One of the unfortunately recurring themes of International Women’s Month has been women whose achievements have been relatively ignored and overlooked. Women who want to simply participate in many areas, including engineering and science, have had to overcome barriers to entry that men simply haven’t faced (since the barriers were often created by those men). I’m sure you’ve heard of the botanist Carl Linnaeus, who was born in 1707 (not today) and is regarded as the founder of the way organisms are named and classified. But I bet you’ve never heard of Jane Colden, who was born in 1724 (on this day) and worked directly, if remotely, with Linnaeus.
Colden was born in New York City when it was a British colony. Her father was a doctor, and schooled her at home, including a book by Linnaeus that he’d managed to acquire. In early 1700s North America, that was probably no small accomplishment. He recognized and encouraged his daughter’s interest in botany, and together father and daughter were the first to apply the Linnaean Taxonomy to North American plants.
Colden went on to catalog the plants of New York, collecting hundreds of specimens and classifying them. She was also a talented illustrator, and added ink drawings to her records. She included uses for each plant, both by colonists and indigenous people, and in some cases even added recipes. She corresponded with a number of other botanists, including Linnaeus, and in 1756 one of them wrote that she “has, in a scientific manner, sent over several sheets of plants…anatomized after [Linnaeus’] method. I believe she is the first lady that has attempted anything of this nature.”
Colden discovered at least one plant, which ordinarily would have been named after her, but it never was. As a prominent anthropologist explained, “Had she not been a woman, Jane Colden would likely be one of the most famous early American botanists.”
Her major work was a manuscript containing her catalog of plants and illustrations, but it was never published. In fact she never even gave it a title. It was only discovered 75 years after her death, when another North American female botanist, Almira Phelps, declined the title of “first female American botanist, saying there had been another long before her. She married in 1759, and as far as anyone knows, didn’t do any further botanical work after that. She did continue writing down her investigations, though, and evidently got very interested in making, of all things, cheese. She made a manuscript of that, too: Memorandum of Cheese made in 1756. Colden is not widely remembered, and her only memorial is the Jane Colden Memorial Garden in the town where she lived. Her manuscript is now in the British Museum, and was finally published in 1963.
