SCIENCE-NATURALIST INSECT ENTOMOLOGIST EDUCATOR ANNE COMSTOCK LETTER SIGNED 1896

Description

ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK
The “Mother of Nature Education
”
(1854 – 1930)
EARLY AMERICAN FEMALE NATURALIST, CONSERVATIONIST, SCIENTIST,
ENTOMOLOGIST, ZOOLOGIST,
EDUCATOR, ARTIST and WOOD ENGRAVER,
1
st
FEMALE CORNELL UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR 1910-20s,
AUTHOR OF THE BEST-SELLING “
HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY
” IN 1911 (NOW IN ITS 24
th
EDITION),
MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK STATE COMMITTEE FOR THE PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURE, APPOINTED BY GOVERNOR LEVI P. MORTON IN 1895
&
ACTIVELY INTERESTED IN EDUCATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS RELATIVE TO NATURE – STUDY, and IS MOST FAMOUS FOR BEING ONE OF THE FIRST EDUCATORS TO BRING STUDENTS and OTHER TEACHERS OUT-OF-DOORS TO STUDY NATURE HANDS-ON!
Anna Comstock was a leader in the Nature Education Movement.
She sought to inspire new generations of nature lovers through lessons that included practical instruction and encouraged direct engagement with the natural world.
Comstock was also a very prolific author, writing many books on nature education and conservation, including
How to Keep Bees
,
Trees at Leisure
,
Insect Life
, and her most famous book,
The Handbook of Nature Study
(1911), which was well used by elementary school teachers around the globe until the 1940s. So great was her contribution to this area that in 1988, the National Wildlife Federation named her the
“Mother of Nature Education.”
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HERE IS A LENGTHY, GOOD CONTENT, AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY COMSTOCK,
7
pp., March 19,
1896
, New York
TO
ABRAM STEVENS HEWITT
(1822 - 1903)
U.S. DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONGRESSMAN FROM NEW YORK 1870s-1880s,
87
th
MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY 1887-1888,
AIDED IN OVERTHROWING THE “
BOSS TWEED
” RING
&
MILLIONAIRE IRON MANUFACTURER, INDUSTRIALIST and PHILANTHROPIST.
IN THIS LETTER, POTTER OFFERS HEWITT HER OPINION ON THE “
MOVEMENT
” and “
FARMERS
” AND OF THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION WORK IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY., AS THE ONLY MEMBER OF HEWITT’S COMMITTEE ”…
ON THE GROUND TO INSPECT THE WORK DAY AFTER DAY…”
SHE SPEAKS IN DETAIL ABOUT THE “
MOVEMENT
” and SPECIFICALLY ABOUT FARMERS WHO “…
ARE CONSERVATIVE and APATHETIC UNTIL THEY ARE FULLY AWAKENED TO THE MOVEMENT
…”
COMSTOCK ALSO SPEAKS GLOWINGLY ABOUT REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER, D.D., LL.D.
(1835 – 1908), POPULAR 19
th
CENTURY AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH CLERGYMAN and BISHOP,
EPISCOPAL CHURCH BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF NEW YORK AT THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE 1883-1908, CIVIL WAR ERA ANTI-SLAVERY EPISCOPAL PRIEST IN TROY, NEW YORK and TRINITY CHURCH IN BOSTON, MA 1858-1868, PRESIDENT OF THE
AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY
(ACS), ETC…
THE LETTER CONTAINS MUCH MORE DETAIL...
BOLDLY EXECUTED & SIGNED BY COMSTOCK!
The document measures 5” x 8” and is in very fine condition.
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BIOGRAPHY OF
FAMOUS FEMALE SCIENTIST:
ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK
By Andrea Kautz
You may know her as the talented wife of John H. Comstock who illustrated her husband’s written works on entomology, but Anna Botsford Comstock (1854-1930) was herself a champion of entomology, especially with respect to nature education and conservation as an author, artist, and educator.
Born into a farming family in Otto, New York in 1854, Anna grew up as an eager and excited learner who chose to further her education beyond high school, which not many women did back then. She began her university education at Cornell in 1874, studying language and literature. While there, she also happened to take a course on invertebrate zoology which was offered by none other than Professor John Henry Comstock. She became interested in the topic and began to spend time with John while they studied the plants and animals of the area together. During this time she tried her hand at insect drawings, which John would use for his lectures and publications.
The two were married in October 1878 and moved to Washington, DC in 1879, when John became the chief entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She served as his assistant and gradually became known as a talented naturalist and nature illustrator. In the 1880s, after she and John moved back to Cornell, she learned the skill of wood engraving, which she used to illustrate her husband’s well-known textbooks,
An Introduction to Entomology
and
A Manual for the Study of Insects
. Her artwork brought her much praise, and she was inducted into the honor society Sigma Xi and into the American Society of Wood Engravers as one of the first female honorees of both organizations.
By the mid-1890s, Anna had begun to strike out on her own and make a name for herself in the area of nature education. She devised curricula, trained teachers, wrote pamphlets and books, and became an advocate for nature study in the classroom. Her hard work earned her the position of assistant professor of nature study at Cornell in 1897, the first female professor in Cornell’s history. She went on to gain full professorship in 1920 — after some controversy over being female — and even continued to lecture after her retirement in 1922.
As a professor, Anna was a very prolific author, writing many books on nature education and conservation, including
How to Keep Bees
,
Trees at Leisure
,
Insect Life
, and her most famous book,
The Handbook of Nature Study
(1911), which was well used by elementary school teachers around the globe until the 1940s. So great was her contribution to this area that in 1988, the National Wildlife Federation named her the “Mother of Nature Education.”
Anna may have initially attracted the attention of the scientific community by assisting her husband during his prominent career, but she showed a clear passion for nature studies and made a notable career for herself by writing, illustrating, and teaching. Through her work, she undoubtedly encouraged many young students to discover their own appreciation of the natural sciences and to study them for themselves.
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