19th Century Botany As Balm
19th century lady naturalist, abolitionist, early female scientist and educator Almira Phelps, you "published several popular science textbooks in the fields of botany, chemisty, and geology" and today I just like your profile. Your chin has pluck. We live in troubled times. That thing in your hair Victorian mantilla comb says, Yep. So? Go forth anyway. Forget thoughts and prayers. Science. Education. The arts.
 | |
|
Phelps died in Baltimore in 1884. "In 1841 she came to Ellicott's Mills, where she accepted a position as principal of the Patapsco Female Institute a post she held for 15 years before retiring in 1856...The institute offered academic courses in history, geography, literature, languages, mathematics, sciences, and the arts." These Maryland connections (and her extraordinary do-goodness) makes me want to cosplay her in my spangled with stars Education Is The Answer cape and tights. But that would be historically inaccurate.
 |
| Phelps probably didn't truck with cosplay or historical costuming. She was working in the 1840s. |
But I do. I truck. Am I working? For my heroines, the women of Victorian science I will put on whatever on my head. Like Phelps' (above)
 |
| C'est moi for early 19th-century women in science. |
Photo credits:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/AHLPportrait.jpg
http://www.huntbotanical.org/OrderFromChaos/OFC-Pages/03The%20Linnaean%20inheritance/legacy.shtml
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/find-a-grave-prod/photos/2009/204/35496131_124845629819.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Paintings_by_Frederic_Leighton#/media/File:Amarilla_Leighton.jpg
Comments
Post a Comment