Rebecca Merritt Smith Leonard Austin

Rebecca Merritt Smith Leonard Austin (March 10, 1832–March 1919, Chico, California[1]) was a botanist and naturalist who collected and sold native plants in California and Oregon.[2][3] Lomatium austiniae[1] and Cephalanthera austiniae are named in her honor.[4] She studied the chemistry, natural history of, and insects captured by the carnivorous pitcher plant Darlingtonia californica, and sold collected specimens to botanists and collectors.[2] Her specimens are included in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the California Academy of Sciences.[1]

Rebecca Merritt Smith Leonard Austin
Born
Rebecca Merritt Smith

(1832-03-10)March 10, 1832.
Cumberland County, Kentucky
DiedMarch 4, 1919(1919-03-04) (aged 86)
Chico, California
Burial placeChico Cemetery
NationalityAmerican
Other namesRebecca Merritt Leonard; Rebecca Merritt Austin
Occupationbotanist
Known forbotanical research and collecting

She carried on a regular correspondence with botanist J. G. Lemmon and others.[2] Her experiments and correspondences have been published or cited by Asa Gray, John Gill Lemmon, William Marriott Canby, Frank Morton Jones, and other prominent botanists of the time.[2][5]

Life

Rebecca Merritt Smith was born on March 10, 1832[6] in Cumberland County, Kentucky, one of eight children. When she was five her family moved to Missouri: her mother and two sisters soon died. Rebecca eventually attended school in Magnolia, Illinois, and at the Granville Academy in Granville, Illinois. By age sixteen she was teaching in rural schools.[6]

In June 1852, Rebecca married Dr. Alva Leonard of Magnolia. They moved to Peoria, Illinois. Rebecca learned some medicine from her husband. They had two children: Byron died young, and Mary was born after Dr. Leonard's death. Rebecca lost her savings in the Panic of 1857. She moved to Tennessee to teach, but was threatened and left because of her abolitionist sentiments.[2]

Rebecca and her daughter Mary (later Mrs. Hail of Quincy) moved to Minneola, Kansas, where Rebecca taught school before marrying a farmer, James Thomas Austin in 1862.[6][7] He served briefly in the Union Army. The family moved to the mining area of Black Hawk Creek in Plumas County, California[7] arriving there on March 10, 1865.[6] Rebecca cooked and washed clothes for miners and helped those who were sick.[7] Rebecca and her second husband had two more children, Oliver and Josephine[6] (later Mrs. Charles C. Bruce).[8]

In spite of the demands of working to support her family and looking after three children, Rebecca began collecting and studying plants. She did "pioneering fieldwork"[5][9] in studying carnivorous plants such as the pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica). She studied their natural history, their methods of feeding, and the insects they captured.[5][9] She was the first specimen collector in Modoc County.[10]

In 1872, she met the botanist J. G. Lemmon, who applauded her work as a naturalist.[2] Through her correspondence with Lemmon she became part of a wider network of botanical correspondents that included William Marriott Canby, Asa Gray, Frank Morton Jones, Mary Treat, and Charles Darwin.[11][2][5]

Collecting and selling plants became a major source of income for Rebecca and her family. In 1875 the Austins moved to Butterfly Valley. In 1883, they moved to Modoc County, California. Her daughter Josephine joined her in studying, collecting and selling specimens from California and Oregon. Along with Mary E. Pulsifer Ames, they are credited with giving "the foundation to our knowledge of the vegetation" of northeastern California.[12]

Rebecca died on March 4, 1919, in Chico, California.[7][1] She is buried with her second husband, J. Thomas Austin, in Chico Cemetery.[13]

The standard author abbreviation Reb.M.Sm. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[14]

References
  1. Fragnoli, Delaine (March 23, 2016). "'Full of life and death' History talk explores work of woman botanist". Portola Reporter. p. 1B. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  2. Warner, Nancy J. "Rebecca Merritt Smith Austin (1832-1919)". Harvard Forest. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  3. Warner, Nancy J. (1995). Taking to the Field: Women Naturalists in the Nineteenth-Century West. Utah State University. Department of American Studies.
  4. Mathews, Daniel (March 1, 2017). Natural history of the Pacific Northwest mountains : plants, animals, fungi, geology, climate. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. p. 186. ISBN 978-1604696356. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  5. Sanders, Dawn (2009). "Behind the Curtain. Treat and Austin's Contributions to Darwin's Work on Insectivorous Plants and Subsequent Botanical Studies". Jahrbuch für Europäische Wissenschaftskultur. 5: 215–229. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  6. H., M. A. (March 27, 1919). "Life Sketch of Mrs. R. M. Austin". Plumas National-Bulletin. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  7. Creese, Mary R.S. (1998). Ladies in the laboratory? : American and British women in science, 1800-1900 : a survey of their contributions to research. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. pp. 22–23. ISBN 978-0810832879. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  8. Mansfield, George C. (1918). History of Butte County, California: with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present by George C. Mansfield, Chico, CA (2 vols ed.). Los Angeles, California: Historic Record Company. p. 1157. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  9. Juniper, B.E.; Robins, R.J.; Joel, D.M. (1989). The carnivorous plants. London: Academic Press. ISBN 9780123921703.
  10. Cantelow, Ella Dales; Cantelow, Herbert Clair (1957-01-01). "Biographical Notes on persons in whose honor Alice Eastwood named native plants". Leaflets of Western Botany. 8: 83–101.
  11. Keeney, Elizabeth (1992). The botanizers : amateur scientists in nineteenth-century America. University of North Carolina Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780807820469. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  12. Ewan, Joseph (1955). "San Francisco as a Mecca for Nineteenth Centurv Naturalists". A century of progress in the natural sciences, 1853-1953. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences. pp. 24–25. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  13. "Rebecca Merritt Smith Austin". Find-A-Grave. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  14. International Plant Names Index.  Reb.M.Sm.
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