Collecting with “botanical friends”: Four Women in Colonial Quebec and Newfoundland
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. Letters that Christian Ramsay (La...
| Published in: | Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
CSTHA/AHSTC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1056314ar https://doi.org/10.7202/1056314ar |
| Summary: | 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. Letters that Christian Ramsay (Lady Dalhousie), Anne Mary Perceval, Harriet Sheppard, and Mary 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 letters are a record of work by women in botanical discovery. 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. Parmi plus de 120 collaborateurs au projet de Flora Boreali-Americana (1829-1840) du botaniste William Jackson Hooker figurent quatre femmes de l’élite coloniale britannique de Québec et de Terre-Neuve, collaboratrices au projet de flore de l’Amérique du Nord britannique. La correspondance de Christian Ramsay (Lady Dalhousie), Anne Mary Perceval, Harriet Sheppard et Mary Brenton avec Hooker durant les années 1820 et 1830, illustre bien leur intérêt à récolter des plantes du Canada — orchidées indigènes, fougères et plantes introduites et de tourbières — et leur zèle à transmettre leurs connaissances et leurs trouvailles à leurs amis et au-delà des frontières. Ces lettres, combinées aux autres documents d’archives maintenant disponibles, témoignent de la contribution de ces femmes à la découverte botanique. Tout en révélant les amitiés, les réseaux et les pratiques sociales et culturelles de ces femmes au projet de Hooker, cette correspondance unique élargit et enrichit l’histoire des sciences au Canada. |
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