ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Mothering naturalists in eighteenth-century France

• In Event: Invisible Actors in Biomedical and Environmental Sciences (I) & (II)

English Abstract

The history of science has long been shaped by the influence of the father. Recent histories of paternity and masculinity have revealed the patriarchal roots of the relationship between master and disciple, from the paternal figure of the savant to the ideal of the good father-savant found in the éloges. However, much less space has been devoted to studying motherhood and its relation to the making of eighteenth-century naturalists.
Through the study of the scientific world of eighteenth-century France, I find abundant evidence that mothers played many different roles in the formation of savants, and some of these roles were publicly acknowledged. By focusing on the interrelations between motherhood and scientific norms of masculinity, this paper aims to offer an account of the many forms in which mothering natural scientists was undertaken and endorsed by women during the Enlightenment. Stepping back from naturalizing discourses about maternity or the influence of physicians on the portrait of the “good” and “bad” mother, I will examine a range of interpersonal sources—diaries, correspondence, and éloges—left by savants in order to reconstruct how their relationships with their mothers shaped both their masculinity and their scientific careers.
By foregrounding the diverse labors of mothering, I show how care, education, reprimand, morality, and politics stood at the center of the savant–mother relationship. Through the cases of Alexandre Brongniart and Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, both of whom left substantial correspondence with their mothers, I will highlight the overlooked role of mothers in the history of science.

Author

• Mathias Valverde, University of Strasbourg