinois Natural History Survey) and are being reviewed in preparation for accession into the University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Artists have been identified for most color plates in the 2 editions: 33 by Green, 24 by Pinkerton. Three paintings bearing the name of Max Bihn (one published) were also found among the paintings long assumed to be the work of Green and Pinkerton alone. Green routinely applied a distinctive signature in ink to the front of her work.

Signature from Lydia Hart’s Fundulus notatus (INHS image 2181).

Lydia Moore (Hart) Green, was born in Quincy, IL in December 1864. She and Charles Arthur Hart, employed by the State Laboratory 1895-1918, were siblings. Lydia studied Art and Design at the University of Illinois during the 1887-1888 school year. Warrants listed in the Report of the Board of Trustees beginning in 1888 show Lydia was paid for tasks including “work in cabinets,” “work in museum,” “labelling specimens,” “making chart,” and “botanical drawings.” When artist A.M. Westergren left the State Laboratory in 1892, Lydia replaced him. Her illustrations appear in the Bulletin of the State Laboratory of Natural History, Reports of the State Entomologist, and elsewhere. Her 101 detailed illustrations of insects were a noted feature of the State Laboratory’s exhibit at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. She was frequently mentioned as an asset to the State Laboratory in Stephen A. Forbes’ reports to the Trustees. In 1898, Forbes secured for her a salary of $20.00 per month, or 35 cents per hour with additional pay possible if hours exceeded what the base salary would cover.

Work on illustrations for The Fishes of Illinois began in the summer of 1900.[1] Lydia worked at the Biological Station at Meredosia, where there was an aquarium set up to house her live models. Her work was supervised by the State Laboratory’s ichthyologist, Thomas Large.

In a letter to Forbes dated 30 June 1900, Lydia negotiated her pay, based on comparisons with the pay of her mentor, Westergren, and a Mr. Baldwin.

“But you know how inaccurate his drawings are—practically useless so far… It must be admitted that he was a fast worker, but his rapidity seems to have been largely the result of carelessness and was small gain in the end. In conclusion it would seem that $100 or 70c per hr. would be as low as fairness would permit and 60c the very lowest to be considered. From: Chief’s Correspondence, 1871-1909. University Archives. Series Number: 43/1/1

She was referring to A. H. Baldwin, who had received payment for fish drawings and specimens around this time. Baldwin was the illustrator of The Fishes of North and Middle America (Jordan & Evermann, 1900), which Forbes cited as a key reference for the Fishes of Illinois. Subsequent correspondence indicates Forbes was not swayed, and may have been offended.

In December 1900, Lydia traveled to Stanford University to work on illustrations for a work by Jordan on Japanese fishes, and Lydia’s illustrations are acknowledged in papers published by Jordan after this visit. Lydia wrote Forbes on 5 April 1901 from Palo Alto, sharing Jordan’s approval of her eel drawings and her observations on the speed of fellow illustrators there (Mrs. Sparks, and A. H. Baldwin). She also asked Forbes to send examples of her best work “the red fin, the garmani, and the plate of young bass for the purpose of getting criticisms from Hudson, who is expected soon.” In the same letter, she asked about resuming work on the Illinois fish, and the pay.

The blotched snake-eel (Ophichthus erabo), synonym microdonophis erabo. Jordan, D. S. A review of the apodal fishes or eels of Japan, with descriptions of nineteen new species (1901). Illustration by Lydia Moore (Hart) Green. Digitized in BHL by Smithsonian Libraries.

The guineafowl puffer or golden puffer (Arothron meleagris), synonym Tetraodon meleagris. Jordan, D. S. A review of the gymnodont fishes of Japan (1902). Illustration by Lydia Moore (Hart) Green. Digitized in BHL by Smithsonian Libraries.

On 17 June 1901 in Urbana, Lydia married entomologist E. C. Green. In August, she was at the Illinois Biological Station in Ottawa working on fish illustrations, and reported to Forbes that, at his request to reduce expenses, she has given up her room in Ottawa for a much smaller one. Forbes had apparently offered 50 cents per hour plus expenses, but by September, the agreement was adjusted to $10 per finished painting, and Lydia was asking to have her expenses covered when there were no fish available to draw. Work on the fish illustrations continued through 1907, but Lydia left in 1902 for Texas when her husband took a position at Texas A&M. By January 1902, Forbes was seeking a replacement illustrator, and had contacted Charlotte M. Pinkerton through Seth E. Meeks at the Field Museum. The Chicago Tribune published a feature on Lydia and her work on 1 June 1902 that told the story of her discovery by the artist at the State Laboratory (presumably Westergren) and gave Lydia’s endorsement of scientific illustration as “admirable for feminine students”.

Lydia Moore (Hart) Green. Freeland Tribune. (Freeland, Pa.), 11 July 1902. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. Source: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87080287/1902-07-11/ed-1/seq-4/. Image originally appeared in a feature in the Chicago Tribune, “An Illinois woman who paints insects”.

After leaving her position at the State Laboratory and Illinois, Lydia visited Urbana regularly according to reports in the Daily Illini. She returned to Urbana to live in 1917, but I did not find evidence of further work for the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History. Her husband was at this time working in Brazil on cotton insect control, and she made several extended visits there, applying for her first passport in 1918 for this purpose.

1918 passport photo of Lydia Moore Hart Green, United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925. Source: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV5B-X87G.

In 1930, Green produced fish illustrations for the Ohio Division of Wildlife. Nine years after Lydia’s death (in 1948), these images were published in Trautman, M. B. Fishes of Ohio with illustrated keys. Ohio State University Press, 1957.

[1] Stephen Alfred Forbes, report dated September 20, 1900 published in the 21^st Report of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

This year, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and our global partners celebrated Women’s History Month with an international social media campaign: Her Natural History: A Celebration of Women in Natural History.

Kicking-off with an all-day social media blitz on International Women’s Day (8 March) and continuing throughout the month with social media and blog posts, Facebook Live events, and citizen science opportunities, Her Natural History aimed to increase awareness of and information about women in the biodiversity sciences. BHL partners also collaborated to curate the Women in Natural History Book and Female Illustrators in Natural History Flickr Collections for the campaign, featuring publications, archival materials, and illustrations by female naturalists and artists. Audiences could further engage with the work of female illustrators through the Her Natural History Coloring Book.

Extending beyond the BHL consortium, the wider community was invited to participate in the campaign by using #HerNaturalHistory to share stories, collections, publications, artworks, archival materials, exhibits, and other resources highlighting women and their contributions to natural history throughout the month. #HerNaturalHistory was also the #LibrariesOfInstagram challenge topic for March.

We were delighted with the outcomes and impact of the campaign. #HerNaturalHistory reached over 7.5 million people, with over 52 million impressions on content and over 3,100 accounts participating on social media. The campaign allowed BHL to expand its reach and engagement with existing and new audiences in notable ways, resulting in a 35% average increase in overall social reach and a 41% increase in overall social engagements compared to 2018 averages. #HerNaturalHistory also encouraged increased engagement with the works of women in BHL, fostering a 122% increase in views on books in the Women in Natural History Book Collection compared to 2018 monthly averages.

From engaging with worldwide audiences to tell the stories of so many remarkable women in science to working with our community to improve information online about the contributions of women to natural history, Her Natural History was a great example of how collaborative social media campaigns can be used to engage global audiences around important cultural and scientific topics while increasing engagement with library and archival collections.

We invite you to explore the results of the campaign in-depth within the Her Natural History campaign report.

Thank you to everyone who participated in and contributed to #HerNaturalHistory. And thank you to all of the women in science — past, present, and future — who have made such incredible contributions to biodiversity research. Thank you for giving us so many wonderful stories and accomplishments to celebrate!

“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) from Selections From the Writings of Mrs. Sarah C. Edgarton Mayo: With a Memoir

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, by Miss S. C. Edgarton, 1847. Contributed in BHL from the Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

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.

Page featuring Camellia from Floral Fortune-Teller, by Miss S. C. Edgarton, 1847. Contributed in BHL from the Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

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.

Coloured Language of Flowers.

The Illustrated Language of Flowers, contributed in BHL from the Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Miniature Language of Flowers.

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.

The Illustrated Floral Text Book, by Estelle Davenport Adams, 1885. Contributed in BHL from the Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

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!

Mary Keble Grant’s The Language of Flowers Birthday Book. Contributed in BHL from the Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

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.