Lydia White Shattuck

Lydia White Shattuck (June 10, 1822 – November 2, 1889[1]) was an American botanist, naturalist, chemist, and professor at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College).[2]

Lydia White Shattuck
Born10 June 1822 
Easton 
Died2 November 1889  (aged 67)
Employer

Early life and education

Shattuck was born in 1822 to first cousins Betsey Fletcher and Timothy S. Shattuck, and she was the first of their five children to survive to maturity. After completing her schooling at fifteen, she taught at the district school for the next decade while also working with academies in Newbury, Vermont and Haverhill, New Hampshire.

At twenty-six, she matriculated at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, from which she graduated in 1851.

Career

In 1851, Shattuck became a professor of botany at her alma mater.[3] She helped guide the establishment of the Mount Holyoke College Botanic Garden in 1878, in addition to gathering and collecting thousands of plants that would be featured in its collection.[4]

Shattuck was notable for her correspondence with numerous prominent scientists, including Asa Gray, as well as her membership in scientific societies such as the Woods Hole Biological Laboratory Corporation and the Connecticut Valley Botanical Association (for which she served as president). These efforts established connections between scientists at Mount Holyoke and the broader scientific community. Shattuck and Mount Holyoke College founder Mary Lyon are considered "the two guiding forces in science" during the first fifty years of the college's history.[5] Two of Shattuck's students, Henrietta Hooker (class of 1873) and Cornelia Clapp (class of 1871), also became respected scientists who returned to Mount Holyoke to teach.

Shattuck worked with Arnold Henri Guyot and Louis Agassiz at the Anderson School of Natural History on Penikese Island.[6] In 1873, the school's founders, one of whom was Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, the first president of Radcliffe College, handpicked fifty scientists to attend the inaugural session, and Shattuck was one of fifteen women selected. She was also one of a handful of women chemists at the first meeting of the 1874 Priestly centennial, from which the American Chemical Society was born. However, she was excluded from a picture taken of the founders, as she had been asked to stand with the wives of the male chemists in attendance.

She retired in 1889, one year after Mount Holyoke became a college, and was given the title of professor emeritus.

Legacy

Until her death in 1889, Shattuck actively canvassed for donations for the construction of a new chemistry and physics building at Mount Holyoke. Two buildings on campus have been named after her: the first, which housed the chemistry and physics departments, was opened in 1892 and torn down in 1954; the second was opened in 1932 and is still known as Shattuck Hall.[7]

References

  1. Memorial of Lydia W. Shattuck. Beacon Press. 1890. p. 5. Lydia White Shattuck.
  2. Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 2 edited by Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer
  3. "About MHC Botanic Gardens". Mount Holyoke College. 2012-04-18. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  4. Oakes, Elizabeth H. (2007). Encyclopedia of world scientists (Rev. ed.). New York: Facts on File. ISBN 978-1-4381-1882-6. OCLC 466364697.
  5. Shmurak, Carole B.; Handler, Bonnie S. (1992). ""Castle of Science": Mount Holyoke College and the Preparation of Women in Chemistry, 1837-1941". History of Education Quarterly. 32 (3): 315–342. doi:10.2307/368548. ISSN 0018-2680.
  6. Oakes, Elizabeth H. (2007). "Shattuck, Lydia White". Encyclopedia of World Scientists (Rev. ed.). New York: Facts on File. pp. 659–660. ISBN 978-1-4381-1882-6.
  7. "Timeline". Mount Holyoke College. 2012-06-22. Retrieved 2021-09-15.

Further reading


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