ers, artists, and collectors, and their as first professor of at Blackwell. Since its original publica- stories show us who they were, why University called for a new mascu- tion, Women, Work and Smual Poli- and how theyworked, and the adjust- linized and professionalized botany ticsin Eighteenth-Century Englandhas ments they had to make in order to for a new age: scientificbotany would become recognized as a major work pursue their scientific interests. not include women. on the social history ofwomen in the Throughout, Shteir's emphasis is on Shteir's use ofgender as an analytic eighteenth century. The new paper- their agenc; what they were able to do tool reveals the process by which the back edition is most welcome, par- and the choices they made as they masculine "culture of experts" re- ticularly for course lists. pursued their botanical interests. moved botanical authority from wom- Social history of working women The idea that men and women en's practice and female space, leav- in the eighteenth century is still an were essentially different came to ing them botany as sentimental, po- under-researched area, and Hill's ini- dominate early industrial society, and lite, or practical accomplishment. tial literature survey indicates how by 1800, gender categories were Popular texts by women authors, such much we need scholarly work on sharply drawn. Woman's "different" as Jane Loudon's Botany for Ladies eighteenth-century women of the la- nature assigned her firmly to domes- (1842, reissued as Modern Botany in bouring classes. She begins by credit- tic space, and female education was 1851) did provide basic botanical ing lvy Pinchbeck1 for making visible designed to make women betterwives knowledge to a wide audience; other the fact that working women did not and mothers: they were to learn basic texts, floras, manuals, and children's spring into existence with industriali- science so that they could teach it to books proliferated, but these works, zation; that women have always their oflipring. The need for books to however subtly, acknowledged gen- worked. She herselfdeals mainlywith help mothers teach science provided der as the pervasive factor shaping rural women; she examines the shift an opportunity for female authors, participation in nineteenth-century in economic production, from cot- and Shteir introduces us to the many botany. tage-based industry to factory pro- women writers who made maternal presenting the history ofbotany duction, and its effects on women anddomesticideologyworkfor them: from the perspective of gender, with and the family. Frances Rowden combined botany such a wealth of supporting detail, Hill pays attention to women's with moral lessons, using science to Shteir opens this important area to patterns of work, as much of labour- teach domestic ideology; Priscilla our consideration, and at the same ing women's work was not what we Wakefield's Introduction to Botany time offers a fascinating account of would consider "full-time" by cur- (1796) provided a systematic intro- women in all the complexity of their rent standards. This has made re- duction to botanical science, written botanical involvements. She also iliu- search difficult in the past, for if for mothers and children. Works such minates the pervasiveness of gender women did not fit into rigid occupa- as these helped to legitimize female in shaping the scientist, science edu- tional roles then they were in danger involvement in science, while at the cation, and science writing-and this of becoming invisible to scholarly same time giving voice, authority, is surely an area demanding our fir- investigation. Hill explores the ex- and an important role in scientific ther and significant attention. tent to which women worked, fre- education to mothers and teachers. Cultivating Women, Cultivating quently at unwaged occupations. She Eighteenth-century attitudes to- Science, by Ann B. (Rusty) Shteir is the highlights a narrowing of the occupa- ward botanical culture had allowed 1796 winner of the American Histori- tions open to women as the century women both authority and access at cal Association i Joan Kelly Memorial progressed: for example, women were many levels; in the nineteenth cen- Prize for the best book in women i his- progressively shut out of most ap- tury, a newly-professionalizing sci- tory andorfeminist theory. prenticeship programs and pushed ence would deny women entry. It is into the less skilled (and less well- with this exclusion, and with a detail- paid) types ofagricultural work. Con- ing of the areas of botany left open to WOMEN, WORK AND current with this trend, ofcourse, was women, that Shteir concerns herself SEXUAL POLITICS IN the feminization of housework in the second part of Cultivating EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY throughout the century. The text Women.As male interest in botanical traces the important shift towards the science increased, women's science, sexual division of labour, for with the based in the home and shaped by disintegration ofthe family economy, Bridget Hill. Montreal: McGill- available resources, was pushed to the women and men were thrown into margins. In 18 14, self-educated re- Queen's University Press, 1994. direct competition. There is an excel- searcher Agnes Ibbetson found her lent chapter on domestic service, de- serious experimental work virtually by Miriam Jones scribed by Hill as "by far and away the ignored by the Royal Society, despite most important occupation for an impressive publication record. In This volume is a re-issue of the 1989 women after agriculture." Hill traces 1829,John Lindley's inaugural speech hard-cover edition published by Basil a process of "feminization" in this,

VOLUME 17, NUMBER 2 one of the few occupations still open '~ricRoberts, "Women in the Brit- poses the fact that professionalization to women. ish Economy Since About 1700: An in nursing o&red middle-class Ca- The text traces the presumed stages Interpretation," cit. Hill 261. nadian women a role in the public of a woman's life: courtship, mar- sphere with compensation and some riage, and widowhood. There is also CARING AND degree of publicly authorized skill a chapter on spinsterhood, as the CURING: HISTORICAL andauthority. However, while nurses' eighteenth century saw a rise in the self-identity was challenging main- number ofwomen living alone; Hill PERSPECTIVES ON stream medicine, nurses remained indicateshow difficult a time this was WOMEN AND HEALING subordinate to physicians. for single or widowed women, given IN CANADA The next three papers recount the restricted economic opportunities. evolution of midwifery in Canada. Hill explores the consequences of Dianne Dodd and Deborah Gorham, J.T.H. Connor peruses the views of the law on labouring women. Femi- eds. Ottawa: University of Ottawa male physicians on midwifery in the nist scholars are no doubt familiar Press, 1994. nineteenth century; Dianne Dodd's with thesubordinate position ofmar- chapter is interested in the views of ried women in general under the law, by Sara Leiserson the pioneer female physician Dr. but a lot of working people were Helen MacMurchyon maternity care; never legally married, and so their Caring and Curing provides a long and lastly, Denyse Baillargeon sur- relationship to the legal system was a awaited collection of contributions veys a group of working-class Mon- very different one from that of the on women and health care in Canada. treal housewives of the 1930s who middle and upper classes. For in- This book reproduces seven histori- responded to the medicalization of stance, Hill makes a comparison be- cal accounts from 1880to the present. maternity care. tween the costly divorces ofthe upper Caring is linked to the domestic role These accounts show that contrary classes, and the working-class "wife of women and motherhood which to popular belief women at the turn sales" that continued well into the later evolves publicly into nursing, of the century were resisting the male nineteenth century. while curing, on the other hand, is chauvinistic medical system. Both The implications of Hill's conclu- related to men. The term "medicine Meryn Stuart's examination ofa pub- sions are far-reaching: as for the con- man," is far more common than that lic health nursing project, and Denyse traction ofwomen's economic role in of "medicine woman." At present, Baillargeon's analysis of a group of the period, Hill quotes one commen- these restricted ideas are beginning to working-class Montreal housewives, tator who maintains that women had change and empirical research is show- demonstrate that those women did not even recovered by 1975.~In clos- ing that the only success stories in not passively adopt all the new ways ing she addresses the relationship of healing are the ones where "caring" that modern "experts" attempted to women's history to the rest of history and "curing" work together. impose upon them. and strongly argues the need for inte- Academic feminist research on car- The next chapter talks about an gration. Hill contextualizes her study ing has been showing the transition important but neglected group of within the historical tradition; in the from unpaid informal care to a paid women, the laywomen health reform- preface, she writes that the text "is an formal one, beginning with the un- ers who were the connection between attempt to bring [social and women's paid informal care within the family medical professionals and their pa- history] together." Such a project is networks based on marriage. The tients. Their advocacy of health re- especially important now in light of domestic realm of caring moved form, and their advancement of the renewed interest in the eighteenth openly into the public realm during medicalization of child and maternal century. Solid, grounded, and schol- the First World War when women health, stresses the origin of public arly, this is the type of text to which were needed to take care of the in- health. Baillargeon notes that the one returns again and again. It is rich jured. From the start these women modern version of women's visiting in fascinating detail, and presents a ".. . challenged mainstream medicine is a result of public health with the fine model for an integrativeapproach by giving nursing care, midwifery emphasis on living a healthy lifestyle, to class and gender. Hill begins and prevention a more prominent religious commitment, prevention of Women, Work and Sew1Politics in place." illness, and a focus on education Eighteenth-Century Engkandwith ref- The book begins with three au- within the family. We owe to women erence to Pinchbeck's influential thors who explore nursing history. reformers the visiting nurses' organi- 1930s text. No doubt her own work Beverly Boutilier, Meryn Stuart, and zations, born to prevent infant and will fill that niche for years to come. Kathryn McPherson offer an enlight- maternal mortality. ening approach on modernized, The last chapter by Deborah lvy pinchbeck, Women Workersand professionalized nursing and its con- Gorham shows facets of women's theIndusmialRevolution, 1750-1850. tribution to health care in Canada. experiences as physicians in training Rpt. London: Virago, 1981. Among other things, their work ex- and in practice during the second half

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESILES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME