I’d like to celebrate the fact that Smithsonian collections, at the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the National Anthropological Archives, contain personal papers for eight out of the first fifty women in science at the Smithsonian. Sound like my expectations are too low? Let me explain.
As women’s historians and archivists have pointed out for decades, some of our most cherished national collections obscure or erase the lives and work of women. In 1973, Eva Moseley, curator of manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe College, argued that not only had historians and writers neglected the subject of women’s history in books, but that neglect “also meant little or no space [was] given to women's papers in manuscript repositories and little or no effort to acquire these materials.” As Moseley developed these ideas in a paper at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, she further outlined one of the many abiding challenges with finding records about women in archival collections: women not believing their accomplishments merit recording in archives.
Women not believing their accomplishments worthy of recording might sound odd to some ears today. Where might that belief have come from? First of all, as Moseley points out, before the 1970s, U.S. archival institutions made “little to no effort” to acquire materials about women. That practice alone would make the donation of one’s records to a repository as a woman a notable act, one that went against the norms of archival institutions. Additionally, women in science, for example, faced other barriers to making their work visible. In the introduction to historian Margaret Rossiter’s groundbreaking book, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940, Rossiter explains that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sex stereotypes confined women to “soft, delicate, emotional, noncompetitive and nurturing kinds of feelings and behavior.” Those stereotypes were at odds with qualities associated with science in that period, “tough, rigorous, rational, impersonal, masculine, competitive, and unemotional.” As Rossiter writes, “a woman scientist was a contradiction in terms...” Under those historical conditions, it’s no wonder that some women scientists might have paused before offering records of their scientific work for posterity.
This scholarship on how gender shapes archival collections inspired me to wonder: how many of the first women in science at the Smithsonian decided that their accomplishments were worth recording?
To answer this question, I worked with my colleague Mariah Wahl, a data specialist at Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, to review how many of the first fifty women in science at the Smithsonian have personal papers in an archival collection.
For years now we’ve been creating a structured data set about women in science at the Smithsonian called the “Funk List” in honor of botanist Dr. Vicki Funk, so we have a good idea of how many women worked in the sciences at the Smithsonian since its founding, who they were, and where they appear in our collections.
Why did we focus on personal papers? Archives contain different types of collections. The Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) collects and preserves records relating to the history of the Smithsonian Institution, which includes both institutional records and personal papers.
- Institutional records include annual reports and departmental records, for example, that are accessioned on a standardized, ongoing basis across the Smithsonian. These records tell us who worked at the Smithsonian, what happened in a given year, or what exhibitions and collections a particular department created. In many instances some personal correspondence or records relating to staff’s personal lives can be found mixed into these collections.
- Personal papers include personal correspondence and journals, for example, and they are donated by individuals on a voluntary basis. That last part is a key distinction: personal papers are kept, organized, and donated by an individual themself or their family and friends. In the case of personal papers, someone actively decides that their life is worthy of documentation in its own right.
The careers of the first fifty women in science span 1879 to 1978, but all of them started at the Smithsonian by the early twentieth century. In that period, with all of the barriers that women faced in the sciences, it’s remarkable that beyond their professional achievements, these women made sure their lives and careers were documented for future generations. See this article for more context on how women in science were often treated as oddities rather than experts.
Click on the names below to learn more about the women in science who created collections of personal papers:
Matilda Coxe Stevenson (1849-1915)
Anthropologist, Bureau of American Ethnology from 1879 to 1915
Mary Jane Rathbun (1860-1943)
Invertebrate zoologist, National Museum of Natural History from 1886 to 1940
Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923)
Anthropologist, Bureau of American Ethnology from 1897 to 1918 ca.
Frances Densmore (1867-1957)
Ethnomusicologist, Bureau of American Ethnology from 1907-1957
Julia Anna Gardner (1882-1960)
Geologist, United States Geological Survey from 1915 to ca. 1952
Doris Mable Cochran (1898-1968)
Vertebrate zoologist, National Museum of Natural History from 1919 to 1968
Doris Holmes Blake (1892-1978)
Entomologist, National Museum of Natural History from ca. 1928 to 1978
Marion Stirling Pugh (1911-2001)
Archaeologist, National Museum of Natural History from 1931 to ca. 1971
In our analysis, we found that eight women or 16% of the first fifty women in science at the Smithsonian have personal papers in an archival collection. These scientists share many characteristics that make it unsurprising that they have personal papers. For example, they all worked at the Smithsonian for over twenty years. The average employment length for these eight scientists was 42 years, in fact. Additionally, all of these women published their research and were members of professional societies.
It’s important to note, though, that other individuals included in the first fifty women in science also shared some of these characteristics but do not have personal papers. For example, botanical illustrator Mary Vaux Walcott has family papers but no personal papers, despite her 26 years of contributions. Zoologist and curator Viola Shelly Schantz has no personal papers despite her 43 years at the Smithsonian. And invertebrate zoologist Harriet Richardson Searle has no papers despite publishing more than many of her peers.
In the coming months, we’ll be digging into these personal papers more. Eventually, we’ll share our findings in a web exhibition. Stay tuned!
Related Resources
- Eva Moseley, “Women in Archives: Documenting the History of Women in America,” The American Archivist 36, no. 2 (April 1973): 215-222.
- Sara E. Cohen, “Using Data Science to Uncover the Work of Women in Science,” Smithsonian Magazine
- Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.
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