Women of Science : Working Women of CMNH's Botany Hall

Dorothy E.L. Pearth, Associate Curator of Botany

Dorothy Evelyn Long Pearth, Associate Curator of Botany Hall from 1940 to 1978, spent her childhood in Coles Summit, Pennsylvania. According to her obituary, Pearth was described as artistic, musical, and detail oriented. She attended Felix Mahoney School of Fine and Applied Arts in Washington D.C. then later received her Bachelor degree in Botany. During this period, Pearth also attended art classes at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dorothy Pearth began at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1940 as the assistant to Dr. Maurice Graham Netting, the director of the Natural History Museum. Shortly after, Pearth transferred to the department of Botany as Associate Curator of Botany where she remained until her retirement in 1978.
       
During her time at the National History Museum, Dorothy Pearth contributed several articles to the Carnegie Magazine, like “A Christmas Rose” (1958), “Carnegiea Gigantea” (1965), and “Dawn Redwood- A Living Fossil” (1970). Pearth contradicted the conventional ways women and botany were tied together, through the household chores like gardening and cooking. Pearth approached these issues in a much deeper, scientific manner in her publications. Others focused on the ways in which botany interacts with human life, with articles like “Benjamin Franklin: Money and Flowers”. Pearth's writings explain plant characteristics, origins, and life cycles in addition to how that plant relates to our life and culture. By doing so, she operated in a manner that went against the stereotype of women working in botany, forging a new path for herself and others to come.

This page has paths:

This page references: