Minerva's French Sisters: Women of Science in Enlightenment France
Nina Rattner Gelbart
Abstract
This book presents the stories of six intrepid women of science in eighteenth-century France whose lives and accomplishments — though celebrated in their lifetimes — have been largely written out of the history of their period: mathematician and philosopher Elisabeth Ferrand, astronomer Nicole Reine Lepaute, field naturalist Jeanne Barret, garden botanist and illustrator Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, anatomist and inventor Marie-Marguerite Biheron, and chemist Geneviève d'Arconville. By adjusting our lens we can find them. In a society where science was not yet an established profession for ... More
This book presents the stories of six intrepid women of science in eighteenth-century France whose lives and accomplishments — though celebrated in their lifetimes — have been largely written out of the history of their period: mathematician and philosopher Elisabeth Ferrand, astronomer Nicole Reine Lepaute, field naturalist Jeanne Barret, garden botanist and illustrator Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, anatomist and inventor Marie-Marguerite Biheron, and chemist Geneviève d'Arconville. By adjusting our lens we can find them. In a society where science was not yet an established profession for men, much less women, these six audacious and inspiring figures made their mark on their respective fields of science and on Enlightenment society as they defied gender expectations and conventional norms. Their boldness and contributions to science were appreciated by such luminaries as Franklin, the philosophes, and many European monarchs. The book is written in an unorthodox style to match the women's breaking of boundaries.
Keywords:
eighteenth-century France,
women,
Elisabeth Ferrand,
Nicole Reine Lepaute,
Jeanne Barret,
Madeleine Françoise Basseporte,
Marie-Marguerite Biheron,
Geneviève d'Arconville,
Enlightenment society
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2021 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780300252569 |
Published to Yale Scholarship Online: September 2021 |
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300252569.001.0001 |