The botanizers: amateur scientists in nineteenth-century America

428 Pages·1992·1.85 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Keeney

The Botanizers
Amateur Scientists in Nineteenth-Century America
Elizabeth B. Keeney
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill & London

The Botanizers : Amateur Scientists in
title:
Nineteenth-century America
author: Keeney, Elizabeth.
publisher: University of North Carolina Press
isbn10 | asin: 0807820466
print isbn13: 9780807820469
ebook isbn13: 9780807862391
language: English
Botanizers--United States--History--19th
subject century, Botany--United States--History-
-19th century.
publication date: 1992
lcc: QK46.5.B66K44 1992eb
ddc: 581/.0973/09034
Botanizers--United States--History--19th
subject: century, Botany--United States--History-
-19th century.
© 1992 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for performance and
durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book
Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
96 95 94 93 92 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Keeney, Elizabeth
The botanizers: amateur scientists in nineteenth-century
America / by Elizabeth B. Keeney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8078-2046-6 (cloth: alk. paper).
1. BotanizersUnited StatesHistory19th century.
2. BotanyUnited StatesHistory19th century. I. Title.
QK46.5.B66K44 1992
581'.0973'09034dc20 92-5022
"Botanizing" (Frontispiece from William Whitman Bailey,
Botanizing: A Guide to Field Collecting and Herbarium Work,
1899)
In memory of Will Humphreys:
teacher, mentor, and friend
Contents
Acknowledgments, xi
Introduction, 1
1 Botanizing, 9
2 Information Networks in the Botanical Community, 22
3 Botanizing and Self-Improvement, 38
4 Children, Education, and Amateur Botany, 51
5 Gender and Botany, 69
6 Botanizing and the Invention of Leisure, 83
7 Natural Theology and Amateur Botany, 99
8 Botany and the Rhetoric of Utility, 112
9 The Triumph of Professionalization, 123
10The Nature-Study Movement: The Legacy of Amateur 135
Botany,
Conclusion, 146
Notes, 151
Bibliography, 171
Index, 197
Illustrations
"Botanizing" frontispiece
William Whitman Bailey 17
Josselyn Botanical Society, 1896 28
"How Plants Grow" 40
"Uncle Philip Talking to the Boys" 53
"The Passion Flower" 73
"What Ye Got Now?" 87
"And God Saw That It Was Good" 102
"The Farmer and the Class in Botany" 115
Syracuse Botanical Club, 1915 127
"The Fields and Forests" 144
Page xi
Acknowledgments
Like most books, this one owes its completion to many people. In the
course of its evolution it has been toucheddirectly and indirectlyby an
extraordinary number of hands.
Special thanks are due to Ronald L. Numbers who guided me toward
the topic. My first crack at writing on the subject occurred in Daniel
Rodgers's graduate seminar at the University of Wisconsin, where he
and my fellow students provided invaluable feedback at a critical
stage. Nathan Reingold and the Smithsonian Institution provided a
year of research and thinking that enriched the project immensely.
Carl Kaestle, the late William Coleman, Margaret Rossiter, Michele
Aldrich, Barbara Melosh, Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, and David Allen
all read and commented helpfully on part or all of one or more
versions. Mark Barrow provided especially helpful comments and
reassurance in the final stages. A. Hunter Dupree treated me like a
colleague long before I had earned that, for which I am most
appreciative. My colleagues in the History of Science Department at
Harvard, most especially Everett Mendelsohn, listened patiently to
pieces of this work.
During the revision of this work a number of friends provided
invaluable moral support. Fred Jewett, Hank Moses, Jeff Wolcowitz,
and my fellow Allston Burr Senior Tutors made my work days (and
nights and weekends) as enriching as our students made them
exciting. Susan Repetto, Dianne Weinstein, Catalina Arboleda,
JoAnne Brown, Dwight Reynolds, Michael Engh, S.J., and John
Warner all provided encouragement at critical points. The Usual
Suspects Book Group (especially Karen Heath) nourished my mind
and restored my spirits on a regular basis. My new friends and
colleagues at Kenyon College have borne my obsessive discussion of
revision during my first months here with remarkable tolerance and
good humor. Lewis Bateman and Pamela Upton at the University of
North Carolina Press have been extremely helpful.
Finally, I want to acknowledge a special debt. Because I am learning
disabled, I am particularly grateful for having had more than my fair
share of very good teachers. Will Humphreys, to
Page xii
whose memory this book is dedicated, was my teacher at The
Evergreen State College before he became my mentor and friend. Will
encouraged my interest in the history of science. More important, he
believed in me so strongly that I began to believe in myself, without
which no degree of compensation and mastery would have been worth
much.
The Botanizers