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SUMMARY:Beyond 'polite science': middling women and the thirst for natural
  knowledge in the late eighteenth century - Rachel Feldberg (University of
  York)
DTSTART:20231106T130000Z
DTEND:20231106T140000Z
UID:TALK207058@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tom Banbury
DESCRIPTION:Despite richly varied discussions on the state of natural know
 ledge in the second half of the eighteenth century\, middling women have o
 ccupied little or no space in the dominant historiography. In recent years
  there has been an increased focus on elite women's engagement in a range 
 of intellectual endeavours\, most notably botanical classification. But th
 e central vitality of everyday embodied practices and practical knowledge 
 demonstrated by middling women within the household\, and their engagement
  with natural philosophy beyond the domestic setting has been almost entir
 ely ignored.\n\nThis paper argues that provincial women of the middling so
 rt demonstrated hitherto unrecognised engagement with natural philosophy. 
 By way of illustration\, it traces two women's very different involvement 
 with the production and transmission of natural knowledge and examines to 
 what extent this was driven by the demands of domestic 'oeconomy'\, sociab
 ility\, religious belief and conscious self-improvement\, rather than a se
 arch for 'polite knowledge'. Jane Ewbank\, the twenty-six-year-old daughte
 r of a York druggist\, demonstrated the breadth of her interest in the nat
 ural world in her Journal (1803–05)\, from observing a crocodile to visi
 ting rural-industrial sites and attending lectures on natural philosophy\,
  chemistry and galvanism. Mary Stacey\, the wife of a farmer in rural Some
 rset\, used her family recipe collection to document the results of her se
 arch for domestic improvement much in the manner of a laboratory notebook.
 \n\nIn a period which sought to encourage and celebrate women's knowledge 
 of areas like dairying while limiting their access to scientific debate\, 
 the paper highlights the (often unseen) impact of print material and conve
 rsation on middling women's construction of the natural world. It teases o
 ut their observational and reflective practices\, identifying shifts in th
 e parameters of their knowledge and suggests the ways in which both Stacey
  and Ewbank sought to transmit their understanding to other women.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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