Women in the Field: America's Pioneering Women Naturalists / Edition 1

by Marcia Myers Bonta

Overview

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780890964897
Publisher:	Texas A&M University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1991
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

MARCIA MYERS BONTA has written three books and has published extensively in American Horticulturist and Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other magazines and journals. She lives in Tyrone, Pennsylvania.

Editorial Reviews

The lives of these 25 women, many of whom were born well before the turn of the century, bring to mind an old-fashioned word: gumption. Unfazed by the hazards of their chosen careers, they simply ``went at it,'' as entomologist Anna Botsford Comstock said, ``with their usual daring on untried paths,'' fueled in many cases by nothing more than an abiding curiosity about the natural world and a passion for collecting. Ynes Mexia, a ``botanical adventurer,'' traveled some 3000 miles down the Amazon in only 10 years and on one trip alone gathered 33,000 specimens. Annie Montague Alexander, whom Bonta ( Appalachian Spring ) calls ``a quintessential naturalist,'' was raised on Maui by an adventurous father who encouraged her interest in the natural world. Alexander traveled extensively in Alaska and California, and in 1947 at the age of 79, set off for Baja to collect botanical specimens. Divided into sections on naturalists, ecologists, ornithologists, botanists and entomologists, with an abbreviated biographical format, the book occasionally reads like a catalogue, making one wish for longer, more detailed studies on these remarkable women. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The 25 women profiled in this composite biography lived from the 18th to the mid-20th centuries and carried out important field studies of animals or plants in the United States and/or Central and South America. Many of the women, dismissed at first as mere dabblers, were eventually acclaimed for their contributions. Bonta, author of Appalachian Spring ( LJ 2/15/91), includes botanists, entomologists, ornithologists, and ecologists, the most famous example being Rachel Carson. She describes the personal and professional life of each woman, emphasizing their unique discoveries and publications. As 12 of the women are not included in Patricia Siegel's bio-bibliography Women in the Scientific Search (Scarecrow, 1985), this book may fill a gap in the literature of women in science and will delight readers of women's biography or natural history. Recommended for most libraries.-- Beth Clewis, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, Va.

Library Journal