Living History Victorian Science

I'm going to spend the month of September dressed in early women in science Victorian dresses? Foraging for mushrooms? As a #hisSTEM #sciart performance? This is out of character! I'm a researcher, stay-at-home, doormouse.

Naturally I am a very shy person, typecast in the 4th grade as the Cowardly Lion, but, yes, for Mary Elizabeth Banning, and the other "lost" lady naturalists of the 19th-century, I am going out on a limb.

The bold can-do of 19th-century science's lady naturalists gives me bold-can do. Doormouse out of doors. Also, I want to wear my hair under something because I'm sick of trying to 'do it. It never looks right. Ginormous hat? Yes, I got that memo.

No one is even thinking about my hair.

I will be in something not Maggie-Smith-fierceness-in-Downton-Abbey, but more like the dress at top, a French cotton Victorian work dress from 1860. And boots. And a shawl. Because shawls and wraps in 19th-century art, literature, and fashion history.

Join me on the trails botanizing in a bustle at Lake Roland, Baltimoreans!