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

Hanne Von Fuehrer

This page is referenced by:

Women Behind Botany Hall
There were hundreds of women that worked behind the scenes for Botany Hall, both museum staff and volunteers. Three women in particular, Dorothy E.L. Pearth, Hanne von Fuehrer, and Elizabeth Niedringhaus, played an important role within the museum. Through each woman’s work and experiences, I explore women’s relationship with the museum and botany. In their own way, these three women have pioneered through the challenges of working in the Natural History Museum, a typically male-dominated sphere. Their efforts in botanical scholarship and craftsmanship have helped make working in the museum more accessible to women.

As I learned more about these three women's work and their contributions to the museum, I began to notice three different overarching themes within my findings. Dorothy Pearth contradicted societal expectations on women working in the sciences. Hanne von Fuehrer faced difficulty gaining proper recognition for her efforts but did not falter. Being a working woman in the 60s and 70s allowed Elizabeth Niedringhaus to have more authority inside the museum than the two women before her. These themes make evident the ways in which feminism and growing women's rights altered society.

The next page steps out of chronology and begins with Dorothy Pearth. Though Pearth came to the museum fourteen years after Hanne von Fuehrer, the significance of a woman on the curatorial team of Botany Hall needs great attention.
Hanne Von Fuehrer

Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Hanne von Fuehrer moved to her aunt’s home in Pittsburgh at the age of 21. On the day of her arrival, she met her soon to be husband, Ottmar von Fuehrer. The two married in 1926 and shortly after began working at Natural History Museum. While Ottmar provided the painted murals for the backgrounds of the dioramas, Hanne created wax models of plants and insects. In the beginning, Hanne created these models “just for the fun of it”, as she said later in an interview with the Carnegie Magazine. Her first paid experience at CMNH was on the Pennsylvanian Spring Flora group in 1928. She played an extremely critical role in Botany Hall’s early beginnings. Hanne is described as resourceful and inventive, incorporating materials and processes to create accurate models.

Too often, women and their work have been written out of history and Hanne von Fuehrer was no exception. Many of the early documents and records on the dioramas fail to mention Hanne’s crucial role in their creation. First, the dioramas were attributed only to Ottmar, despite all of Hanne’s wax work. As time passed they were attributed simply to “the von Fuehrers”. In both instances, Hanne’s identity remained hidden from the public eye and it was her spouse that received the acknowledgment.

Thankfully, later documents begin attributing the dioramas to both Ottmar and Hanne and the Carnegie Magazine published an article on her life, creative process, and specific dioramas she has contributed over the years.

This is exactly what this project aims to do: rediscovering those who went unnoticed or were written out of history because they were women. Though the work these women have done is in the past, their work is vital to understanding the Hall in the present.