Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2010 Family of Science: Education, Gender, and Science in the Colden Family of New York 1720-1770 Colleen Beck-Kaplan Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES FAMILY OF SCIENCE: EDUCATION, GENDER, AND SCIENCE IN THE COLDEN FAMILY OF NEW YORK 1720-1770 By COLLEEN BECK-KAPLAN A Thesis Submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded Spring Semester, 2010 The members of the committee approve the thesis of Colleen Beck-Kaplan defended on March 26, 2010. ___________________________________ Edward Gray Professor Directing Thesis ___________________________________ Jennifer Koslow Committee Member ___________________________________ Frederick Davis Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………….iv 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………1 2. THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD OF THE COLDEN FAMILY………...……………………………………………………………..7 3. THE IMPORTANCE OF GENDER AND FAMILY……………………….22 4. EDUCATION IN THE COLONIES AND IN THE COLDEN FAMILY…………..…………………………………………………………..41 5. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………....54 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………….57 7. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………63 iii ABSTRACT Investigation into how the Jane and Cadwallader Colden navigated the physical, social, and cultural environment of colonial New York both as regular people representative of their class, and as scientists offers insight into the changing nature of colonial society and views of science in the mid 1700s. The work of the Coldens is especially important to this topic because it shows the influence of Enlightenment thought in creating “proper” fields of science and intellectual activity in the English colonies on in the mid to late 18th century when this “feminization” of certain sciences is often seen as primarily an English phenomenon of the 19th century. Instead, their work shows that this was a trans-Atlantic change with earlier origins. As elite women participated in the sciences with greater frequency, multiple narratives emerged in both England and the American colonies, to justify this change and place it in an understandable context. For men, society accepted participation in sciences as a manifestation of Enlightenment values focused on reason. Women‟s participation in the sciences, on the other hand, was often justified through an appeal to natural philosophy or through emphasis on continuity with established beliefs about manners and hetero- gender social interaction that generally mandated familial support for their endeavors. By examining the writings of the Colden family and commentary on changes to intellectual culture that emerged in popular pamphlets and behavior manuals we can see that the groundwork for the „feminization‟ of certain intellectual subjects such as botany was already in place in the 18th century and examine some of the cultural forces that led to this trend which would continue into the 19th century. iv CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Cadwallader Colden and his daughter Jane were active participants in the trans- Atlantic exchange of ideas and natural specimens that marked the 18th century „age of reason.‟ Cadwallader was one of the very few colonial American scientists of his time to write works on theoretical or “pure” science for the international community. He did so although he lived far from British centers of learning and therefore lacked strong institutional support and patronage. Jane Colden also participated in the international exchange of ideas while compiling a classification of New York plants according to Linnaeus‟ method. Jane‟s engagement with botany was groundbreaking for her gender, but in other respects she, like her father, was a typical colonial. Thus for most of his life Cadwallader‟s primary occupation was governance or medicine, never physics or natural science. Likewise Jane‟s time was dominated not by botany, but by household duties and the social obligations of women of her class first in her role as a daughter, and after she married, as mistress of her own home. Investigation into how the Coldens navigated the physical, social, and cultural environment of colonial New York both as regular people representative of their class, and as scientists offers insight into the changing nature of elite colonial society and views of science in the mid 1700s. Furthermore, examination of the importance of gender and family in mediating how one participated in natural philosophy in the colonies also offers a new perspective on the history of science and on the colonial period more broadly. The 18th century was a time of great change in the scientific world, and Cadwallader Colden‟s writings help illuminate how changes in scientific thought were understood in the colonies. They not only show the interplay between natural theology and an emerging focus on rationalism that was so critical to this era, but also illuminate some of the paths for reception and transmission of ideas in the colonies of the British Atlantic world which occurred in informal settings dominated by the influence of family 1 and personal relationships. Among the most important ideas that can be traced in the work of the Coldens is that of Linnaean taxonomy from Cadwallader to Jane through an intergenerational transmission of ideas and from Cadwallader to other of his associates in the New World who were linked to him by friendship and common interest. Taken together, the lives and collected writings of this father-daughter pair expose some of the limits and expectations placed on scientific writing by duty, family, gender, and colonial status. Cadwallader Colden was a loyalist and has therefore been neglected in much of the historiography of late colonial American in favor of those who supported the revolution. As an outsider, his writings present an opportunity to look at colonial science somewhat removed from a nationalistic narrative. This is especially important in the years leading up to the American Revolution because of the ease with which any narrative about the Enlightenment in the colonies can be conflated with the rise of American national identity. At the root of the problem of nationalistic narratives in the history of science for colonial America is defining what constitutes American science. As with the general population, some colonial scientists/natural philosophers more closely identified themselves as English and some as Americans which has led to some confusion about how historians should classify the men and women of this era. Because there were few colonists who were internationally known for their work, Earlier works which predated the emergence of the Atlantic World as a popular thematic approach were especially prone to characterize colonial American science as either wholly derivative of English work or wholly unique to the exclusion of English connections.1 Such a focus was also due in part to studies that were heavily focused either on institutions or great men rather than the transmission of ideas and establishment of both trans-Atlantic and tran-colonial networks of intellectual exchange.2 1 One foundational works on colonial American science which takes the first view is Stearns‟ work whereas books highlighting American contributions tend to focus on recognizably American figures . Phinea Raymond Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1970) and Bernard Cohen. Benjamin Franklin's Science (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University, 1990) 2 The focus on institutions has also often led to the assumption that American science did not really start until the 1840s with the establishment of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2 Examination of Jane Colden‟s place in the scientific community helps bring these networks to light because her entrance into the field was so dependent on personal and familial networks of support. Jane had to navigate many social expectations of her gender such as the expectation for women to be modest and quiet which generally precluded most women of this era from publishing works for a large audience. By working with her father, however, the involvement in a family project protected her reputation. As a native-born colonist she had easy access to the natural wonders of the new world, but was also reliant on books from Europe and her father‟s attention to her education to be able to present them in an acceptable ways to authorities in Europe. She also had to confront biases against colonial production of new knowledge, but was born into a small but growing network of intellectuals in the colonies many of whom were very supportive of her work, and who could then in turn, share their Atlantic connections.3 Jane‟s role in this community also brings into focus how 18th century colonial American society understood gender roles in regards to women‟s increased participation in intellectual activities.4 Caroline Winterer delves into great detail about how society created new expectations of behavior as a result of women‟s increased access to classical texts and education, but a similar development in the natural sciences--exemplified in the life of Jane Colden--has not been fully explored.5 One reason the scientific aspect