Vera Norwood - Made From This Earth

1993 The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Norwood, Vera.

Made from this earth : American women and nature / Vera

Norwood.

p. cm. (Gender and American Culture)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8078-2062-9 (cloth: alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8078-2062-8 (cloth: alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8078-4396-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8078-4396-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Women naturalists United States History. 2. Women conservationists United States History. 3. Ecofeminism.

I. Title.

QH26.N67 1993 92-22562

508.73082 dc20 CIP

The author is grateful for permission to quote several lines from Come Into Animal Presence, by Denise Levertov. The complete poem is from Poems, 1960-1967. Copyright 1961 by Denise Levertov Goodman. Reprinted with permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

09 08 07 06 05 8 7 6 5 4

THIS BOOK WAS DIGITALLY MANUFACTURED.

1 The Water Arum, from J.J. Grandvilles The Flowers Personified,

2 The Periwinkle, from J. J. Grandvilles The Flowers Personified,

3 Aquilegia pubescens (columbine), drawing by Roberta Cowing,

4 Untitled floral painting by Fidelia Bridges,

5 Unio lineolatus raf. (American mollusk), drawing by Lucy Say,

6 Female Rice Bunting, engraving by Helen Lawson,

7 A. dissimilis say (American mollusk), drawing by Helen Lawson,

8 Pedicularis furbishiae (wildflower), watercolor by Kate Furbish,

9 Six Little Chickadees, photograph by Cordelia Stanwood,

10 Immature Broad Winged Hawk, photograph by Cordelia Stanwood,

11 Cecropia Moths, photograph by Gene Stratton Porter, from her Homing with the Birds,

12 Lewis Leaf Charts: The Walnuts, educational illustration by Graceanna Lewis,

13 Agnes Chase,

14 Cenchrus tribuloides (bur grass), drawing by Agnes Chase,

15 Bouteloua scorpioides (grama grass), drawing by Agnes Chase,

16 Stayman Winesap Apple, watercolor by Bertha Heiges,

17 Eulalia Loquat, watercolor by Deborah Passmore,

18 Abies grandis (giant fir), drawing by Annie Elizabeth Hoyle,

19 Drawings of cacti by Leta Hughey,

20 Pseudaugochloropsis graminea [bee] on Senecio Flower, drawing by Elaine R. S. Hodges,

21 Japanese White-eye (Zosterops japonica) on Indian Golden Shower Tree {Cassia fistula) drawing by Nancy Halliday,

22 Demonstration Block, New York Worlds Fair (caterpillar), wood engraving by Grace Albee,

23 Watercolor Research Painting, Curly Dock (Rumex crispus), by Anne Ophelia Dowden,

24 Springtime in the CountryGardening, from Harpers Weekly,

25 Celia Thaxter in Her Garden, painting by Frederick Childe Hassam,

26 Celia Thaxters plan of her garden,

27 Gray Gardens, East Hampton, N.Y., estate of Robert C. and Anna Gilman Hill,

28 The Creeks, East Hampton, N.Y., estate of Albert and Adele Herter,

29 Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., estate of Robert and Mildred Bliss,

30 Marian Cruger Coffin,

31 Garden of the Misses Pyrne, East Hampton, N.Y.,

32 Home of Frances Benjamin Johnston,

33 Plan for a Suburban Garden, by Beatrix Farrand,

34 Beatrix Farrands watercolor of her garden plan,

35 The Kate O. Sessions Agave and Aloe Garden, Balboa Park, San Diego, Calif,

36 Kate O. Sessions,

37 A Shaded Walk from the Kitchen to the Vegetable Garden, from Frances Duncans The Joyous Art of Gardening,

38 Elizabeth Lawrence,

39 General Tooks Old Home, near Montezuma, Ga.,

40 Mattie Davenport and Rose Braud, Boston urban gardeners,

41 Rachel Carson,

42 Martha Maxwells exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition,

43 Martha Maxwell in collecting attire,

44 Mary Hastings Bradley and Alice Bradley on safari,

45 Osa [Johnson] Brings Home the Dinner, from her Four Years in Paradise,

46 Delia Akeley and J. T., Jr. (African monkey),

47 Belle Benchley with lowland gorillas,

48 Lois Crisler and one of her Arctic wolves,

49 Macho and Kweli (mountain gorillas), photograph by Dian Fossey,

50 Peggy Bauer,

51 A gray wolf, Denali, North Park, Alaska, photograph by Peggy Bauer,

52 A grizzly, McNeil River, Alaska, photograph by Peggy Bauer,

53 Dust Storm (Pied crows and zebras), by Lindsay B. Scott,

54 Surviving in Shadows (African elephants), by Janet N. Heaton,

55 Agatha of the AAs Stops and Feels and Gently Moves Her Mother Annabelles Skull, from Cynthia Mosss Elephant Memories,

When mount saint helens blew her top, Ursula Le Guin used the occasion to meditate on the usual portrayal of nature as female, arguing that Saint Helens reminded us of the destructive but potentially cleansing meanings of such a metaphor. Le Guin also considered the divergent messages the volcanic explosion sent to men and to women, stemming from gender-based differences in conceptions of the feminine. Le Guins allegory raises two issues central to the concerns of this book. First, how have American women found meaning in, and ascribed meaning onto, the biophysical landscape? Do they speak of nature as mother, sister, friend, lover? If so, what do such metaphors imply? What aspects of the natural world have attracted the notice of American womensmall, enclosed gardens; domesticated fields and pastures; forests; oceans; desertsand how do they integrate such disparate landscapes? Second, what is the context for American womens responses to nature? To what extent have gender roles influenced what women have valued in nature? How have women used gender differences to distinguish their environmental values from mens? Further, how have education, class, ethnicity and race, and the period in which a woman lives informed the responses she might make to a phenomenon like the eruption of Mount Saint Helens?