Book signing April 14

Professor examines 19th-century women as scientists, naturalists and nature writers

The cover portrays a woman intent on her task of studying and drawing from nature. The painting by William Holman Hunt embodies the underlying themes of Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World, a new book by Barbara Gates, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies.

A celebration of women naturalists, scientists and nature writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the book contains many illustrations and combines Gates' scholarly research in the Victorian period, her interest in women's issues and her avocations of bird watching, nature study and animal advocacy.

The book is divided into three parts--women and natural science, women crusaders protecting nature and the aesthetics of nature writing.

From worldwide travelers and recorders of nature to members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, from meticulous botanists to country gardeners, the women in the book "participated in conceptualizing, describing, representing and preserving the natural world of their time," Gates writes. This activity took place in spite of the fact that women in the 19th century were denied educational and professional opportunities and recognition.

In the latter part of the century, however, women began to "redefine themselves politically and economically by seeking the vote and right to work," Gates writes, and also became "active in describing other species and in protecting animals...."

Researching the book was a challenge as there were few records about many of the women naturalists. For example, Gates said, as she leafed through botanical drawings of the period at the British Museum Library, she discovered that many of the works were done by women, but there was no information available about the artists.

In another instance, several years ago, Gates was searching for the journal left by Emily Shore, an observer and writer about birds. Shore died at the age of 19, and her journal was left to the British Museum Library but had vanished. "I wrote to every Shore in the London telephone book asking if they had any knowledge of the journal but no one did," she recalled. "However, the journal then surfaced and was put up for sale, but I will never know whether my inquiries precipitated its appearance."

The good news was that the University of Delaware Library purchased the 12 volumes, and Gates edited The Journal of Emily Shore, which was published in 1991 and is a basis of the entry about her in Kindred Nature.

Other women were better known, such as Beatrix Potter, whose animal stories and illustrations are as fresh today as when she created them. Gates, however, also looked at Potter's important scientific contributions as a mycologist, when Potter gathered and studies fungi in Perthshire and the Lake District.

Potter produced more than 300 detailed scientific drawings of fungi and began a series of original experiments, but when she approached Kew Gardens with her work, it was rejected. A paper on Potter's work was finally presented before the Linnean Society, a natural-history professional organization, but it was delivered by a man since women not only were excluded from membership but also were not permitted to read before the group.

One woman, Marianne North, whom Gates described as an "inveterate self-financed traveler and botanical artist who traversed the globe in search of subjects for her art," assured her own immortality by building a gallery in Kew Gardens for her 832 paintings. She collected thousands of plants for Kew Gardens and discovered five new species that were later named for her.

These women and others like them "helped pave the way for one of the most influential women of our century, Rachel Carson,'' Gates writes. Her work encapsulates the "three traditions in women's writing featured in Kindred Nature--popularization of science, crusading on behalf of endangered species and writing from an ecological perspective."

Gates credits several students in the Undergraduate Research Program at UD and graduate students Sara Triller and Rebecca Jaroff, for tracking down information and pieces of the puzzle about the early women naturalists and writers.

A graduate of Northwestern University, Gates received her master's degree from the University of Delaware and her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College. She has received the E. Arthur Trabant Award for Promoting Equity at the University and was named CASE Professor of the Year in 1995.

Other books written by Gates include Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories; Critical Essays on Charlotte Bronte; and, with Ann Shteir, Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science.

Barbara Gates, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English, will have a book signing of Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World, at noon, Wednesday, April 14, at the University Bookstore in the Perkins Student Center.

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