American women of letters and the nineteenth-century sciences : styles of affiliation
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
American women of letters and the nineteenth-century sciences : styles of affiliation
Rutgers University Press, c2002
- : cloth
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: cloth ISBN 9780813529844
Description
During the nineteenth century, the content and institutional organization of the sciences evolved dramatically, altering the public's understanding of knowledge. As science grew in importance, many women of letters tried to incorporate it into a female worldview. In her new book, Nina Baym explores the responses to science displayed in a range of writings by American women. Conceding that they could not become scientists, women insisted, however, that they were capable of understanding science and participating in its discourse. They used their access to publishing to advocate the study and transmission of scientific information to the general public. Baym's book includes biographies and a full exploration of these women's works.
Among those considered are: * Almira Phelps, author of Familiar Lectures on Botany (it sold 350,000 copies) * Sarah Hale, who filled Godey's Lady's Book with science articles * Catharine Esther Beecher, who based her domestic advice on scientific information * Susan Fenimore Cooper, who promoted scientific literacy as necessary for living a civilized life * Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the actual ghostwriter of her husband's popular science essays, and * Emily Dickinson, whose poetry is replete with scientific images. Baym also investigates science in women's novels, writing by and about women doctors, and the scientific claims advanced by women's spiritualist movements. This book truly breaks new ground, outlining a field of inquiry that few have noted exists.
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780813529851
Description
Winner of the 2000 Hubbell Award from the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association of America
Choice Outstanding Academic Title
During the nineteenth century, the content and institutional organization of the sciences evolved dramatically, altering the public's understanding of knowledge. As science grew in importance, many women of letters tried to incorporate it into a female worldview. Nina Baym explores the responses to science displayed in a range of writings by American women. Conceding that they could not become scientists, women insisted, however, that they were capable of understanding science and participating in its discourse. They used their access to publishing to advocate the study and transmission of scientific information to the general public.
Bayms book includes biographies and a full exploration of these women's works. Among those considered are:
* Almira Phelps, author of Familiar Lectures on Botany (it sold 350,000 copies)
* Sarah Hale, who filled Godey's Lady's Book with science articles
* Catharine Esther Beecher, who based her domestic advice on scientific information
* Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the actual ghostwriter of her husband's popular science essays
* Emily Dickinson, whose poetry is replete with scientific images.
Baym also investigates science in women's novels, writing by and about women doctors, and the scientific claims advanced by women's spiritualist movements. This book truly breaks new ground, outlining a field of inquiry that few have noted exists.
Table of Contents
Print and women's scientific affiliations
Almira Phelps and the discipline of botany
Sarah Hale and the circulation of science
Catharine Esther Beecher and the sciences of home
Susan Fenimore Cooper and ladies' science
Elizabeth Cary Agassiz and heroic science
Testing scientific limits: Emma Willard and Maria Mitchell
Emily Dickinson and scientific skepticism
The sciences in women's novels
Women of letters and medical science
Spiritual science
by "Nielsen BookData"