K. Janaki Ammal was born in Kerala, India on November 4th, 1897. One of the first women in the U.S. to earn a doctorate in botany, she went on to develop new hybrids of sugarcane. After shifting here focus to research, she published The Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants.
Illustrator, conchologist (i.e., one who studies mollusk shells) and museum curator Joyce K. Allan (1896-1966) was the first woman to be employed as a scientist by the Australian Museum and the first elected female fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales. A Fascination with Shells Allan was Continue Reading
![Margery Carlson (1892-1985) Botany Research Associate shown [outdoors] with some of the packs of [plant] specimens she collected on expedition. © The Field Museum, B80585.](https://untoldstories.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Margery-Carlson.jpg)
“Every collector hopes that he will be able to bring home some species unknown to science, never before described or even given a botanical name.” – Margery Carlson¹ An Auspicious Beginning Dr. Margery C. Carlson was born in November 21, 1892 in Arthur, Illinois.²,³ She was named after the marguerite Continue Reading
In 1891, Yvette Borup was born to Mary Brandreth and Col. Henry Borup in Paris, France¹. Though both parents were American, Borup would spent the majority of her early life in Europe, as her father was a military attache in France, then later Germany. During her time in Germany, Borup Continue Reading
Libbie Hyman was one of the most influential vertebrate and invertebrate zoologists of all time. She single-handedly wrote and illustrated an unprecedented six-volume, 4,000-page treatise on approximately 1 million invertebrates. “ …Whole academies in more than one country have attempted to do what she has done. The debt of every zoologist Continue Reading
Helen Cowen Gunsaulus earned her Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.) at the University of Chicago in 1908. She went on to be curator at several important institutions in Chicago, including as a curator at the Field Museum. Childhood and Education Gunsaulus was born in Maryland in April 1886. She was the Continue Reading
Olive Muriel Pink would spent a decade conducting research on the eastern Arrernte of Alice Springs and the Warlpiri of the Tanami region. She grew to be a passionate activist for aboriginal rights (in fact, historian Julie Marcus suggests that Pink ultimately left academia because she felt it was not serving her activist goals).
At a time when Europe dominated ornithology and America was only just beginning to study birds and build museums, Naumberg helped to shape our understanding of ornithology for generations to come.
Preparation of a Queensland groper by Ethel King 1926. In the 1920’s a group of women artists, working mostly on commission and in insecure, part-time positions, helped create a new visual identity for the Australian Museum. They used their training in applied art and design to produce innovative and colorful Continue Reading
In an epic story of love, trials, and vindication at the dawn of the 20th century, the farm-raised daughter of European immigrants to Canada became the first white woman to explore and map the backcountry of Labrador. An Unexpected Pioneer Mina Benson Hubbard’s background gave no indication of her pioneering Continue Reading
