"Wild Women: The Botanical Artists of Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century Wildflower Field Guides in North America"
Between 1887 and 1916, thirteen wildflower field guides written and illustrated by women were published in North America. The artists who published their work in these books were Emma Homan Thayer, Elsie Louise Shaw, Marion Satterlee, Margaret Christine Whiting, Ellen Miller, Margaret Warriner Buck, Marian Ellis Rowan, Julia Wilmotte Henshaw, Margaret Armstrong, Emma Graham Clock, Mary Keffer, Eloise Payne Luquer, and Edith Schwartz Clements.
Popular field guides, in all areas of nature study, emerged in the late nineteenth century as a product of the increasing mechanization of book production, which resulted in more affordable volumes, combined with the popular interest in studying the natural world, which required manuals for identification. Field guides are distinguished from traditional Floras and monographs, which are more technical and more appropriate for use by scientists; they also differentiate from florilegia, in which there is minimal or nonexistent text, focusing instead on the beauty of the plants. A field guide, on the other hand, is “a book . . . that informs about plants in the field by facilitating identification of, and usually supplying subsidiary information about, a particular group of plants. “In the field” means in life, e.g. living plants in the forest or in the park.” (The Virtual Field Herbarium).
The popularity of wildflower field guides in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries allowed these artists an avenue through which to pursue their scientific and artistic goals. Current concerns about the loss of biodiversity could create a fertile climate for an appreciation of their art in our time.
"Wild Women" was written under the advisement of Professor Thomas E. Crow and was also read by Professor Margaret Holben Ellis. It was passed with distinction in the Spring of 2016.
The titles:
1. Thayer, Wild flowers of the Pacific coast, 1887.
2. Thayer, Wild flowers of the Rocky Mountains, 1887.
3. Parsons, How to know the wild flowers, 1893.
4. Miller and Whiting, Wild flowers of the north-eastern states, 1895.
5. Parsons, The wild flowers of California, 1897.
6. Lounsberry, A guide to the wild flowers, 1899.
7. Lounsberry, Southern wild flowers and trees, 1901.
8. Henshaw, Mountain wild flowers of America, 1906.
9. Henshaw, Wild flowers of the North American mountains, 1915.
10. Armstrong, Field book of western wild flowers, 1915.
11. Clock, Wild flowers from the mountains cañons and valleys of California, 1915.
12. Keeler, Our early wild flowers, 1916.
13. Clements, Flowers of mountain and plain, 1916.