The Botanizers: Amateur Scientists in Nineteenth-Century America - Tapa dura

Like the botanists she studies, Keeney relishes the small details and makes them part of a larger story.Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, University of Minnesota "Like the botanists she studies, Keeney relishes the small details and makes them part of a larger story.Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, University of Minnesota" Substantial. . . . A good reminder of how much natural history has both reflected and contributed to the American psyche."Natural History"

After rising to fashion during the 1820s, botany rapidly became the most popular science in America for recreational and pedagogical purposes, and it remained tremendously popular throughout the century. Tens of thousands of enthusiasts, calling themselves "botanizers, " embraced the pastime by collecting, identifying, and preserving specimens. Elizabeth Keeney examines the role of botany in the lives of these amateur scientists and establishes the role that they in turn played in the botanical community. Using popular magazines, textbooks, letters, diaries, fiction, and autobiographies of the day, The Botanizers explores the popular culture of this avocation, which attracted both men and women. According to Keeney, amateur botanizers and trained professionals managed to maintain a spirit of cooperation and collegiality throughout most of the century. Amateurs were usually less interested in contributing to science than they were in self-improvement, religious expression, and other aspects of botanizing that were of little importance to professionals. As botany became increasingly professionalized, the goals of professionals and amateurs diverged even further, and by late century, the botanizers had rejected the new biological focus because it ignored their motivations for botanizing.