ABSTRACT
The Age of Discovery carried forward the thinking of the Age of Enlightenment by emphasizing reasoning and individualism, but women were still considered a distraction to male scholarly pursuits. The story of women field biologists proceeded in fits and starts. The field of botany followed Rousseau’s opinion and was heavily represented early, while other fields such as anthropology and archeology had to wait until the twentieth century. In this noise, however, there can be detected enough of a signal to create a framework of understanding. During the Age of Discovery, women interested in field biology were scattered and isolated both geographically and temporally. Eventually they would become collegial in a process that was at first gradual and then accelerated following the formation of women’s schools and colleges. As women were recruited as faculty, women began influencing women. To illustrate these processes we profile the Europeans Maria Sibylla Merian, Catharina Helena Dörrien, Jeanne Baret, Jeanne Villepreux-Power, Elisabeth Christina von Linné, Marie-Anne Libert, Anna Atkins, Elizabeth Andrew Warren, Anna Worsley Russell, Marianne North, Mary Anning, Eleanor Ann Ormerod, Ellen Hutchins, Elisabetta Fiorini Massanti, Olga Fedchenko and Amalie Dietrich, and the Americans Martha Daniell Logan, Jane Colden, Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, Susan Fenimore Cooper, Graceanna Lewis, Elizabeth (Cary) Agassiz, Mary Treat, Martha (Dartt) Maxwell, and Catherine Furbish.
