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Margaretta Morris

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Margaretta Hare Morris (3 December 1797 – 29 May 1867) was an American entomologist.[1] Morris is sometimes said to have been the first female member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.[1][2] but was actually the second[3] being preceded by Lucy Say,[4] the widow of Thomas Say who founded the academy above a cake shop. She was, with Maria Mitchell one of the first two women in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[5]

Life

Morris was born on 3 December 1797, probably in Philadelphia, one of three daughters of Luke Morris (1760-1802), apparently a wealthy man, and Ann Morris (1767-1853), (née Willing) who also had one son, Thomas Willing Morris. Morris had no formal education.[6] She lived in the same house in Germantown most of her life, with her mother, until her death in 1853, and her sister, Elizabeth Carrington Morris who was interested in botany and had correspondence with Asa Gray. Her youngest sister Susan Sophia Morris (1800-1868) married, in 1832, John Stockton Littell (1806-1875).[7] The sisters were part of a network that include Gray and Dorethea Dix.[7] Morris attended scientific lectures in Germantown with her mother, and was acquainted with the botanist and ornithologist Thomas Nuttall as well as other scientists.

Morris studied the habits of the Hessian fly, concluding that the eggs were laid in the grain rather than the stalk as had been previously thought. She also studied the seventeen year locust and fungi as botanical pests. Her results were important to agriculture.[1] She sent her papers to scientific societies (which largely only had men as members) where they were read on her behalf.[6]

Works

Family papers

The Morris family papers passed, apparently through Susan and Kohn Littell, into the Littell family. They are incorporated in the Littell family papers,[8] currently held in the special collections of the library of the University of Delaware.[9]

Illustrations

Morris provided illustrations for a paper by William Gambel. (1848)[6]

Papers

  • "On the Cecidomyia destructor, or Hessian Fly". Trans. Am. PHil Soc. new series. 8: 49–52. 1843.
  • "Observations on the Development of the Hessian Fly". Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 1: 66–8. 1841-3
  • "On the Discovery of the Larvae of the Cicada septemdecim". Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 3: 66–8. 1846-1847
  • "On the Cecidomyia culmicola". Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 4: 194. 1848-1849
  • "On the Seventeen Year Locusts". Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist. 4: 110. 1851.

References

  1. ^ a b c Elliott, Clark A; Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory (1979). Biographical Dictionary of American Science: The Seventeenth Through the Nineteenth Centuries. Westport and London: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-20419-7.
  2. ^ Willis Conner Sorensen (1995). Brethren of the Net: American Entomology, 1840-1880. History of American science and technology series. University of Alabama Press. p. 188. ISBN 9780817307554.
  3. ^ Martha J. Bailey (1994). American Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-CLIO. p. 261. ISBN 9780874367409. Margaretta Morris became the first practicing woman naturalist (and second woman) to be elected to membership when she was appointed an honorary member in the late 1850s.
  4. ^ "Lucy Say Illustrations". Academy of Natural Sciences.
  5. ^ Willis Conner Sorensen (1995). Brethren of the Net: American Entomology, 1840-1880. History of American science and technology series. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 9780817307554.
  6. ^ a b c Joy Harvey and Marilyn Ogilvie (1 January 2000). "Margaretta Morris". In Marilyn Ogilvie; Joy Harvey (eds.). The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science. Vol. 2. New York and London: Routledge. p. 917. ISBN 978-0-415-92040-7.
  7. ^ a b Littell Family Papers - Catalogue (Draft) - Biographical Note, page 2
  8. ^ Littell Family Papers - Catalogue (Draft) - Biographical Note, page 14
  9. ^ Collections, Special. "University of Delaware Library: Special Collections - Manuscript & Archival Collections". Lib.udel.edu. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
  • The Morris Family of Philadelphia Robert C. Moon
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