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Difference between revisions of "Jane Colden"

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News of Colden's botanical work was initially met with polite condescension. After congratulating [[Cadwallader Colden]] on his “Daughter[s] Likeing to Botany” in September 1753, the British merchant and plant dealer [[Peter Collinson]] added, “It is a Delightfull amusement & a pretty accomplishment for a young Lady, for after the knowledge of plants, it may Lead her to Discover their Virtues & uses.”<ref> Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, September 1, 1753, Collinson and Armstrong, 2002: 1730, </ref> Later that autumn, the Philadelphia botanist and nurseryman [[John Bartram]] spent an evening at Coldengham (where he had been a frequent visitor since 1742) "look[ing] over some of ye Dr['s] daughter[s] botanical curious observations” with his son [[William Bartram|William]].<ref>Bartram , 1992, 360,</ref> A few years later, after studying examples of Colden's meticulous plant descriptions, [[Peter Collinson|Collinson]] wrote approvingly of their "Scientificall Manner," noting that she was "the first Lady that has Attempted any thing of this Nature." <ref>Peter Collinson to John Bartram, January 20, 1756 in Bartram, 1992, 393,</ref>  [[John Bartram]] pored over her plant descriptions in a letter of 1757, which he vowed to preserve in his collection of treasured letters from European botanists. Moreover, he wrote, "I should be extreamly glad to see thee at my house & to shew thee my garden."<ref>John Bartram to Jane Colden, January 24, 1757, in Colden, 1992, 413-14.</ref> Despite [[John Bartram|Bartram's]] invitation, Colden never seems to have ventured out of New York, contenting herself with botanical exchanges that allowed her to enrich the garden at Coldengham with plants from farflung corners of America and the world. Her letter of 1757 to [[John Bartram|Bartram]] evidently included a list of seeds she desired from his [[Bartram Nursery and Botanical Garden|nursery]], most of them indigenous to climates similar to New York’s, but some reflecting a more experimental approach. "Ye amorpha is A beautiful flower," Bartram responded cautiously, "but...won[']t your cold winters kill it?"<ref>Colden, 1992, 413-14.</ref>
 
News of Colden's botanical work was initially met with polite condescension. After congratulating [[Cadwallader Colden]] on his “Daughter[s] Likeing to Botany” in September 1753, the British merchant and plant dealer [[Peter Collinson]] added, “It is a Delightfull amusement & a pretty accomplishment for a young Lady, for after the knowledge of plants, it may Lead her to Discover their Virtues & uses.”<ref> Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, September 1, 1753, Collinson and Armstrong, 2002: 1730, </ref> Later that autumn, the Philadelphia botanist and nurseryman [[John Bartram]] spent an evening at Coldengham (where he had been a frequent visitor since 1742) "look[ing] over some of ye Dr['s] daughter[s] botanical curious observations” with his son [[William Bartram|William]].<ref>Bartram , 1992, 360,</ref> A few years later, after studying examples of Colden's meticulous plant descriptions, [[Peter Collinson|Collinson]] wrote approvingly of their "Scientificall Manner," noting that she was "the first Lady that has Attempted any thing of this Nature." <ref>Peter Collinson to John Bartram, January 20, 1756 in Bartram, 1992, 393,</ref>  [[John Bartram]] pored over her plant descriptions in a letter of 1757, which he vowed to preserve in his collection of treasured letters from European botanists. Moreover, he wrote, "I should be extreamly glad to see thee at my house & to shew thee my garden."<ref>John Bartram to Jane Colden, January 24, 1757, in Colden, 1992, 413-14.</ref> Despite [[John Bartram|Bartram's]] invitation, Colden never seems to have ventured out of New York, contenting herself with botanical exchanges that allowed her to enrich the garden at Coldengham with plants from farflung corners of America and the world. Her letter of 1757 to [[John Bartram|Bartram]] evidently included a list of seeds she desired from his [[Bartram Nursery and Botanical Garden|nursery]], most of them indigenous to climates similar to New York’s, but some reflecting a more experimental approach. "Ye amorpha is A beautiful flower," Bartram responded cautiously, "but...won[']t your cold winters kill it?"<ref>Colden, 1992, 413-14.</ref>
  
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Colden was already experimenting with the cultivation of subtropical plants (including the amorpha) that she had obtained through correspondence with [[Alexander Garden]], a botanical enthusiast in Charleston who had admired her Linnean descriptions while visiting Coldengham during the summer of 1754.<ref>For Garden's description of the amorpha and his comment that "Miss Colden will be much pleased with it," see his undated fragmented of a letter, presumably to Cadwallader Colden, in Vail, February 1907, 30.</ref> Having observed her careful tending of the garden's rarest plants,<ref>Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, ''Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town'' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 43, </ref> [[Alexander Garden|Garden]] sent her “Persian seeds" obtained from a Russian physician, as well as seeds of plants native to South Carolina, including umbrella tree (''Magnolia tripetala''), fringe tree (''Chionanthus''), yellow jessamy, and horse chestnut (''Aesculus pavia var. pavia''). He promised to instruct her in the preservation of butterflies, and wrote [[Cadwallader Colden]] that he would “be greatly obliged to you[r] Da[ugh]t[er] for any seeds or Insects that she can pick up.”<ref>Alexander Garden to Cadwallader Colden, April 15, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 5, 142; see also 5: 5, 11, 120; Gray, 1843, 51.</ref> In return, Colden sent northern specimens to [[Alexander Garden|Garden]], including the seeds and description of an Arbutus which she took to be a new genus (though he disagreed).<ref> Colden, 1923, 5: 41, 91-92, 114-16; see also 5: 227.</ref> In his honor, she chose the name ''Gardenia'' for a hitherto-unknown plant she discovered and documented in 1753, assuaging his disappointment at having sent her his own Linnean description of the same plant in 1754, only to find that she had anticipated him by a year. Garden sent both of their descriptions to the Scottish physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766), who had them published under the auspices of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1756.<ref>Alexander Garden [and Jane Colden], "The Description of a New Plant; by Alexander Garden, Physician at Charleston in South Carolina," in ''Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary'' (Edinburgh: G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1756), 2: 1–5, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Z4FEQNCC view on Zotero]; see also Colden, 1923, 5: 10, . Peter Collinson sent the published article ("the Curious Botanic Desertation of your Ingenious Daughter") to Cadwallader Colden, remarking: "Being the Only Lady that I have yett heard off [''sic''] that is a proffessor [of] the Linnaean System of which He [Linnaeus] is not a Little proud"; see Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, April 6, 1757 in Colden, 1923, 5: 139; see also 5: 10 </ref> When [[Alexander Garden|Garden]] pressed Colden's "discovery" on Gronovius and [[Carl Linneaus]], however, he learned that the plant was in fact already known.<ref>Smith, 1821, 366-67, Berkeley, Alexander Garden, 53, 74, . The plant is now most commonly known as Virginia marsh-St. John's-wort (''Triadenum virginicum'')</ref>  
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Colden was already experimenting with the cultivation of subtropical plants (including the amorpha) that she had obtained through correspondence with [[Alexander Garden]], a botanical enthusiast in Charleston who had admired her Linnean descriptions while visiting Coldengham during the summer of 1754.<ref>For Garden's description of the amorpha and his comment that "Miss Colden will be much pleased with it," see his undated fragmented of a letter, presumably to Cadwallader Colden, in Vail, February 1907, 30.</ref> Having observed her careful tending of the garden's rarest plants,<ref>Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, ''Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town'' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 43, </ref> [[Alexander Garden|Garden]] sent her “Persian seeds" obtained from a Russian physician, as well as seeds of plants native to South Carolina, including umbrella tree (''Magnolia tripetala''), fringe tree (''Chionanthus''), yellow jessamy, and horse chestnut (''Aesculus pavia var. pavia''). He promised to instruct her in the preservation of butterflies, and wrote [[Cadwallader Colden]] that he would “be greatly obliged to you[r] Da[ugh]t[er] for any seeds or Insects that she can pick up.”<ref>Alexander Garden to Cadwallader Colden, April 15, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 5, 142; see also 5: 5, 11, 120; Gray, 1843, 51.</ref> In return, Colden sent northern specimens to [[Alexander Garden|Garden]], including the seeds and description of an Arbutus which she took to be a new genus (though he disagreed).<ref> Colden, 1923, 5: 41, 91-92, 114-16; see also 5: 227.</ref> In his honor, she chose the name ''Gardenia'' for a hitherto-unknown plant she discovered and documented in 1753, assuaging his disappointment at having sent her his own Linnean description of the same plant in 1754, only to find that she had anticipated him by a year. Garden sent both of their descriptions to the Scottish physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766), who had them published under the auspices of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1756.<ref>Alexander Garden [and Jane Colden], "The Description of a New Plant; by Alexander Garden, Physician at Charleston in South Carolina," in ''Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary'' (Edinburgh: G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1756), 2: 1–5, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Z4FEQNCC view on Zotero]; see also Colden, 1923, 5: 10, . Peter Collinson sent the published article ("the Curious Botanic Desertation of your Ingenious Daughter") to Cadwallader Colden, remarking: "Being the Only Lady that I have yett heard off [''sic''] that is a proffessor [of] the Linnaean System of which He [Linnaeus] is not a Little proud"; see Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, April 6, 1757 in Colden, 1923, 5: 139; see also 5: 10 </ref> When [[Alexander Garden|Garden]] pressed Colden's "discovery" on his former professor, Charles Alston (1683-1760), superintendent of the [[botanic garden]]s at Edinburgh, as well as Gronovius and [[Carl Linneaus]], he learned that the plant was in fact already known.<ref>Philippon, 24-25; Smith, 1821, 366-67, Berkeley, Alexander Garden, 53, 74, . The plant is now most commonly known as Virginia marsh-St. John's-wort (''Triadenum virginicum'')</ref>  
  
 
Jane Colden experimented with various forms of botanical illustration as complements to her descriptive texts. According to her father, “She was shewn a method of takeing the impression of the leaves on paper with printers ink by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species by their leaves.” <ref>Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, Colden, 1923, 5: 29-30, </ref> [[Cadwallader Colden|Cadwallader's]] friend [[Benjamin Franklin]] had used the same technique in the 1730s to document plants indigenous to Philadelphia supplied to him by [[John Bartram]].<ref> </ref> [[Alexander Garden]] had admired examples of Jane's nature prints during his visit to Coldengham. “[She makes] perfect images, by her own certain ingenious method, of the numerous plants kept by her father," he informed the Dutch botanist Johann Friedrich Gronovius (1686-1762) in March 1755.<ref> Alexander Garden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, March 15, 1755, quoted in Berkeley, Alexander Garden, 43, </ref> Seven months later, [[Cadwallader Colden]] informed Gronovius that Jane had made impressions of 300 plants (“some of which I think are new Genus’s”) and that her anglicized Linnean descriptions filled "a pretty large volume in writing."<ref>Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, October 1, 1755 in Colden, 1923, 5: 29-31, .</ref>  
 
Jane Colden experimented with various forms of botanical illustration as complements to her descriptive texts. According to her father, “She was shewn a method of takeing the impression of the leaves on paper with printers ink by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species by their leaves.” <ref>Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, Colden, 1923, 5: 29-30, </ref> [[Cadwallader Colden|Cadwallader's]] friend [[Benjamin Franklin]] had used the same technique in the 1730s to document plants indigenous to Philadelphia supplied to him by [[John Bartram]].<ref> </ref> [[Alexander Garden]] had admired examples of Jane's nature prints during his visit to Coldengham. “[She makes] perfect images, by her own certain ingenious method, of the numerous plants kept by her father," he informed the Dutch botanist Johann Friedrich Gronovius (1686-1762) in March 1755.<ref> Alexander Garden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, March 15, 1755, quoted in Berkeley, Alexander Garden, 43, </ref> Seven months later, [[Cadwallader Colden]] informed Gronovius that Jane had made impressions of 300 plants (“some of which I think are new Genus’s”) and that her anglicized Linnean descriptions filled "a pretty large volume in writing."<ref>Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, October 1, 1755 in Colden, 1923, 5: 29-31, .</ref>  
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A second phase in Jane Colden's botanical illustration work is described in a letter [[Cadwallader Colden|Cadwallader]] wrote to the British physician and plant collector John Fothergill (1712-1780) in October 1757. By that date, he asserted, she had "described between 3 & 400 American plants in the [Linnaean] manner." Moreover, he added, "of late [she] has begun to draw figures of the plants which she thinks have not been allready well described," nothwithstanding the fact that "she has no instructor in drawing[,] has few or no good copies & was only shewn how to use china ink with a pencil."<ref> Cadwallader Colden to John Fothergill, October 18, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 202-03. For a recent discussion of Colden's drawings in relation to the illustrations in English Renaissance herbals, see Philippon, 23-24, </ref> Many of these drawings&mdash;simple outlines of leaves in ink accented by a neutral-toned wash&mdash;survive in her bound manuscript listing 341 plants, most of them accompanied by Linnaean descriptions. The volume also contains one of her nature prints&mdash;the sole surviving example of the 300 she made.<ref>In 1782 this volume was in the possession of Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim (1749-1800), a Hessian soldier and botanist who studied North American trees and shrubs while commanding a cavalry squadron in New York and Pennsylvania from 1778 to 1783. For Wangenheim's efforts to promote the naturalization of North American species in Germany, particularly as director general of waters and forests of eastern Prussia, see ''Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography'', 6: 346; see also Britten, 25-26; Harrison, summer 1995, 24-26. Colden's manuscript later passed to the British botanist and plant collector Joseph Banks (1743-1820), and is now in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London.</ref> More sophisticated botanical illustrations by Colden may also have perished, for the surviving examples are difficult to reconcile with one visitor's comment (c. autumn 1758) that "she draws and colours them with great beauty." <ref>For Walter Rutherfurd's undated letter to his family in Scotland, see --- </ref> Her father had assembled a small collection of illustrated botanical books to provide her with suitable models. “As she cannot have the opportunity of seeing plants in a [[Botanic Garden|Botanical Garden]]," he remarked to [[Peter Collinson]] in a letter of c. 1755, "I think the next best is to see the best cuts or pictures of them.”<ref>Cadwallader Colden to Peter Collinson, n.d. [October 1755?], in Colden, 1923, 5: 37-38. The books requested from Collinson included ''Institutiones rei herbariae'' (1700) by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and ''Plantarum Universalis Oxoniensis'' (1680-99) by Robert Morison, as well as Robert Ainsworth’s Latin and English dictionary. Cadwallader Colden later reported that his daughter had acquired “some Knowledge of botanic latin tho’ she does not otherwise understand anything of the language”; Cadwallader Colden to John Fothergill, October 18, 1757 in Colden, 1923, 5: 203, .</ref> [[Peter Collinson|Collinson]] supplemented the shipment of illustrated books he sent to Coldengham in 1757 with engravings by the renowned botanical illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–1770), “for your Ingenious Daughter to take Sketches of the fine Turn of the Leaves.” He also expressed his wish that [[William Bartram]] were nearby, for his drawings of plants “come the Nearest to Mr Ehrets” and “he would much assist her at first Setting out.” <ref> Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, October 5, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 190, see also 5:139, </ref> In fact, some of [[William Bartram]]'s drawings may already have come to hand, for in 1755 his father wrote Jane that [[William Bartram|William]] had "made A pockit [packet] of very fine drawings for the[e] far beyond [[Mark Catesby|Catesbys]], took them to town & tould me he would send them very soon."<ref>John Bartram to Jane Colden, January 24, 1757, </ref>
 
A second phase in Jane Colden's botanical illustration work is described in a letter [[Cadwallader Colden|Cadwallader]] wrote to the British physician and plant collector John Fothergill (1712-1780) in October 1757. By that date, he asserted, she had "described between 3 & 400 American plants in the [Linnaean] manner." Moreover, he added, "of late [she] has begun to draw figures of the plants which she thinks have not been allready well described," nothwithstanding the fact that "she has no instructor in drawing[,] has few or no good copies & was only shewn how to use china ink with a pencil."<ref> Cadwallader Colden to John Fothergill, October 18, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 202-03. For a recent discussion of Colden's drawings in relation to the illustrations in English Renaissance herbals, see Philippon, 23-24, </ref> Many of these drawings&mdash;simple outlines of leaves in ink accented by a neutral-toned wash&mdash;survive in her bound manuscript listing 341 plants, most of them accompanied by Linnaean descriptions. The volume also contains one of her nature prints&mdash;the sole surviving example of the 300 she made.<ref>In 1782 this volume was in the possession of Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim (1749-1800), a Hessian soldier and botanist who studied North American trees and shrubs while commanding a cavalry squadron in New York and Pennsylvania from 1778 to 1783. For Wangenheim's efforts to promote the naturalization of North American species in Germany, particularly as director general of waters and forests of eastern Prussia, see ''Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography'', 6: 346; see also Britten, 25-26; Harrison, summer 1995, 24-26. Colden's manuscript later passed to the British botanist and plant collector Joseph Banks (1743-1820), and is now in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London.</ref> More sophisticated botanical illustrations by Colden may also have perished, for the surviving examples are difficult to reconcile with one visitor's comment (c. autumn 1758) that "she draws and colours them with great beauty." <ref>For Walter Rutherfurd's undated letter to his family in Scotland, see --- </ref> Her father had assembled a small collection of illustrated botanical books to provide her with suitable models. “As she cannot have the opportunity of seeing plants in a [[Botanic Garden|Botanical Garden]]," he remarked to [[Peter Collinson]] in a letter of c. 1755, "I think the next best is to see the best cuts or pictures of them.”<ref>Cadwallader Colden to Peter Collinson, n.d. [October 1755?], in Colden, 1923, 5: 37-38. The books requested from Collinson included ''Institutiones rei herbariae'' (1700) by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and ''Plantarum Universalis Oxoniensis'' (1680-99) by Robert Morison, as well as Robert Ainsworth’s Latin and English dictionary. Cadwallader Colden later reported that his daughter had acquired “some Knowledge of botanic latin tho’ she does not otherwise understand anything of the language”; Cadwallader Colden to John Fothergill, October 18, 1757 in Colden, 1923, 5: 203, .</ref> [[Peter Collinson|Collinson]] supplemented the shipment of illustrated books he sent to Coldengham in 1757 with engravings by the renowned botanical illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–1770), “for your Ingenious Daughter to take Sketches of the fine Turn of the Leaves.” He also expressed his wish that [[William Bartram]] were nearby, for his drawings of plants “come the Nearest to Mr Ehrets” and “he would much assist her at first Setting out.” <ref> Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, October 5, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 190, see also 5:139, </ref> In fact, some of [[William Bartram]]'s drawings may already have come to hand, for in 1755 his father wrote Jane that [[William Bartram|William]] had "made A pockit [packet] of very fine drawings for the[e] far beyond [[Mark Catesby|Catesbys]], took them to town & tould me he would send them very soon."<ref>John Bartram to Jane Colden, January 24, 1757, </ref>
  
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[[Cadwallader Colden]] promoted recognition of his "Ingenious Daughter" through the closely interconnected network of American and European botanists with whom he corresponded. He sent examples of her botanical writing and illustrations to Gronovius in Holland, the physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766) in Edinburgh, and the merchant-bontanists [[Peter Collinson]] and John Fothergill (1712-1780) in London.<ref>The quotation is from Peter Collinson's letter to Cadwallader Colden, 1923, 5: 190; see also 5: 29-31, 37, 39, 198, 202-03, 217; Bartram, 1992, 393, </ref>  They, in turn, trumpeted news of her accomplishments to others, including [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus]] and the British merchant and naturalist John Ellis (c. 1710-1776).<ref>Colden, 1923, 5: 198; Smith, 1821, 45, 95 </ref> In Jane’s “curiosity" for botany, her father saw a means of providing her with meaningful work while advancing the important botanical investigations that his European correspondents had frequently appealed to him to resume.<ref>Colden, 1923, 5: 29-30, </ref> “She will be extremely pleased in being imployed by you either in sending descriptions or any seeds you shall desire or dryed Specimens of any particular plants you shall mention to me," he assured Gronovius in 1755, adding: "She has time to apply her self to gratify your curiosity more than I ever had." <ref>Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, October 1, 1755 in Colden, 1923, 5: 30-31; see also 5: 139,</ref> Colden expressed the same willingness to be of service in a letter of 1758 to [[Alexander Garden]]'s former professor, Charles Alston (1683-1760), superintendent of the [[botanic garden]]s at Edinburgh. to the Colden married Dr. William Farquhar in 1759 and from complications of childbirth in 1766.  
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[[Cadwallader Colden]] promoted recognition of his "Ingenious Daughter" through the closely interconnected network of American and European botanists with whom he corresponded. He sent examples of her botanical writing and illustrations to Gronovius in Holland, the physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766) in Edinburgh, and the merchant-botanists [[Peter Collinson]] and John Fothergill (1712-1780) in London.<ref>The quotation is from Peter Collinson's letter to Cadwallader Colden, 1923, 5: 190; see also 5: 29-31, 37, 39, 198, 202-03, 217; Bartram, 1992, 393, </ref>  They, in turn, trumpeted news of her accomplishments to others, including [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus]] and the British merchant and naturalist John Ellis (c. 1710-1776).<ref>Colden, 1923, 5: 198; Smith, 1821, 45, 95 </ref> In her “curiosity" for botany, Colden's father saw a means of providing her with meaningful work while advancing the important botanical investigations that his European correspondents had frequently appealed to him to resume.<ref>Colden, 1923, 5: 29-30, </ref> “She will be extremely pleased in being imployed by you either in sending descriptions or any seeds you shall desire or dryed Specimens of any particular plants you shall mention to me," he assured Gronovius in 1755, adding: "She has time to apply her self to gratify your curiosity more than I ever had." <ref>Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, October 1, 1755 in Colden, 1923, 5: 30-31; see also 5: 139,</ref> Colden expressed the same willingness to be of service in a letter of 1756 to Charles Alston, who had contacted her after receiving a letter of extravagant praise from his former pupil, [[Alexander Garden]]. [[Cadwallader Colden]] chastised [[Alexander Garden|Garden]] for the offense, and Colden herself begged Alston for more discretion. "You complasantly intimate that anything that I shall communicate to you, shall not be conceald," she wrote on May 1, 1756. "But this I must beg as a favour of you, that you will not make any thing publick from me, till (at least) I have gained more knowledge of Plants, and then perhaps I shall be able to made some amendments to my Discriptions." Colden continued to produce perceptive descriptions of plants until 1759, the year she married the Scottish physician William Farquhar and evidently abandoned botanical pursuits.  
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Revision as of 16:35, July 2, 2015

Jane Colden (March 27, 1724 – March 10, 1766), considered the first woman botanist in America, introduced exotic plant specimens to the garden of her family's farm in the Catskills region of New York. She is best known for documenting several hundred plants indigenous to New York, employing Linnaeus's system of botanical classification.


History

Born in New York city, Jane Colden spent most of her life at Coldengham, a 3,000-acre farm established by her father, Cadwallader Colden, in a wilderness area ten miles west of Newburgh.[1] She shared an interest in horticulture with her mother, Alice Chrystie Colden (1690-1762), a keen gardener.[2] She gained an understanding of botany from her father, a provincial government administrator, who, in 1742, had begun the first scientific documentation of New York flora using the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus's new system of binomial classification.

Convinced that women were better suited to excel at botany than men, and that it was only the arcane manner of scientific writing that discouraged them from botanical pursuits, Cadwallader Colden gave his daughter "an explication of the principles of Botany in writing ... don[e] in such manner as I thought would excite her curiosity." He translated Linnaeus's Latin into English, and replaced "all the terms of art" with "common English expressions."[3] Thus prepared, Jane Colden swiftly mastered the art of botanical description in English and began cataloguing plants in the vicinity of her home. In addition to documenting her observations, she gathered information on the medicinal and domestic uses of plants from local Indians and "country people."[4] Daily access to thousands of acres of wilderness afforded her a unique advantage as a botanist, and she located numerous plants that had eluded her father, who complained of "not having sufficient opportunity to repeat my examinations of the plants which I only met casually & did not see many of them more than once." Jane, by contrast, was able to "[fill] up a good deal of idle time agreably to her self & as she is more curious & accurate than I could have been[,] her descriptions are more perfect & I believe few or none exceed them."[5]

News of Colden's botanical work was initially met with polite condescension. After congratulating Cadwallader Colden on his “Daughter[s] Likeing to Botany” in September 1753, the British merchant and plant dealer Peter Collinson added, “It is a Delightfull amusement & a pretty accomplishment for a young Lady, for after the knowledge of plants, it may Lead her to Discover their Virtues & uses.”[6] Later that autumn, the Philadelphia botanist and nurseryman John Bartram spent an evening at Coldengham (where he had been a frequent visitor since 1742) "look[ing] over some of ye Dr['s] daughter[s] botanical curious observations” with his son William.[7] A few years later, after studying examples of Colden's meticulous plant descriptions, Collinson wrote approvingly of their "Scientificall Manner," noting that she was "the first Lady that has Attempted any thing of this Nature." [8] John Bartram pored over her plant descriptions in a letter of 1757, which he vowed to preserve in his collection of treasured letters from European botanists. Moreover, he wrote, "I should be extreamly glad to see thee at my house & to shew thee my garden."[9] Despite Bartram's invitation, Colden never seems to have ventured out of New York, contenting herself with botanical exchanges that allowed her to enrich the garden at Coldengham with plants from farflung corners of America and the world. Her letter of 1757 to Bartram evidently included a list of seeds she desired from his nursery, most of them indigenous to climates similar to New York’s, but some reflecting a more experimental approach. "Ye amorpha is A beautiful flower," Bartram responded cautiously, "but...won[']t your cold winters kill it?"[10]

Colden was already experimenting with the cultivation of subtropical plants (including the amorpha) that she had obtained through correspondence with Alexander Garden, a botanical enthusiast in Charleston who had admired her Linnean descriptions while visiting Coldengham during the summer of 1754.[11] Having observed her careful tending of the garden's rarest plants,[12] Garden sent her “Persian seeds" obtained from a Russian physician, as well as seeds of plants native to South Carolina, including umbrella tree (Magnolia tripetala), fringe tree (Chionanthus), yellow jessamy, and horse chestnut (Aesculus pavia var. pavia). He promised to instruct her in the preservation of butterflies, and wrote Cadwallader Colden that he would “be greatly obliged to you[r] Da[ugh]t[er] for any seeds or Insects that she can pick up.”[13] In return, Colden sent northern specimens to Garden, including the seeds and description of an Arbutus which she took to be a new genus (though he disagreed).[14] In his honor, she chose the name Gardenia for a hitherto-unknown plant she discovered and documented in 1753, assuaging his disappointment at having sent her his own Linnean description of the same plant in 1754, only to find that she had anticipated him by a year. Garden sent both of their descriptions to the Scottish physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766), who had them published under the auspices of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1756.[15] When Garden pressed Colden's "discovery" on his former professor, Charles Alston (1683-1760), superintendent of the botanic gardens at Edinburgh, as well as Gronovius and Carl Linneaus, he learned that the plant was in fact already known.[16]

Jane Colden experimented with various forms of botanical illustration as complements to her descriptive texts. According to her father, “She was shewn a method of takeing the impression of the leaves on paper with printers ink by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species by their leaves.” [17] Cadwallader's friend Benjamin Franklin had used the same technique in the 1730s to document plants indigenous to Philadelphia supplied to him by John Bartram.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Alexander Garden had admired examples of Jane's nature prints during his visit to Coldengham. “[She makes] perfect images, by her own certain ingenious method, of the numerous plants kept by her father," he informed the Dutch botanist Johann Friedrich Gronovius (1686-1762) in March 1755.[18] Seven months later, Cadwallader Colden informed Gronovius that Jane had made impressions of 300 plants (“some of which I think are new Genus’s”) and that her anglicized Linnean descriptions filled "a pretty large volume in writing."[19]

A second phase in Jane Colden's botanical illustration work is described in a letter Cadwallader wrote to the British physician and plant collector John Fothergill (1712-1780) in October 1757. By that date, he asserted, she had "described between 3 & 400 American plants in the [Linnaean] manner." Moreover, he added, "of late [she] has begun to draw figures of the plants which she thinks have not been allready well described," nothwithstanding the fact that "she has no instructor in drawing[,] has few or no good copies & was only shewn how to use china ink with a pencil."[20] Many of these drawings—simple outlines of leaves in ink accented by a neutral-toned wash—survive in her bound manuscript listing 341 plants, most of them accompanied by Linnaean descriptions. The volume also contains one of her nature prints—the sole surviving example of the 300 she made.[21] More sophisticated botanical illustrations by Colden may also have perished, for the surviving examples are difficult to reconcile with one visitor's comment (c. autumn 1758) that "she draws and colours them with great beauty." [22] Her father had assembled a small collection of illustrated botanical books to provide her with suitable models. “As she cannot have the opportunity of seeing plants in a Botanical Garden," he remarked to Peter Collinson in a letter of c. 1755, "I think the next best is to see the best cuts or pictures of them.”[23] Collinson supplemented the shipment of illustrated books he sent to Coldengham in 1757 with engravings by the renowned botanical illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–1770), “for your Ingenious Daughter to take Sketches of the fine Turn of the Leaves.” He also expressed his wish that William Bartram were nearby, for his drawings of plants “come the Nearest to Mr Ehrets” and “he would much assist her at first Setting out.” [24] In fact, some of William Bartram's drawings may already have come to hand, for in 1755 his father wrote Jane that William had "made A pockit [packet] of very fine drawings for the[e] far beyond Catesbys, took them to town & tould me he would send them very soon."[25]

Cadwallader Colden promoted recognition of his "Ingenious Daughter" through the closely interconnected network of American and European botanists with whom he corresponded. He sent examples of her botanical writing and illustrations to Gronovius in Holland, the physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766) in Edinburgh, and the merchant-botanists Peter Collinson and John Fothergill (1712-1780) in London.[26] They, in turn, trumpeted news of her accomplishments to others, including Linnaeus and the British merchant and naturalist John Ellis (c. 1710-1776).[27] In her “curiosity" for botany, Colden's father saw a means of providing her with meaningful work while advancing the important botanical investigations that his European correspondents had frequently appealed to him to resume.[28] “She will be extremely pleased in being imployed by you either in sending descriptions or any seeds you shall desire or dryed Specimens of any particular plants you shall mention to me," he assured Gronovius in 1755, adding: "She has time to apply her self to gratify your curiosity more than I ever had." [29] Colden expressed the same willingness to be of service in a letter of 1756 to Charles Alston, who had contacted her after receiving a letter of extravagant praise from his former pupil, Alexander Garden. Cadwallader Colden chastised Garden for the offense, and Colden herself begged Alston for more discretion. "You complasantly intimate that anything that I shall communicate to you, shall not be conceald," she wrote on May 1, 1756. "But this I must beg as a favour of you, that you will not make any thing publick from me, till (at least) I have gained more knowledge of Plants, and then perhaps I shall be able to made some amendments to my Discriptions." Colden continued to produce perceptive descriptions of plants until 1759, the year she married the Scottish physician William Farquhar and evidently abandoned botanical pursuits.


--Robyn Asleson

Texts

  • Colden, Jane, September 2, 1753, letter from New York City to her mother Alice Chrystie Colden at Coldengham (1937: 9: 126-27) [30]
"I am very glad you have had Company that have diverted you, & that you have been imploy'd in improving your Garden, as I know the pleasure you take in it... Mrs. Nicholls has promised me some Tuby [torn] Roots & I shall beg her for some, others kinds & [torn] Seeds..


“I and Billy...reached Dr Colden’s by noon. Got our dinner, and set out to gather seeds, and did not get back till two hours within night; then looked over of ye Dr['s] daughter[']s botanical curious observations.”


  • Alice Colden Willett, June 25, 1754, letter from Harisons Purchase to her sister, Katharine Colden at Coldengham (Colden: 1937: 9: 137-38) [32]
" I shoud give you a description of the place, it is calld the majours neck Surrounded with meadows on one side, and the other a prospect of the Ocian the ground so level that we dancd Minuates and Contry dances and so fine a shade of pine Trees, that we never need put on our hats. The first thing we did after we got to the place, was to prepare dinner of fine black fish and Lobsters... We then sat down upon the green grass, and din'd most daintely, musick playing all the time, after this we had several dances, by this time it was neer Sun sat, and we all prepard for returning home, but was stopt by the way by the Majour, who had been with us all day and give all the company a hearty invitation to his seat, where we was intertaind with wine and punch in great plenty, the Majour himself as gay as any young man, and niver stopt from dancing for several hours together, pray tell Sister Jenny [Jane Colden] that I wish she coud have seen him, I assure her he appeard to much greater advantage in his own house than he did when she saw him here.... He has a pleasant place and a good h[ou]se and also a pretty fountain, so that there seems nothing wanting but a Mistress to take care of it, but me thinks I hear you say what a deal you write about Miss Jennys admirer, and tell me not a word of my own."


"I have had severall Letters from Europe & a pretty parcell of Seeds from Russia from Dr Mounsey cheif Physician to the Army & Physician to the Prince Royal of Russia they are mostly Persian seeds I have sent a few to Miss Colden.... I mentioned to Miss Colden that the Small Bags of Shells something like Hops that she has are the reall Matrices of the Buccinum ampullatum of Dr Lister.... I shall in my next mention to Miss Colden the method of preserving Butterflies &c."


"Its now passed the Season of Seeds but I'll endeavour to procure Such as Miss Colden may want this year, tho my present Business confines me much to Town. I have not had an hour to spend in the woods this 2 months which makes me turn rusty in Botany."


"I thought that Botany is an Amusement which may be made agreable for the Ladies who are often at a loss to fill up their time if it could be made agreable to them[.] Their natural curiosity & the pleasure they take in the beauty & variety of dress seems to fit them for it[.] The chief reason that few or none of them have hitherto applied themselves to this study I believe is because all the books of any value are wrote in Latin & so filled with technical words that the obtaining the necessary previous knowlege is so tiresome & disagreable that they are discouraged at the first setting out & give it over before they can receive any pleasure in the pursuit.

"I have a daughter who has an inclination to reading & a curiosity for natural phylosophy or natural History & a sufficient capacity for attaining a competent nowlege[.] I took the pains to explain Linnaeus's system & to put it in English for her use by fre[e]ing it from the Technical terms which was easily don[e] by useing two or three words in place of one[.] She is now grown very fond of the study and has made such progress in it as I believe would please you if you saw her performance[.]e Tho' perhaps she could not have been persuaded to learn the terms at first[,] she now understands in some degree Linnaeus's characters notwithstanding that she does not understand Latin[.] She has allready a pretty large volume in writing of the Description of plants. She was shewn a method of takeing the impression of the leaves on paper with printers ink by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species by their leaves. No description in words alone can give so clear an idea as when the description is assisted with a picture She has the impression of 300 plants in the manner you'l[l] see by the sample sent you[.] That you may have some conception of her performance & her manner of describing I propose to inclose some samples in her own writting some of which I think are new Genus's. One is of the anax foliis ternis ternatis in the Flora Virg. I never had seen the fruit of it till she discover'd it[.] The fruit is ripe in the beginning of June & the plant dies immediately after the fruit is ripe & no longer to be seen. Two more I have not found described any where & in the others you will find some things particular which I think are not taken notice of by any author I have seen[.] If you think S[i]r that she can be of any use to you she will be extremely pleased in being imployed by you either in sending descriptions or any seeds you shall desire or dryed Specimens of any particular plants you shall mention to me[.] She has time to apply her self to gratify your curiosity more than I ever had & now when I have time the infirmities of age disable me."


"I shall [...] send you a Sample of my daughter Jenny's performances in Botany. As it is not usual for woemen to take pleasure in Botany as a Science I shall do what I can to incourage her in this amusement which fills up her idle hours to much better purpose that the usual amusements eagerly pursued by others of her sex[.] As she cannot have the opportunity of seeing plants in a Botanical Garden I think the next best is to see the best cuts or pictures of them[,] for which purpose I would buy for her Tourneforts Institutes & Morison's Historia plantarum, or if you know any better books for this purpose[,] as you are a better judge than I am[,] I will be obliged to you in making the choice[.] If Mr Calm's [sic] Observations in America be published pray send it to me or any thing else which is new & you like on that subject. At the bottom I shall annex a list of some things & other books I must desire the favour of you to send to me....
Ainsworth's Latin & English Dictionary
Supplement to Chambers's Dictionary
Tournfort Institutiones herbarise
Morison's Historia Plantarum
Fred. Hoffman Opera omnia


“I received thine of October ye 26th 1756 & read it several times with agreeable satisfaction indeed I am very carefull of it & it keeps company with ye choicest correspondents, ye European letters[.] ye viney plant thee so well describes I take to be ye dioscoria of hill & Gronovius tho I never searched ye characters of ye flower so curiously as I find thee hath done. I should be extreamly glad to see thee at my house & to shew thee my garden.

"I have several kinds of ye Cockleat or snail trefoil & trigonels [415] or fenugreck but being annual plants they are gone off[.] ye species of persicary thee mentions.... Ye amorpha is A beautiful flower but whether wont your cold winters kill it[.] if ye Rhubarb from London be ye Siberian I have it I had ye perennial flax from rusia Livonia[.] it growed 4 foot high & I dont know but 50 stalks from A root but ye flax was very rotten & course[.] Ye flowers large & blew[.] it lived many years & died[.] neither what you will want this [.] I am quite at A loss what seeds to gather & what quantity to preserve.


"Did Miss Colden receive the Seeds which I sent; they were the following The Chionanthus or Fringetree. 2d The Hop-tree a new genus—3 Yellow Jessamy 4 Campellia a most beautifull flowring shrub—yucca foliis filamentosis—Pavia or scarlet Horsechesnut— Umbrella tree or the Magnolia foliis Amplissimis flore ingenti Candidi....

"I will be greatly obliged to you [sic] Da[ugh]t[er] for for any seeds or Insects that she can pick up, very soon I'll write her at great Length."


"I have in Mrs Alexanders Trunk Sent you the Herbals you wanted and putt in 2 or 3 of Erhetts Plants, for your Ingenious Daughter to take Sketches of the fine Turn of the Leaves &c. & Lin: Genera.

"I wish your fair Daug[hte]r was Near Wm Bartram he would much assist her at first Setting out. John['] Son a very Ingenious Ladd who without any Instructor has not only attained to the Drawing of Plants & Birds, but He paints them in their Natural Colours So Elegantly So Masterly that the best Judges Here think they come the Nearest to Mr Ehrets, of any they have Seen[.] it is a fine amusement for her[;] the More She practices the more She Will Improve, by another Ship, I will Send Some more prints but as they are Liable to be taken I Send a few at a Time."


  • Rutherfurd, Walter, c. autumn 1758, letter describing a visit to Coldengham (Rutherfurd, 1894: 13) [39]
"At one of our landings we made an excursion to Coldenham [sic] the abode of the venerable Philosopher Colden, as gay and facetious in his conversation as serious and solid in his writings. From the middle of the Woods this Family corresponds with all the learned societies in Europe…. His daughter Jenny is a Florist and Botanist, she has discovered a great number of Plants never before described and has given their Properties and Virtues, many of which are found useful in Medicine, and she draws and colours them with great beauty. Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh is in the number of her correspondents. N.B. She makes the best cheese I ever ate in America."

Images


References

Jane Colden manuscript in the Natural History Museum, London

Jane Colden's plants in the field


Notes

  1. ↑ For a vivid evocation of her circumstances in the "primeval forest" and "untouched wilderness" of Coldengham, see Barbara Hollingsworth, Her Garden Was Her Delight (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), 23-29, view on Zotero.
  2. ↑ For Jane and Alice Colden's delight in gardening, see Colden, 1937, 9: 126-27, and Colden, 1923, 5: 72; Berkeley, Alexander Garden, 43, .
  3. ↑ Cadwallader Colden John Fothergill, October 18, 1757 in Colden, 1923: 5: 202-03, ; For his view that women's "natural curiosity & the pleasure they take in the beauty and variety of dress” suited them to detailed botanical observation, see Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, October 1, 1755 in Colden, 1923, 5: 29-31, The botanical tutorials most likely began shortly after Jane's recovery from a grave illness of several months’ duration in 1751 (Colden, 1921, 4: 228, 229, 237, 239, 242, 263).
  4. ↑ Britten, 15
  5. ↑ Cadwallader Colden to an unknown correspondent [Dr. Robert Whytt?], February 15, 1758, Colden, 1923, 5: 217,
  6. ↑ Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, September 1, 1753, Collinson and Armstrong, 2002: 1730,
  7. ↑ Bartram , 1992, 360,
  8. ↑ Peter Collinson to John Bartram, January 20, 1756 in Bartram, 1992, 393,
  9. ↑ John Bartram to Jane Colden, January 24, 1757, in Colden, 1992, 413-14.
  10. ↑ Colden, 1992, 413-14.
  11. ↑ For Garden's description of the amorpha and his comment that "Miss Colden will be much pleased with it," see his undated fragmented of a letter, presumably to Cadwallader Colden, in Vail, February 1907, 30.
  12. ↑ Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 43,
  13. ↑ Alexander Garden to Cadwallader Colden, April 15, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 5, 142; see also 5: 5, 11, 120; Gray, 1843, 51.
  14. ↑ Colden, 1923, 5: 41, 91-92, 114-16; see also 5: 227.
  15. ↑ Alexander Garden [and Jane Colden], "The Description of a New Plant; by Alexander Garden, Physician at Charleston in South Carolina," in Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary (Edinburgh: G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1756), 2: 1–5, view on Zotero; see also Colden, 1923, 5: 10, . Peter Collinson sent the published article ("the Curious Botanic Desertation of your Ingenious Daughter") to Cadwallader Colden, remarking: "Being the Only Lady that I have yett heard off [sic] that is a proffessor [of] the Linnaean System of which He [Linnaeus] is not a Little proud"; see Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, April 6, 1757 in Colden, 1923, 5: 139; see also 5: 10
  16. ↑ Philippon, 24-25; Smith, 1821, 366-67, Berkeley, Alexander Garden, 53, 74, . The plant is now most commonly known as Virginia marsh-St. John's-wort (Triadenum virginicum)
  17. ↑ Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, Colden, 1923, 5: 29-30,
  18. ↑ Alexander Garden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, March 15, 1755, quoted in Berkeley, Alexander Garden, 43,
  19. ↑ Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, October 1, 1755 in Colden, 1923, 5: 29-31, .
  20. ↑ Cadwallader Colden to John Fothergill, October 18, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 202-03. For a recent discussion of Colden's drawings in relation to the illustrations in English Renaissance herbals, see Philippon, 23-24,
  21. ↑ In 1782 this volume was in the possession of Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim (1749-1800), a Hessian soldier and botanist who studied North American trees and shrubs while commanding a cavalry squadron in New York and Pennsylvania from 1778 to 1783. For Wangenheim's efforts to promote the naturalization of North American species in Germany, particularly as director general of waters and forests of eastern Prussia, see Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, 6: 346; see also Britten, 25-26; Harrison, summer 1995, 24-26. Colden's manuscript later passed to the British botanist and plant collector Joseph Banks (1743-1820), and is now in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London.
  22. ↑ For Walter Rutherfurd's undated letter to his family in Scotland, see ---
  23. ↑ Cadwallader Colden to Peter Collinson, n.d. [October 1755?], in Colden, 1923, 5: 37-38. The books requested from Collinson included Institutiones rei herbariae (1700) by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Plantarum Universalis Oxoniensis (1680-99) by Robert Morison, as well as Robert Ainsworth’s Latin and English dictionary. Cadwallader Colden later reported that his daughter had acquired “some Knowledge of botanic latin tho’ she does not otherwise understand anything of the language”; Cadwallader Colden to John Fothergill, October 18, 1757 in Colden, 1923, 5: 203, .
  24. ↑ Peter Collinson to Cadwallader Colden, October 5, 1757, Colden, 1923, 5: 190, see also 5:139,
  25. ↑ John Bartram to Jane Colden, January 24, 1757,
  26. ↑ The quotation is from Peter Collinson's letter to Cadwallader Colden, 1923, 5: 190; see also 5: 29-31, 37, 39, 198, 202-03, 217; Bartram, 1992, 393,
  27. ↑ Colden, 1923, 5: 198; Smith, 1821, 45, 95
  28. ↑ Colden, 1923, 5: 29-30,
  29. ↑ Cadwallader Colden to Johann Friedrich Gronovius, October 1, 1755 in Colden, 1923, 5: 30-31; see also 5: 139,
  30. ↑ Colden, 1937,
  31. ↑ Bartram, 1992,
  32. ↑ Colden, 1937, 9,
  33. ↑ Colden, 1923,
  34. ↑ Colden, 1923
  35. ↑ Colden, 1923,
  36. ↑ Colden, 1923,
  37. ↑ Bartram, 1992,
  38. ↑ Colden, 1923,
  39. ↑ Rutherfurd, 1894,

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