Margaretta Morris
{{short description|American entomologist}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Margaretta Hare Morris
| image = Photographic portrait, circa 1840s, of Margaretta Hare Morris, 1797-1867.jpg
| caption = Margaretta Hare Morris, c. 1840s
| birth_date = 3 December 1797
| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| death_date = {{death date and age|1867|5|29|1797|12|3|df=yes}}
| death_place = Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| occupation = Entomologist
| known_for = Being one of the first two women elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science; being the second woman elected to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
| family = Elizabeth Carrington Morris (sister)
}}
Margaretta Hare Morris (December 3, 1797{{spnd}}May 29, 1867) was an American entomologist.{{Cite BDAS1979 |page=185}} Morris is known for her work with agricultural pests, specifically the Hessian fly, cicadas, and the Colorado potato beetle. Morris and the astronomer Maria Mitchell were the first women elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1850.{{Cite book|author=Willis Conner Sorensen|title=Brethren of the Net: American Entomology, 1840-1880|date=1995|publisher=University of Alabama Press|isbn=9780817307554|series=History of American science and technology series}}{{Cite book|last=Rossiter, Margaret W.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8052928|title=Women scientists in America : struggles and strategies to 1940|date=1982|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=0-8018-2443-5|location=Baltimore|oclc=8052928}} She was also the second woman elected to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1859, after Lucy Say.{{Cite book|page=188|title=Brethren of the Net: American Entomology, 1840-1880|series=History of American science and technology series|author=Willis Conner Sorensen|publisher=University of Alabama Press|date=1995|isbn=9780817307554}}
Life
Morris was born on December 3, 1797, in Philadelphia, one of six children of Luke Morris (1760-1802), a lawyer, and Ann Willing Morris (1767-1853). Trained by tutors, including Thomas Nuttall, Thomas Say, and Charles Alexandre Lesueur, the Morris sisters, especially Margaretta and her botanist sister Elizabeth Carrington Morris, became a part of the larger nineteenth-century scientific community. Margaretta and Elizabeth lived in the same house in Germantown where they performed most of their scientific research and experiments. They regularly attended lectures at the Germantown Academy. The sisters were part of a network that included Asa Gray, William Darlington, Thaddeus William Harris, Louis Agassiz, Dorethea Dix, Mary Roberdeau, and Isabella Batchelder James, with whom they shared specimens and findings.Littell Family Papers - Catalogue (Draft) - Biographical Note, page 2{{Cite journal|last=Kohlstedt|first=Sally Gregory|date=1978|title=In from the Periphery: American Women in Science, 1830-1880|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173326|journal=Signs|volume=4|issue=1|pages=81–96|doi=10.1086/493570|jstor=3173326|pmid=21213647|s2cid=143787248|issn=0097-9740}}
Research
Morris studied the habits of wheat flies that resembled the Hessian fly, concluding that the eggs were laid in the grain rather than the stalk as had been previously thought. She also studied the seventeen year locust and fungi as botanical pests. She first described Magicicada cassinii, a species of periodical cicada, which were later named after John Cassin.{{Cite web|last=McNeur|first=Catherine|title=The Woman Who Solved a Cicada Mystery—but Got No Recognition|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-woman-who-solved-a-cicada-mystery-but-got-no-recognition/|access-date=2021-05-13|website=Scientific American|language=en}} Her results were important to agriculture and orchards. She sent her papers to scientific societies such as the American Philosophical Society, which at the time only had men as members so the papers had to be read on her behalf.{{BDWS|917}} She also published regularly in the American Agriculturist and other agricultural journals, occasionally under pseudonyms.
Works
{{Incomplete list|date=November 2015}}
=Family papers=
Some of the Morris family papers passed, apparently through Margaretta's younger sister, Susan Sophia Morris (1800-1868), the wife of John Stockton Littell (1806-1875), into the Littell family. They are incorporated in the Littell family papers, currently held in the special collections of the library of the University of Delaware.[https://library.udel.edu/static/purl.php?mss0449 Guide to the Littell family papers], Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
=Illustrations=
Morris provided botanical illustrations for a paper by William Gambel in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences (1848){{Cite book|last=Graustein, Jeannette E.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/979953976|title=Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist : Explorations in America, 1808-1841|isbn=978-0-674-28222-3|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=979953976}}
=Published papers=
- {{Cite journal|title=On the Cecidomyia destructor, or Hessian Fly|journal=Trans. Am. Philos. Soc. |series=New Series|volume=8|date=1843|pages=49–52|doi=10.2307/1005228|jstor=1005228|last1=Morris|first1=M. H.}}
- {{Cite journal|title=Observations on the Development of the Hessian Fly|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1779168|journal=Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.|date=1841 |volume=1|pages=66–8|via=Biodiversity Heritage Library}} 1841-3
- {{Cite journal|title=On the Discovery of the Larvae of the Cicada septemdecim|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1659401|journal=Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.|date=1846 |volume=3|pages=66–8|via=Biodiversity Heritage Library}} 1846–1847.
- {{Cite journal|title=On the Cecidomyia culmicola|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5445443|journal=Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.|date=1848 |volume=4|page=194|via=Biodiversity Heritage Library}} 1848-1849
- {{Cite journal|title=On the Seventeen Year Locusts|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8870820|journal=Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist.|volume=4|date=1851|page=110|via=Biodiversity Heritage Library}}
See also
Notes
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- Moon, Robert C. (1898) The Morris Family of Philadelphia: Descendants of Anthony Morris, Born 1654-1712 Died. Philadelphia: Robert C. Moon, M.D., Vol. 1, Vol. 2, [https://archive.org/stream/morrisfamilyofph03moon#page/n5/mode/2up Vol. 3], [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89069681054;view=1up;seq=13 Vol. 4], Vol. 5
= Archives =
- [https://library.udel.edu/static/purl.php?mss0449 Littell family papers] at [https://library.udel.edu/special/ Special Collections, University of Delaware Library]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Margaretta}}
Category:19th-century American biologists
Category:19th-century American women scientists