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• 1 2016-12-02T11:22:17-08:00 Introduction 11 plain 2016-12-14T05:35:33-08:00
  Within the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Botany Hall, there is a history that has yet to be fully explored and shown to the public: the critical role of women in the hall’s creation. I This was a space within the Natural History Museum and a scientific discipline in which women not only existed but dominated. In the early stages of this project, I thought bringing to light the work these women have contributed to the museum would be enough to tell this story. As I immersed myself in the museum’s archival images and documents, however, I found myself thinking more broadly of how the subject of botany, museum studies, and gender studies intersect.
  How did botany become so accessible for women in the museum compared to other the scientific disciplines?
  Was the study of botany considered “women’s work”?
   Is the museum’s neglect of the space influenced by this notion?  
  Using the narratives of women involved in the creation and funding of this hall, I attempt to address these questions. 
• 1 2016-10-28T13:32:52-07:00 Final Reflections on Botany Hall 9 plain 2016-12-18T09:49:11-08:00 I began this project to rediscover a history of Botany Hall that had been greatly neglected in hopes that the work that these women dedicated their lives to no longer goes unnoticed. I also hoped that the lives of Dorothy L. Pearth, Hanne von Fuehrer, and Elizabeth Niedringhaus would help answer those broader questions concerning the relationship between museums and gender I posed in the introduction. How was the Natural History Museum accessible to women?  Was Botany Hall an environment which allowed women to flourish, one that confined them to a subject that was considered “appropriate”, or one that was passed off as “women’s work”? 
  
  From the knowledge I have gained by researching the role of women in Botany Hall, I have come to realize that the varying degrees of agency afforded to women were reflections of society at that time. Receiving proper recognition of one's work was considerably more difficult than in the 1960s and 70s. No matter what decade, these three women found ways to defy and fight against the restrictions and obstacles of their time.