Fara - Pandoras Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment

Patricia Fara is a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and lectures in the History and Philosophy of Science Department. She is the author of several highly acclaimed books, including Newton: The Making of Genius, An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity and Enlightenment and Sex, Botany and Empire: The Story of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks .

Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment

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Epub ISBN: 9781446435168

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Published by Pimlico 2004

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Copyright Patricia Fara 2004

Patricia Fara has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 1844130827

For Jim Secord

Pandoras breeches: copper coin, inscribed PANDORAS BREECHES / END OF PAIN, 1792 (copyright The British Museum).

Minerva Directing Study to the Attainment of Universal Knowledge, frontispiece of The New Encyclopdia, 1807 (by permission of the British Library, shelfmark 012217.c.1).

The Birth of Pandora, etching and engraving by James Barry, c. 18045 (copyright The British Museum).

Margaret Cavendish (Duchess of Newcastle) and her family, frontispiece of Margaret Cavendish, Natures Pictures Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life (London, for J. Martin and J. Allestyre, 1656); original by Abraham van Diepenbeke, engraved by Peter Clouwet (by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).

Jean Nollet and his female assistant, from J. A. Nollet, Essai sur llectricit des Corps (Paris, 1746), facing p. 216 (by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).

A Man-Mid-Wife, by John Blunt (Samuel Fores), frontispiece of his Man-Midwifery Dissected (1793), hand-coloured etching.

Enlarging the empire of knowledge, frontispiece of Francis Bacons Novum Organum, 1620 (Clare College Fellows Library).

Baconian ideology at the Royal Society, frontispiece of Thomas Sprats History of the Royal-Society (London, 1667).

Knowledge is power, frontispiece of Essays of Natural Experiments, Made in the Academy del Cimento, translated by Richard Waller (London, 1684) (Clare College Fellows Library).

Lady Philosophy, Figure 120 of George Richardsons Iconology (London, 1779).

Nature and the mechanical world: Maarten van Heemskerck, Man Born to Toil (1572), engraved by Philips Galle.

The Temple of Reason, frontispiece of milie du Chtelet, Institutions de Physique (Paris, 1740) (by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).

Truth sought after by the philosophers, from Bernard Picart, La Vrit recherche par les philosophes, 1707 (designed as the frontispiece for Thse de philosophie soutenue par M. Brillon de Jouly, le 25 juillet, 1707) (copyrightThe British Museum).

Elisabeth of Bohemia: Poole Portrait 156 of Elizabeth of Bohemia Princess of Palatine, from the school of Gerrit van Honthorst (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford).

Anne Conways experience: Young Woman with a Letter by Samuel van Hoogstraten (Royal Cabinet of Paintings. Mauritshuis, The Hague).

milie du Chtelet as Voltaires Newtonian inspiration, frontispiece of Voltaires lmens de la Philosophie de Newton (1738), engraved by Jacob Folkema after Louis-Fabricius Dubourg (by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).

milie du Chtelet discussing Newton with Francesco Algarotti, frontispiece of Francesco Algarottis Il Newtonianismo per le dame (Naples, 1737), engraved by Marco Pitteri after Giambattista Piazetta.

Euphrosyne learns about electricity, from Benjamin Martin. The Young Gentlemens and Ladies Philosophy (2 vols, London, 175963), vol. 1, facing p. 301 (by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).

An idealised Elizabethan housewife: A Good Housewife, c. 1600, hand-coloured woodcut, c. 1750 (private collection; photograph courtesy of the British Museum).

Elisabetha and Johannes Hevelius observing with their great sextant, from Johannes Hevelius, Machina Clestis (Danzig, 1673), facing p. 222 (by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).

Astronomi & Firmamentum Sobiescianium (Danzig, 1690) (by permission of the British Library, shelfmark 523.k.19(1)).

Caroline and William Herschel, coloured lithograph after Alfred Diethe, c. 1896 (Wellcome Library, London).

Caroline Herschel, etching by G. Busse, Hanover, 1847 (Royal Astronomical Society Library).

Marie Paulze and her husband Antoine Lavoisier, by Jacques-Louis David, 1788 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Mr and Mrs Charles Wrightsman Gift, in honour of Everett Fahy, 1977. (1977.10)).

Marie Paulze working in the laboratory: Marie Paulze Lavoisier, Experiments on the respiration of a man carrying out work, probably 17901; reproduced from Grimaux, Lavoisier.

One of the thirteen plates by Marie Paulze in Lavoisiers Elements of Chemistry, Marie Paulze Lavoisier, 1789.

Aesculapius, Flora, Ceres, and Cupid honouring the bust of Linnaeus, from Robert Thorntons Temple of Flora (1806); engraved by Caldwell after John Russell and John Opie.

Mrs Bryan and children, frontispiece of Margaret Bryan, A Compendious System of Astronomy (1797), engraving by W. Nutter from a 1797 miniature by Samuel Shelley (by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).

Scientific Researches! New Discoveries in Pneumaticks! or an Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air