WOMEN’S HISTORY DAY - Focusing on Women in Agriculture and Botany (from LIFESTYLE)
Below is a summary of an article that was in the Lifestyle section of apnews.com written by Jessica Damiano for Women’s History Month. Jessica Damiano writes gardening columns for apnews.com.
This is a short version of the article describing several trailblazers in American gardening and horticulture.
Jane Colder in 1750 was the first female American botanist and was the first American botanist to use Carl Linnaeus’s system of botanical nomenclature. She also created a manuscript which although untitled describes the flora of the Hudson Valley of New York and includes 340 ink drawings of distinct species.
Beatrix Farrand was the first lady of American landscape architecture. She was a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Beatrix Farrand designed more than one hundred gardens for estates, parks, colleges, botanical gardens and even designed the White Houses’ East Garden during Wilson’s presidency. She was the first consulting landscape architect for Prince University in 1912 and held that position for thirty-one years.
Fanny Lou Hamer was a civil rights activist from Mississippi and her interest in the health of Black families led to her founding the Freedom Farm Coop in the late 1960s.
Claudia “Lady Bird Johnson” was the first lady of the U.S. from 1963 through 1969. She was an early proponent of planting and preserving native plants and was an environmentalist supporting animal biodiversity and regional identity. She led an effort to get the 1965 U.S. Highway Beautification Act passed. The University of Texas wildflower center honors her legacy.
Carrie Lippincott started a seed business in Minneapolis in 1886. It targeted women as customers and revolutionized the style and format of how seeds were sold. Her company shipped seeds worldwide.
Marie Clark Taylor was the first Black woman to receive a doctorate in botany in the U.S. in 1941. She also was the first woman to gain a Ph. D. in science from Fordham University. She also became the Head of Howard University ‘s Botany in 1947 and held that job until 1976. She encouraged the use of light microscopes and botanical materials in her classroom. In the mid-1960s, President Johnson asked her to expand her teaching methods nationwide.
Waheenee (Buffalo Bird Woman) was a Hidatsa Indian living on the Fort Berthold Reservation North Dakota. She shared her knowledge of ancient cultivating, planting, and harvesting techniques with Gilbert L. Wilson, a minister and anthropologist. He transcribed her words and published a book in 1917 titled Buffalo Bird Women’s Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians.