Collecting with 'botanical friends' : Four Women in Colonial Quebec and Newfoundland

Type of resource
Authors/collaborators
Title
Collecting with 'botanical friends' : Four Women in Colonial Quebec and Newfoundland
Abstract
The authors note that four women from the British colonial elite in Quebec and Newfoundland were among the more than 120 contributors to William Jackson Hooker’s Flora Boreali-Americana (1829-40), an imperial project to assemble information about plants from across British North America. The authors point out that the letters that Quebecers Christian Ramsay (1786-1839), Anne Mary Perceval (1790-1876), Harriet Sheppard (1786-1858), and Newfoundlander Mary E. Brenton wrote to Hooker during the 1820s and 1830s show their interest in collecting Canadian plants — native orchids, ferns, weeds, bog plants — as well as their zeal for sharing knowledge and communicating their findings among friends and across borders. Along with other archival materials now available, the authors explain that the letters are a record of work by women in botanical discovery. They argue that by making visible the friendships, networks, and social and cultural practices that brought the women into Hooker’s project, the letters enlarge and enrich the history of science in Canada.
Publication
Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine / Scientia Canadensis: revue canadienne d'histoire des sciences, des techniques et de la médecine
Volume
Vol. 41
Issue
no. 1
Pages
1-30
Date
2019
Language
en
URL
Citation
Shteir, Ann, and Jacques Cayouette. “Collecting with ’botanical Friends’ : Four Women in Colonial Quebec and Newfoundland.” Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine / Scientia Canadensis: revue canadienne d’histoire des sciences, des techniques et de la médecine Vol. 41, no. 1 (2019): 1–30. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/scientia/2019-v41-n1-scientia04318/1056314ar.pdf.
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