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History from below uncovers overlooked protagonists contributing to (inter)national endeavour often against considerable odds. Mrs T. Edward Bowdich then Mrs R. Lee (1791–1856) is indicative. When women allegedly cannot participate in early nineteenth-century scientific exploration, discovery and publication, Sarah’s multiple specialist contributions to French and British natural history have attracted no book-length study. This first appraisal of Sarah’s unbroken production of discipline-changing scientific work over three decades – in modern ichthyology, in historical geography of West Africa and in the next-generational dissemination of expert scientific knowledge – does more than fill this gap. The book also pivotally investigates the intercultural, interdisciplinary and multi-genre reach of Sarah’s pioneering perspectives and contributions, and how she could achieve her work independently in her own name(s) over three decades. Sarah’s larger significance is then to provide a very different narrative for women at work in expert nineteenth-century natural history-making. By everywhere challenging the secondary, minor and domestic frames for women’s contributions of the period, the pioneering perspectives of Sarah’s story also provide alternative paradigms to the ‘leaky-pipeline’ modelstill informing women’s careers and work in STEM(M) today.
The British Society for Literature and Science
“This is a nuanced and original account of a neglected figure, and a highly stimulating exploration of the communication and wider understanding of the natural sciences in the nineteenth century and afterwards. By means of careful scholarly detection, Orr’s rich, multi-layered interpretation of Bowdich’s work and significance places this woman of science in her rightful place and makes, thereby, a substantial contribution to our understanding of nineteenth century science, history and culture.” -- David Brown, Professor of Modern History, University of Southampton.
“This study of the British natural historian Sarah Bowdich Lee is a formidable scholarly achievement. It pays significant critical attention to the multifaceted contribution she made to nineteenth-century explorative science and it responds to an urgent need in various intersecting fields – history of science, literary studies and women’s studies – to investigate how women looked beyond national frameworks to advance scientific endeavour.” -- Alison E. Martin, Professor of British Studies, JGU Mainz/Germersheim, Germany.
“Mary Orr’s meticulously-researched book recovers Sarah Bowdich Lee’s pioneering contributions to science over three decades, across continents and despite the challenges and barriers Bowdich faced as a woman, a mother and a widow. This book will become the standard reference on Bowdich Lee and, equally importantly, prompt readers to re-evaluate women’s scientific work in this period. -- Patience Schell, University of Aberdeen.
“Mary Orr’s book is a magnificent study of the fascinating author and natural historian Sarah Bowditch Lee. Pursuing her in the archives and through her extensive travels in West Africa, Bowditch Lee is returned to her rightful place in history and science. Extensive appendices demonstrate the number and range and significance of her publications. This book is an impressive undertaking, accomplished with elegance and spirit.” -- Sharon Ruston, Professor, Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, Lancaster University.
“What will she do now?” Sarah Bowdich Lee’s wonderfully non-conformist life as a traveller, naturalist, author, and illustrator subverts many of our expectations. In a ground-breaking biography, Mary Orr offers a rousing story that will interest all who care about inclusivity in STEMM while also causing historians to re-examine their understanding of the people and practices of nineteenth century science. -- Jonathan R. Topham, Professor of History of Science, University of Leeds.
The book is likely to become a important resource and reference-work, that can be mined productively both by researchers looking specifically at women’s participation in early nineteenth-century science and also by scholars concerned more broadly with the development of, and connections between, French and British science in this period. -- The British Society for Literature and Science
The extraordinary achievements of Bowdich Lee and the significance of her work emerge through Orr’s contextual understanding of several disciplines; the traditional barriers between science and the humanities in history are dismantled in this rich biography. —French Studies
Orr’s insightful approach to Sarah Bowdich Lee’s numerous productions illuminates the role many nineteenth-century women played in the field of natural history, recalling the many stories which still need to be uncovered through inter- and pluri-disciplinary methodologies. Her fascinating inquiry into one woman’s scientific endeavour appears, therefore, as a call for renewed study of others, and will be of much interest to all scholars interested in nineteenth-century history of science, art history and gender studies. —Miranda
"Orr brilliantly demonstrates that Sarah Bowdich Lee engaged with the science of her time—“canvassing” Cuvier and “harnessing” Humboldt—and also crafted hybrid narrative forms to convey her observations […] This fine study adds to previous scholarship that recuperates women’s contributions to science, such as Pnina G. Abir-Am and Dorinda Outram’s Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women in Science 1789–1979 (1987)".—Nineteenth-Century French Studies
The book challenges historians of science to reassess the definition of science and the still gendered and racialized view of its history. —Modern Language Review
Mary Orr’s new book on Sarah Bowdich Lee presents a hefty and valuable addition to our growing understanding and appreciation of the history of women in science. [...] The scholarship undergirding this book is immense. —H-France Review
Mary Orr is the Buchanan Chair of French at the University of St Andrews. Her specialist research in nineteenth-century French studies connects its literatures, histories and cultures, and includesthe natural and earth sciences in their ambit.
‘Mrs Sarah’, 1824: Introduction to Standout Women in Comparative Natural History; Part One: Canvassing Cuvier, Chapter One: AFirst Natural History of the Fishes of West Africa in the Excursions dans les Isles de Madère et de Porto Santo (1826); Chapter Two: A First Natural History of Fishes Illustrated from the Life in The Fresh-Water Fishes of Great Britain (1828–38); Chapter Three: A First Scientific Biography ‘from a Woman’s Pen’: The Memoirs of Baron Cuvier (1833); Part Two: Harnessing Humboldt, Chapter Four: A First (Plant) Geography of the Gambia: Excursions in Madeira and Porto Santo (1825); Chapter Five: A Foremost (Woman) Explorer’s First-Hand ‘Notes’: Stories of Strange Lands and Fragments from the Notes of a Traveller (1835); Chapter Six: A Refit for Larger Scientific Purpose? Pioneering Natural History Fiction Abroad and at Home in The African Wanderers (1837); Part Three: Opening Access to Expert Natural History, Chapter Seven: Scientific Illustration Second to None: Doubly Expert Pen and Ink, and the Foremost Uses of (Water) Colour; Chapter Eight: Textbook Natural History: Elements of Natural History (1844; 1850) and New Paradigms for Science Pedagogy; Chapter Nine: ‘Just an Anecdote’? Pioneering Perspectives from the Life in Anecdotes of the Habits and Instincts of Animals (1852), Anecdotes of the Habits and Instincts of Birds, Reptiles and Fishes (1853) and Sir Thomas the Cornish Baronet (1856); Sarah Bowdich Lee and Pioneering Perspectives in Natural History: Lessons forToday; Appendices (1–9); Bibliography; Index