|
July 31, 2002--“In Nature’s Name: An Anthology of Women’s Writing and Illustration, 1780-1930,” by Barbara Gates, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies, completes her trilogy of books on women naturalists, scientists and nature writers in the extended 19th century. The 673-page book was published recently by the University of Chicago Press.
“This field has attracted me because it combines my research on Victorian women and interest in women’s issues with my interests in natural science, wild life and conservation. These women writers have been largely unappreciated and should be recognized for their contributions—they were the pacesetters and forerunners for today’s women of science,” Gates said.
The first book, “Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science,” edited with Ann Shteir of York University in Canada, is a series of 14 essays about women science writers of the past. The second, “Kindred Name: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World,” is an overview of women and natural science, women crusaders protecting nature and the aesthetics of nature writing.
“In Nature’s Way’ is a companion anthology to “Kindred Name,” with introductory essays by Gates and primary texts by women--ranging from the experiences of women explorers to poetry, from scientific and sociological lectures and papers to stories for children. In the preface, Gates writes that what these diverse authors had “in common was an overarching desire to study, protect and represent aspects of nonhuman nature, whether wild or domestic.”
The cover illustration is “A Girl Seated on the Rocks in a Wood” by John William Inchbold, an impressionistic painting of a contemplative woman beside a rocky, tumbling brook.
Divided into seven sections, the first, entitled “Speaking Out,” is Victorian women’s rebuttal to the claim that women were by nature inferior to men. According to Mary Wollstoncraft, an 18th-century writer, Gates writes, women were culturally determined by “natural law” to be inferior and then, in turn, certified inferior by their culture.
A talk by Emma Wallington speaking on women’s physical and mental capacities, reported in Anthropologia, is an indication of the attitudes Victorian women encountered. During the discussion period after Wallington’s talk, the president of the meeting replied to her speech by asserting flatly that “intellectually women are inferior to men. Women have never attained the summit of any art or science. As artists, they are only third rate. We might naturally have expected them to have excelled in cookery; but the noble art of gastronomy is represented by the male sex only. Neither do women possess the faculty of invention.”
Another section, “Adventuring” is a compendium of writing by women explorers, such as Isabella Bird, described by Gates as “a globe-trotter of the first order,” whose explorations took her deep into the cone of a Hawaiian volcano; Louisa Anne Meredith, who wrote about Australian flora and fauna in her book “From My Home in Tasmania”; and Isabel Savory who described a tiger hunt in India.
In “Appreciating,” essays, short stories and poems are reprinted, including Christina Rossetti’s
“Where innocent bright-eyed daisies are
With blades of grass between,
Each daisy stands up like a star
Out of a sea of green.”
Marie Stopes is among the authors highlighted in the section, “Amateurs or Professionals?” Earning her doctorate from the University College in London, Stopes studied fossil plants and wrote scientific papers about her research, as well as “The Study of Plant Life for Young People” in 1906, excerpts of which are printed in the book. She then “made the leap into birth control education, a decision that nearly destroyed her,” according to Gates. Stokes, the author of “Married Love” in 1918, was “reviled for her frank and open discussions of sexuality,” Gates said.
Research for “In Nature’s Name” and “Kindred Spirit” took Gates far afield--from museums and society archives in London to Melbourne, Australia, where she was a visiting professor. She credits her graduate students for their help and Linda Stein, UD associate librarian, for her assistance.
This summer Gates, following in the tradition of some of the women authors and travelers in her books, said she plans a trip to view the wildlife and birds of Alaska and the Arctic.
Gates joined the UD faculty in 1971. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, her master’s degree from the University of Delaware and her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College.
Among her honors are the Founders Distinguished Senior Scholar Award from the American Association of University Women in 2000 and the Delaware Professor of the Year award from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1995. At UD, she has received the excellence-in-teaching award and the E.A. Trabant Award for Women’s Equity. She also served as acting director of the Women’s Studies Interdisciplinary Program in 1992.
Article by Sue Moncure
|
