Material Culture of Early Women in Science: The Fountain Pen

Lady naturalists' ink. What did late 19th-century lady naturalists and early women in science write with? Mary Elizabeth Banning, the Victorian-era mycologist I've been researching: would she have had a fountain pen? Would it have satisfied her as the above ad suggests? Oh, advertising, you have always been thus.

There was a rush to make pens in the late 1800s. Lewis E. Waterman of the now famous Waterman pen company patented his fountain pen in 1884.  The advertisement, at top, is ca. 1910. (Note the big Gibson girl hair and portrait hat; Edwardian era give-aways, I'm learning.)

Previously women scientists in the field would have had to use a dip pen and ink well. Messy! Less messy? the first Watermans had to be filled with an eyedropper. I would have drawn you a lush botanical print as you would expect of a Victorian lady botanist, but my fucking pen...

[A learning secret: don't take notes with a laptop.]

[This Victorian Life outlines her writing tools.]

[A brief history of writing.]

I have no way of knowing what now vintage fountain pen Banning might have used, it's material culture of women in science lost to history, but please give me creative license because in 2014 the Japanese store  Kingdom Note came out with a series of inks made from mushrooms, so let's say it was this one: