Description
Book SynopsisThis collection employs biography, botanical data, herbaria specimens, archival sources, letters, institutional records, book history, and artwork to reconstruct plant work by figures ranging from elite women involved in imperial botanical projects in British North America to settler-colonial women in mid- and late-century Ontario and Australia.
Trade Review“Refreshingly interdisciplinary, Flora’s Fieldworkers is replete with new information and insights, even on known figures like Dalhousie and Traill. The volume offers innovative perspectives on women’s involvement in botany and plant culture, making strides in the historiography on science in Canada and the fields of women, gender, and science.” Donald L. Opitz, DePaul University
“[Flora’s Fieldworkers] challenges the equation of ‘amateur’ with ‘unskilled’ and ‘insignificant’ and brings women botanists out of the shadows, giving their rigorous investigations the scientific credibility they deserve. This fascinating gathering of academic essays shows women collectors as astute observers and appreciators of plants in the wild.” Literary Review of Canada
“Flora’s Fieldworkers is a richly stimulating collection of studies looking at specific 19th-century Canadian (and Australian) women from a wide variety of situations who were engaged with the plant world in a wide variety of ways, and often under- or even unappreciated. It provides welcome views into Canadian botanical, cultural, and social history.” Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries
“Flora’s Fieldworkers is an ambitious collection of new scholarship on women’s botanical labor in nineteenth century Canada. Excitingly interdisciplinary and broadly accessible, this new volume is a significant contribution to the study of gender, identity, and class in early histories of women and science.” Isis
