Challenging Science as Usual: Women's Participation in American Natural History Museum Work, 1870-1950
Close
Download IIIF ManifestRequest permissionsDownload image PrintID:
Creator: Madsen-Brooks, Leslie
Form/Genre:
Date: Summer 2009
Citation: Journal of Women's History Vol. 21, No. 2 (Journal)
Discusses women scientists' attempts to challenge American science from within, to democratize it by making scientific knowledge accessible and its practice comprehensible to a broad audience. Author argues that natural history museums were important locations for understanding both the opportunities for and the barriers to women's professional engagement with the public understanding of natural science in the United States. From a feminist standpoint, explores the work of Martha Maxwell, taxidermist whose work was displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition; Mary Jane Rathbun, carcinologist or crab specialist at the U.S. National Museum; Agnes Chase, botanist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture stationed at the Smithsonian's U.S. National Herbarium; and botanist Alice Eastwood, who worked at the Academy of
Smithsonian History Bibliography
Journal of Women's History Vol. 21, No. 2 (Journal)
Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu
Summer 2009
United States
Number of pages: 29; Page numbers: 11-38