Cultivating women, cultivating science

An exploration of the contributions of women to the field of botany before and after the dawn of the Victorian Age. Ann B. Shteir shows how early ideas about botany as a leisure activity for self-improvement and a "feminine" pursuit gave women unprecedented opportunities to publish their findings and views in both scientific and amateur periodicals. By the 1830s, however, botany came to be regarded as a professional activity for specialists and experts - and women's contributions to the field of botany as authors and teachers were viewed as problematic. Shteir focuses on John Lindley, whose determination to form distinctions between polite botany - what he called "amusement for the ladies" - and botanical science - "an occupation for the serious thoughts of man" - illustrates how the contributions of women were minimized in the social history of science. Despite the efforts of Lindley and others, women continued to participate avidly in botanical activities at home and abroad, and proceeded to write for other women, children and general readers.