ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores how Carolyn Merchant helped to shape both author's feminist consciousness and author's sense of herself as an academic, both leading ultimately to position as a full professor and department chair. The sophistication of Carolyn’s intellect makes her work especially appealing to scholars not only in this country, but throughout the world, as evidenced by the number of her works translated into multiple languages. Carolyn’s recognition of the link between the exploitation of nature and the subordination of women deepened my thinking as both a scholar of American women’s history and as an environmental historian, and challenged me to explore the intersections of those two fields. Carolyn’s disciples are legion and we all are profoundly grateful for the breadth and depth of her work. It is a thrill to watch the ongoing ripple effect of her thinking on the field she has been so central in creating—to watch her important legacy unfold in my own life.
