Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science: Flora's Daughters and Botany in England, 1760 to 1860

by Ann B. Shteir

"In Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, Shteir weaves intriguing biographies of women botanists into her intricate account of Victorian culture, science, and society. This elegant book is essential reading for anyone interested in plants and science." -- Londa Schiebinger, Nature In Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, Ann B. Shteir explores the contributions of women to the field of botany before and after the dawn of the Victorian Age. She shows how ideas during the eighteenth century about botany as a leisure activity for self-improvement and a "feminine" pursuit gave women unprecedented opportunities to publish their findings and views. By the 1830s, however, botany came to be regarded as a professional activity for specialists and experts -- and women's contributions to the field of botany as authors and teachers were viewed as problematic. Shteir focuses on John Lindley, whose determination to form distinctions between polite botany -- what he called "amusement for the ladies" -- and botanical science -- "an occupation for the serious thoughts of man" -- illustrates how the contributions of women were minimized in the social history of science. Despite such efforts, women continued to participate avidly in botanical activities at home and abroad, especially by writing for other women, children, and general readers. At a time of great interest in the role of women in science, this absorbing, interdisciplinary book provides a new perspective on gender issues in the history of science. Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science rediscovers the resourceful women who used their pens for their own social, economic, and intellectual purposes. "Her lively assortment of women speaks to the diversity of a scientific world in some ways more pervasive of everyday society than our own, and... a complex ecology of women in science."--Abigail Lustig, William and Mary Quarterly "Shteir's book bears reading and rereading, not merely because it is filled with a wide array of detail, but because it attempts to suggest a texture of women's lives in the nineteenth century that is far too poorly known."--Alan Rauch, Nineteenth Century Studies

Genres: History, 19th Century, 18th Century, British Literature, Science

296 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1996

Reviews

[Pavlogreen]

Hay momentos un poco densos en este repaso histórico, pero por lo demás es un tratado divertido, profundo y muy instructivo sobre la botánica británica de los siglos XVIII y XIX y sobre todo un análisis muy certero de cómo esta ciencia se transformó y al hacerlo dejó de lado a las mujeres, que que quedaron durante décadas alejadas de la botánica seria y "científica". También pone de manifiesto los cambios en la expresión y la investigación científica y cómo se impuso el formato neutro y literariamente pobre del artículo científico frente a los diálogos, las novelas o los poemas, que también eran parte de la producción botánica de la época.

En síntesis, es una obra muy importante para entender sin llamarse a sensacionalismos cómo la ciecia está entroncada en lo social y cómo eso influye en el conocimiento que tenemos sobre algo tan aparentemente neutro cómo las plantas.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic and still exceptional feminist reading of the history of botany.