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pheloniusfriarThese short biographical essays were written as part of a 4th year Women's and Gender Studies seminar class I took in the winter/spring of 2017 called “Representations of Women’s Scientific Contributions” with Dr. Cindy Stelmackowich at Carleton University. The work that we did in that class, and as volunteers over the following summer, led to the well-received exhibit “HERbarium” at the Carleton University Art Gallery (which will run until December 3, 2017). The exhibit looks at the groundbreaking work of global reach and implication by five Canadian women scientists. In the case of three of those women, their work remained virtually unknown outside of their specific scientific fields and utterly unknown to the broader public. The work done for “HERbarium” will be informing a much, much larger exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Nature in 2018 that is being curated by Dr. Stelmackowich. This essay was about one of the women whose work was included in the exhibit – the other two essays (to follow) examined the work of other women (not in the exhibit). Each of the essays required deep research into difficult to find historical fragments and sometimes oblique references in order to find a coherent and accurate narrative. They also needed to be short (always a challenge for me, heh).
As a further note, the abstract/proposal I submitted to Gender Summit 11 on the work we did on “HERbarium” and its value as historical and feminist research was accepted, and I will be presenting a poster (along with one of the other students that worked on the “HERbarium” exhibit) at the conference Nov. 6 through Nov. 8 in Montréal, Québec. At the conference “600 advocates of gender equality from science, innovation and development will participate. The overarching theme this year is Embracing pluralism and thriving through diversity – shaping science and innovation. The Gender Summits are a series of interconnected, action-based events held across the globe since 2011. They follow the theme of Quality Research and Innovation through Equality. Their aim is to make gender equality in research and innovation the norm and to embed gender equality as a primary dimension of quality”. I am very excited to be participating in the first one held in North America!
Catharine Parr Traill (née Strickland) was born in London, England on January 9, 1802, the fifth daughter of Thomas Strickland (Morgan, 1903), manager of the Greenland Docks on the Thames, and Elizabeth Homer who went on to have another daughter and two sons together. Soon after her birth, her father retired from the docks and they moved a number of times to keep up with his various business interests, all the while receiving instruction from him “in such subjects as geography, history, and mathematics, all of which he oversaw; [while] his wife took charge of their development in the traditional feminine skills” (Peterman, 2003), which included dairy work and vegetable farming that would be valuable skills later in her life (Hobbs & Goddard, 2001). While living on a farm in Suffolk, “it was here that Catharine’s most vivid memories of childhood were formed. She recalled in particular fishing with her father [...] while being read to and reading from his copy of Izaak Walton’s The compleat angler. ‘The dear old Fisherman,’ as she told author William Kirby in 1895, had helped when she was a child ‘to form my love of Nature and of Natures God’” (Peterman, 2003). However, Thomas’ business interests increasingly kept him away from home and the Strickland children were left to find their own ways of occupying their time. In Catharine’s case, it was to work on the writing of stories to share with her siblings and family friends, and the collection of plants as her father had taught her to do.
Thomas died in 1818 and left the family in relative poverty when his business ventures failed, and Catharine turned to publishing her stories, starting at the age of 15, as a means of contributing to the family’s upkeep (Peterman, 2003). “She was the first of the sisters to commence writing, and it was the favour with which her stories and sketches were received by the public that led her elder sisters to enter the same field” (Morgan, 1903). Most of her early works were tales of Christian and Victorian morality intended for a young audience, e.g. (Strickland, 1822), (Strickland, 1823), (Strickland, 1825), and (Strickland, 1828); however, she did increasingly publish a books on her experiences as a naturalist, but still for a younger audience, e.g. (Strickland, 1930), (Strickland, 1831a), and (Strickland, 1831b).
In 1832, she married the Scottish widower Lieutenant Thomas Traill against the wishes of her family and they soon emigrated to Canada to escape financial hardship. In 1836, Catharine published her most famous work, “The Backwoods of Canada. Being Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant Officer, Illustrative of the Domestic Economy of British America” (Traill, 1836), written “using the kind of realistic detail that has become a tradition in Canadian literature” (Canada Post Corporation, 2003). While it details the hardships she faced attempting to settle in Canada, “it consistently measures Canadian experience through the lens of respectability, social class, and good taste, and in terms of interests congenial to women of similar background” and “to make clear the kinds of adjustment, effort, and resolve that were necessary if one was to adapt to Canada’s primitive and demanding circumstances” (Peterman, 2003). It was explicitly meant to be part of the colonial effort along with her subsequent books “all of which had a marked influence in promoting emigration to Canada”, including “‘The Canadian Crusoes’, ‘The Female Emigrant’s Guide’, ‘Rambles in the Canadian Forest’, ‘Studies in Plant Life in Canada’, ‘Pearls and Pebbles’, and ‘Cot and Cradle Stories’ (Morgan, 1903).
Her husband Thomas suffered ongoing financial hardships both in Canada and back in England, and continued to move Catharine and her seven children (two of their nine children had died in the 1840s) from place to place in Ontario looking for success. But the 1850s presented “an increasingly difficult struggle marked not only by deaths, illnesses, lack of firewood, and crop failures, but also by the incapacitating bouts of depression suffered by Thomas”, who ultimately died in 1859 leaving the family in destitution (Peterman, 2003). Catharine rarely complained in any of her writings or to her friends, but continued to write as a means of supporting herself and her family.
By 1861, Catharine had completed the manuscript for “a groundbreaking work on hundreds of local plants” but “despite commendations by professors, no Toronto firm was willing to risk publishing a long, specialized book” (Globe, 2015). To make the book more attractive to publishers, she enlisted the help of her niece Agnes FitzGibbon (née Moodie, daughter of her sister Susanna) to produce a set of illustrations to go in the book. Agnes, a trained artist, agreed in part because she had recently lost her own husband and was hoping it might provide a means of support for herself and her six children, found a potential publisher, taught herself lithography, and serially produced each of the ten plates on a single borrowed lithographer’s stone at a Toronto printer. The publisher, John Lovell of Montreal, agreed to publish the book, provided Catharine and Agnes found 500 subscribers to the book at $5 apiece “which at that time was enough to buy a substantial piece of furniture” (Globe, 2015). By June 1867, 400 subscribers had been recruited and the publication began of “Canadian Wild Flowers”. Agnes, her daughters, and several artists from a local Toronto art school, hand painted each of the 5000 illustrations for the book (10 colour plates in each times 500 copies of the book) and Catharine was given $50 for her part in writing the book (again, a substantial amount then). “Canadian Wild Flowers set the standard for sumptuous nineteenth-century Canadian books. An early example of large-format home-produced colour illustration, it was one of the first serious botanical works published in the country” (Globe, 2015). In 1894, biologist James Fletcher, who established the National Herbarium of Canada on the Central Experimental Farm, justly praised Traill’s plant descriptions, despite her classification as an amateur botanist, as “one of the greatest botanical triumphs which [anyone] could achieve” (Peterman, 2003).
Catharine died in 1899 at the age of 97 and was writing until the end, and “at her death she was said to be the oldest living authoress in the British Dominion” (Morgan, 1903). Despite all the hardships she experienced, she was fondly remembered: “John Reade, speaking of Mrs. Traill [...] says: ‘No one knew her who did not love her. Those who knew nothing of her literary fame, loved her for her Christian love and charity. All children loved her. It was not uncommon for grey-haired men and women to say: “I have known and loved her all my life.” Her one boast (if boast it could be called), was: “I have never lost a friend.”’” (Morgan, 1903).
References:
Canada Post Corporation. (2003, September). 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada / Canadian authors. Canada’s Stamp Details, XII(3). Retrieved from https://www.canadapost.ca/web/en/blogs/collecting/details.page?article=2003/09/08/50th_anniversary_of_&cattype=collecting&cat=stamps
Globe, A. (2015). The Story of Canadian Wild Flowers. Retrieved 17 April 2017, from http://digitalcollections.mcmaster.ca/hpcanpub/case-study/story-canadian-wild-flowers
Hobbs, C., & Goddard, A. (2001, February 27). Biographies - Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Retrieved 17 April 2017, from https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/moodie-traill/027013-2000-e.html
Morgan, H. J. (1903). Types of Canadian women and of women who are or have been connected with Canada. Toronto: W. Briggs. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/typesofcanadianw01morguoft
Peterman, M. A. (2003). Strickland, Catharine Parr. In Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol. XII). University of Toronto/Université Laval. Retrieved from http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=6448
Strickland, C. P. (1822). Little Downy; or, The History of a Field-Mouse. London: A. K. Newman. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20081014
Strickland, C. P. (1823). The Tell-Tale: An original collection of moral and amusing stories. London: Harris and Son. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20090304
Strickland, C. P. (1825). Fables for the Nursery: Original and Select. London: John Harris. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20090409
Strickland, C. P. (1828). The Step-Brothers. A tale. London: Harvey and Darton. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20090204
Strickland, C. P. (1831a). Narratives of Nature, and History Book for Young Naturalists. London: Edward Lacey.
Strickland, C. P. (1831b). Sketchbook of a Young Naturalist or, Hints to the Students of Nature. London: Harvey and Darton. Retrieved from https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/moodie-traill/027013-2203-e.html
Strickland, C. P. (1930). Sketches From Nature, or Hints to Juvenile Naturalists. London: Harvey and Darton. Retrieved from https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/moodie-traill/027013-5011-e.html
Traill, C. P. S. (1836). The Backwoods of Canada Being Letters From The Wife of an Emigrant Officer, Illustrative of the Domestic Economy of British America. London: Charles Knight. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13559
The following is a photo of the Catherine Parr Traill section of the “HERbarium” exhibit. The print at the top right is of an herbarium specimen, a Cinnamon Fern from the massive Vascular Plant Collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature, which was collected by Catherine in 1897 (when she was 94 years old) and showed that she was actively pursuing botanical research (it is properly preserved and labelled with its scientific name and collection place, etc.) until she died in 1899. Click on the photo to open the full sized image in another tab.
As a further note, the abstract/proposal I submitted to Gender Summit 11 on the work we did on “HERbarium” and its value as historical and feminist research was accepted, and I will be presenting a poster (along with one of the other students that worked on the “HERbarium” exhibit) at the conference Nov. 6 through Nov. 8 in Montréal, Québec. At the conference “600 advocates of gender equality from science, innovation and development will participate. The overarching theme this year is Embracing pluralism and thriving through diversity – shaping science and innovation. The Gender Summits are a series of interconnected, action-based events held across the globe since 2011. They follow the theme of Quality Research and Innovation through Equality. Their aim is to make gender equality in research and innovation the norm and to embed gender equality as a primary dimension of quality”. I am very excited to be participating in the first one held in North America!
Catharine Parr Traill (née Strickland) was born in London, England on January 9, 1802, the fifth daughter of Thomas Strickland (Morgan, 1903), manager of the Greenland Docks on the Thames, and Elizabeth Homer who went on to have another daughter and two sons together. Soon after her birth, her father retired from the docks and they moved a number of times to keep up with his various business interests, all the while receiving instruction from him “in such subjects as geography, history, and mathematics, all of which he oversaw; [while] his wife took charge of their development in the traditional feminine skills” (Peterman, 2003), which included dairy work and vegetable farming that would be valuable skills later in her life (Hobbs & Goddard, 2001). While living on a farm in Suffolk, “it was here that Catharine’s most vivid memories of childhood were formed. She recalled in particular fishing with her father [...] while being read to and reading from his copy of Izaak Walton’s The compleat angler. ‘The dear old Fisherman,’ as she told author William Kirby in 1895, had helped when she was a child ‘to form my love of Nature and of Natures God’” (Peterman, 2003). However, Thomas’ business interests increasingly kept him away from home and the Strickland children were left to find their own ways of occupying their time. In Catharine’s case, it was to work on the writing of stories to share with her siblings and family friends, and the collection of plants as her father had taught her to do.
Thomas died in 1818 and left the family in relative poverty when his business ventures failed, and Catharine turned to publishing her stories, starting at the age of 15, as a means of contributing to the family’s upkeep (Peterman, 2003). “She was the first of the sisters to commence writing, and it was the favour with which her stories and sketches were received by the public that led her elder sisters to enter the same field” (Morgan, 1903). Most of her early works were tales of Christian and Victorian morality intended for a young audience, e.g. (Strickland, 1822), (Strickland, 1823), (Strickland, 1825), and (Strickland, 1828); however, she did increasingly publish a books on her experiences as a naturalist, but still for a younger audience, e.g. (Strickland, 1930), (Strickland, 1831a), and (Strickland, 1831b).
In 1832, she married the Scottish widower Lieutenant Thomas Traill against the wishes of her family and they soon emigrated to Canada to escape financial hardship. In 1836, Catharine published her most famous work, “The Backwoods of Canada. Being Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant Officer, Illustrative of the Domestic Economy of British America” (Traill, 1836), written “using the kind of realistic detail that has become a tradition in Canadian literature” (Canada Post Corporation, 2003). While it details the hardships she faced attempting to settle in Canada, “it consistently measures Canadian experience through the lens of respectability, social class, and good taste, and in terms of interests congenial to women of similar background” and “to make clear the kinds of adjustment, effort, and resolve that were necessary if one was to adapt to Canada’s primitive and demanding circumstances” (Peterman, 2003). It was explicitly meant to be part of the colonial effort along with her subsequent books “all of which had a marked influence in promoting emigration to Canada”, including “‘The Canadian Crusoes’, ‘The Female Emigrant’s Guide’, ‘Rambles in the Canadian Forest’, ‘Studies in Plant Life in Canada’, ‘Pearls and Pebbles’, and ‘Cot and Cradle Stories’ (Morgan, 1903).
Her husband Thomas suffered ongoing financial hardships both in Canada and back in England, and continued to move Catharine and her seven children (two of their nine children had died in the 1840s) from place to place in Ontario looking for success. But the 1850s presented “an increasingly difficult struggle marked not only by deaths, illnesses, lack of firewood, and crop failures, but also by the incapacitating bouts of depression suffered by Thomas”, who ultimately died in 1859 leaving the family in destitution (Peterman, 2003). Catharine rarely complained in any of her writings or to her friends, but continued to write as a means of supporting herself and her family.
By 1861, Catharine had completed the manuscript for “a groundbreaking work on hundreds of local plants” but “despite commendations by professors, no Toronto firm was willing to risk publishing a long, specialized book” (Globe, 2015). To make the book more attractive to publishers, she enlisted the help of her niece Agnes FitzGibbon (née Moodie, daughter of her sister Susanna) to produce a set of illustrations to go in the book. Agnes, a trained artist, agreed in part because she had recently lost her own husband and was hoping it might provide a means of support for herself and her six children, found a potential publisher, taught herself lithography, and serially produced each of the ten plates on a single borrowed lithographer’s stone at a Toronto printer. The publisher, John Lovell of Montreal, agreed to publish the book, provided Catharine and Agnes found 500 subscribers to the book at $5 apiece “which at that time was enough to buy a substantial piece of furniture” (Globe, 2015). By June 1867, 400 subscribers had been recruited and the publication began of “Canadian Wild Flowers”. Agnes, her daughters, and several artists from a local Toronto art school, hand painted each of the 5000 illustrations for the book (10 colour plates in each times 500 copies of the book) and Catharine was given $50 for her part in writing the book (again, a substantial amount then). “Canadian Wild Flowers set the standard for sumptuous nineteenth-century Canadian books. An early example of large-format home-produced colour illustration, it was one of the first serious botanical works published in the country” (Globe, 2015). In 1894, biologist James Fletcher, who established the National Herbarium of Canada on the Central Experimental Farm, justly praised Traill’s plant descriptions, despite her classification as an amateur botanist, as “one of the greatest botanical triumphs which [anyone] could achieve” (Peterman, 2003).
Catharine died in 1899 at the age of 97 and was writing until the end, and “at her death she was said to be the oldest living authoress in the British Dominion” (Morgan, 1903). Despite all the hardships she experienced, she was fondly remembered: “John Reade, speaking of Mrs. Traill [...] says: ‘No one knew her who did not love her. Those who knew nothing of her literary fame, loved her for her Christian love and charity. All children loved her. It was not uncommon for grey-haired men and women to say: “I have known and loved her all my life.” Her one boast (if boast it could be called), was: “I have never lost a friend.”’” (Morgan, 1903).
References:
Canada Post Corporation. (2003, September). 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada / Canadian authors. Canada’s Stamp Details, XII(3). Retrieved from https://www.canadapost.ca/web/en/blogs/collecting/details.page?article=2003/09/08/50th_anniversary_of_&cattype=collecting&cat=stamps
Globe, A. (2015). The Story of Canadian Wild Flowers. Retrieved 17 April 2017, from http://digitalcollections.mcmaster.ca/hpcanpub/case-study/story-canadian-wild-flowers
Hobbs, C., & Goddard, A. (2001, February 27). Biographies - Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Retrieved 17 April 2017, from https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/moodie-traill/027013-2000-e.html
Morgan, H. J. (1903). Types of Canadian women and of women who are or have been connected with Canada. Toronto: W. Briggs. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/typesofcanadianw01morguoft
Peterman, M. A. (2003). Strickland, Catharine Parr. In Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol. XII). University of Toronto/Université Laval. Retrieved from http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=6448
Strickland, C. P. (1822). Little Downy; or, The History of a Field-Mouse. London: A. K. Newman. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20081014
Strickland, C. P. (1823). The Tell-Tale: An original collection of moral and amusing stories. London: Harris and Son. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20090304
Strickland, C. P. (1825). Fables for the Nursery: Original and Select. London: John Harris. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20090409
Strickland, C. P. (1828). The Step-Brothers. A tale. London: Harvey and Darton. Retrieved from http://fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20090204
Strickland, C. P. (1831a). Narratives of Nature, and History Book for Young Naturalists. London: Edward Lacey.
Strickland, C. P. (1831b). Sketchbook of a Young Naturalist or, Hints to the Students of Nature. London: Harvey and Darton. Retrieved from https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/moodie-traill/027013-2203-e.html
Strickland, C. P. (1930). Sketches From Nature, or Hints to Juvenile Naturalists. London: Harvey and Darton. Retrieved from https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/moodie-traill/027013-5011-e.html
Traill, C. P. S. (1836). The Backwoods of Canada Being Letters From The Wife of an Emigrant Officer, Illustrative of the Domestic Economy of British America. London: Charles Knight. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13559
The following is a photo of the Catherine Parr Traill section of the “HERbarium” exhibit. The print at the top right is of an herbarium specimen, a Cinnamon Fern from the massive Vascular Plant Collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature, which was collected by Catherine in 1897 (when she was 94 years old) and showed that she was actively pursuing botanical research (it is properly preserved and labelled with its scientific name and collection place, etc.) until she died in 1899. Click on the photo to open the full sized image in another tab.
