User:Tim Baltmore/sandbox

2/18 Evaluation

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Notes

• There are not sources linked after each sentence / fact, could mean that the editors are relying too heavily on a few sources
• Alluded to times where the sisters were left without financial support, but it's unclear how they made it through those.
• I would like to hear more about the specifics of their education--dates, subjects, struggles, etc.
• I would like to hear more about the sisters as individuals

3/4 addition (sourced from Shteir, Ann B. "Kirby [married name Gregg], Mary (1817–1893), writer on natural history." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 25 Feb. 2022.)

• To get by, they were able to make stead at a nearby home owned by the family while they worked towards financially supporting themselves.

Other notes from the article:

• discussed early education briefly
• talked more about work in fiction
• mid-century "botanical mania"?
• name drops: Phiz, Thomas Jarrold, Griffith and Farran, Thomas Nelson, and Routledge
• check out sources listed for that article

London Times mention: Great Christmas gift

• Now ready, 8th edition, in one vol. 8vo., with upwards of 60 Illustra-. (1853, December 23). Times, 11. https://link-gale-com.libproxy.mst.edu/apps/doc/CS184715671/TTDA?u=mizzou_rolla&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=02b8ac1d

3/11 "Begin to draft your article" Google Doc transfer

Katherine Sophia Baily (lady Kane) and the Irish Flora (1833) (2019)

Authors & Contributors: E. Charles Nelson (Author);

• “Miss Baily . . . was the first woman admitted to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh shortly after its founding in 1836, and was the first woman to put together a flora (preceding Mary Kirby's 1850 Flora of Leicestershire).”
  • Can include how the sisters weren’t the first to do this work and link to Baily’s article if possible, as well as point out how they did things differently. Could be a good place to include ideas from Victorian Popularizers book

Shteir, Ann B. "Kirby [married name Gregg], Mary (1817–1893), writer on natural history." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  12. Oxford University Press. Date of access 10 Mar. 2022:

• “Kirby [married name Gregg], Mary (1817–1893), writer on natural history, was born at Cank Street, Leicester, on 27 April 1817, the second of five children of John Kirby . . .”
  • Find out if siblings had background in science or writing as well
• “Religion and education were family priorities; Mrs Kirby took the children to Robert Hall's Baptist chapel and Mary was sent to schools in Market Harborough and Leicester. Mary also received instruction in languages from a family friend and went to lectures at the local mechanics' institute. Seaside holidays at Ramsgate first shaped Mary Kirby's interest in collecting and studying plants, and local flora later became her focus.”
  • Goes into education history with a bit more detail, could be worth including
• “Mary Kirby wrote that 'Earned money seems always the sweetest and best of any; and we were glad to find a ready sale for our manuscripts, and also to put the profits into our pockets' (M. Kirby, 165).”
  • Extra true when having to financially support yourselves (as women during this time period
• The Sea and its Wonders (1873), with short informational chapters on topics such as the Gulf Stream and the turtle, aimed to 'allure' the young reader to study 'the great book of Nature, rather than to perplex him with a strictly scientific arrangement'.
  • Again, great time to talk about ideas in populizers
• “Mary and Elizabeth continued writing their books together, and the latter also issued four titles separately: Steps Up the Ladder, or, The Will and the Way (1862), Dame Buckle and her Pet Johnny (1867), Lost Cities Brought to Light (1871), and Margaret's Choice (1872).”
  • Feels like one of the few times I’m hearing about Elizabeth individually
  • Look into these books, these are likely fiction and not science oriented

Lightman, Bernard. Victorian Popularizers of Science : Designing Nature for New Audiences, University of Chicago Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/umr-ebooks/detail.action?docID=471887.

Created from umr-ebooks on 2022-03-10 16:33:25.

• “…of the nineteenth century was also a golden age for female popularizers of science. 2 They wrote about virtually every aspect of the natural sciences, though natural history topics tended to dominate. Lydia Becker, Phebe Lankester, Anne Pratt, Elizabeth Twining, and Jane Loudon all explored the world of botany. Arabella Buckley and Alice Bodington wrote primarily on evolutionary biology, while Margaret Gatty was more interested in marine biology. Other women, such as Mary Roberts, Anne Wright, Sarah Bowdich Lee, Annie Carey, Eliza Brightwen, and Elizabeth and Mary Kirby, moved across topics in natural history, from geology, to conchology, ornithology, and entomology.”
  • Find significance of the five areas of study at the end in their written work. I feel like I’ve seen a bigger emphasis on botanical sciences and not any of these disciplines
• “Jarrold proposed that the Kirbys contribute a book to a series to be called ‘Observing Eye’. However, many women were not as fortunate as the Kirbys, Buckleys, and Gatty, especially when they first tried to connect with a publisher.”
  • Another reference to Observing Eye, look into it
  • Helps examine difficulties of being women in industry

Next research leads:

• Look for any record of the other 3 siblings
  • Mme Katharine Coulin
• Referenced in the popularizer book: interview about “Observing Eye Series”? Try to find
• Find access to some of the books they wrote to draw from
• name drops: Phiz, Thomas Jarrold, Griffith and Farran, Thomas Nelson, and Routledge→find more about these?
• Find any connection with the sisters and any of the other female botanists mentioned in popularizers
• Draw from popularizers book more heavily
• Transfer info from physical Ladies in the Laboratory book

**Copied and pasted article with proposed edits**

peer review on the peer review page K8shep (talk) 15:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Bolded portions are the drafted edits
• Citations are not in this version, but are noted in the google doc I am working from

Elizabeth and Mary Kirby

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Hummingbirds by Mary and Elizabeth Kirby from the Smithsonian

Elizabeth Kirby (1823–1873) and Mary Kirby (later Mary Gregg, 1817–1893) were English successful writers and illustrators of books for children and books on natural science. Mary Kirby is known particularly for leading the crowd-sourced Flora of Leicestershire and Elizabeth for her children's books. They both had a lifelong writing partnership that popularised science. Mary is thought to be the only British woman to publish a scientific study of the flora of her county in the nineteenth century.

Lives[edit]

Mary and Elizabeth Kirby were two sisters of a sometimes prosperous family who were brought up in Leicester. Growing up, Mary and Elizabeth attended both Church and school regularly.They had both been well educated and Mary had knowledge of languages and she had made use of the lectures at the local mechanics institute, at which a family friend was president. Mary was her father’s second child and six years older than her sister, Elizabeth. Whilst they were still in their teens, their invalid mother Sarah Bentley died. She had been the second wife of their father. Their father, John was a spiritual man who had a hosiery business. Mary developed an interest in the subject of botany early on by spending time away from home at Ramsgate collecting specimens. When John Kirby, died in 1848 he left the sisters with no income. To get by, they were able to make stead at a nearby home owned by the family while they worked towards financially supporting themselves. He did however leave a journal which Mary continued.

Eventually his assets yielded five thousand pounds. This was the same year as Mary had the first draft of the Flora of Leicestershire published which she had created with the significant assistance of Andrew Bloxam and her sister who added supporting non-botanical information. The book was cleverly crowd-sourced in 1848 as every other page was left blank. The plan, which proved successful, was to ask early purchasers to make notes on the blank pages. This enabled the main edition published in 1850 to list 939 different species and the book was complimented by the leading naturalist Sir William Hooker. This type of accomplishment was uncommon from women at the time, but not unheard of. For example, Katherine Sophia Baily of Ireland “. . . was the first woman admitted to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh shortly after its founding in 1836, and was the first woman to put together a flora (preceding Mary Kirby's 1850 Flora of Leicestershire).” Mary is thought to be the only woman in the nineteenth century to write a book about the flora of her county.

With no long term income the sisters' ambitions turned to becoming professional writers. Finding success, they became financially self-sufficient. Mary noted that financial independence derived from their work was “. . .the sweetest and best of any. . .”

St Michael and All Angels, Brooksby

The sisters were afforded opportunity at the start of their career that many aspiring women in the field were not. Jarrold and Sons, Publisher of The Observing Eye, enlisted the sisters’ help with the series. Over 25 years the sisters created books including a number that popularised science. Botany was one of the subjects becoming commonplace for women of all ages to learn at the time. By removing complex scientific classification they sought to interest everyday readers in the wonders of nature. Books like those by the Kirby sisters served as aids for mothers teaching their children introductory botany in the home. They also wrote articles for magazines, school books, fiction as well as the natural science guides that were complete with illustrations. Visual imagery proved to be an effective method of making science more accessible and popular and its use in scientific materials was largely implemented by women writers like the Kirby sisters. Male counterparts utilized illustrations less frequently in their work reportedly to maintain a higher level of formality. Within the scientific community, there was a disconnect between members whose work was targeted towards their professional peers and those who were considered to be popularizers. This is exemplified by interactions Mary Kirby recounted with academic botanist John Lindley. He, like many of his peers in academic botany, did not “. . . encourage any work, except like his own, of the most scientific kind.”

Their inheritance and their earnings enabled them to buy "the living" of Brooksby church for the Reverend Henry Gregg who Mary had married in 1860. Up to this time the sisters had been living in Norfolk where they had published Plants of Land and Water in 1857. After Mary's marriage the three lived together at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. From their purpose built house called Six Elms they worked through a number of different publishers under either their joint names or occasionally Elizabeth published her own books. Elizabeth died in 1873.

The following year lightning struck the steeple on Brooksby Church and Mary and her husband had to handle that difficulty. The initial strike was said to have just taken a "bite" out of the steeple but eventually the whole structure collapsed. Undeterred by the damage, Gregg arranged for temporary repairs whilst services continued in parallel. The church was restored by 1874 by R.W.Johnson.

The Reverend Gregg died in 1881 and Mary had to again study her finances. Mary died in 1893 after completing her autobiography. She was buried in the same grave as both her marital partner and her writing partner at Brooksby church. Mary left her money to a surviving sister.

Books include[edit]

• The Discontented Children, and how they were cured, 1855
• Plants of Land and Water, 1857
• Caterpillars, Butterflies, and Moths, 1860
• Kirby, Mary (1850), A Flora of Leicestershire, London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., OCLC 15190119
• Things in the Forest, 1861
• The Sea and its Wonders, 1871
• Beautiful birds in far-off lands; their haunts and homes, 1872
• Chapters on Trees, 1873; later editions titled Talks about Trees
• Sketches of Insect Life, 1874
• Hummingbirds, 1874
• Aunt Martha's Corner Cupboard or Stories about Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Rice, Etc., 1875
• Birds of Gay Plumage: Birds of Paradise etc, 1875
• Leaflets from my Life, Mary Kirby, 1888

The standard author abbreviation (Mary) Kirby is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.