Description: Mary Agnes Chase (1869-1963) specialized in the study of grasses and conducted extensive field work in South America, often personally funding her research trips, as it was considered inappropriate for women to conduct such work. Chase joined the Department of Agriculture in 1903 as a botanical illustrator and eventually became Scientific Assistant in Systematic Agrostology, 1907; Assistant Botanist, 1923; and Associate Botanist, 1925. In 1935, became Principal Botanist in charge of Systematic Agrostology and Custodian of the Section of Grasses, Division of Plants, United States National Museum.
Creator/Photographer: Unidentified photographer
Medium: Black and white photographic print
Date: c. 1960
Repository: Smithsonian Institution Archives
Accession number: SIA2009-0712
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pennylrichardsca 51 months ago | reply
More about Mary Agnes Chase:
Botanist Mary Agnes Meara Chase was born April 20, 1869, in Illinois. Her father Martin Meara, an Irish railroad worker, was hung as a murderer when Mary Agnes was a toddler. After a elementary education in Chicago, Mary Agnes quit school to work as a newspaper typesetter, a proofreader, even as a meat inspector. She was briefly married, then widowed, at 19. She had always been artistic, and interested in plants; a minister who was also a botanist hired Mary
Agnes to draw specimens of mosses he had collected. Some of her
illustrations were selected for publication in scientific journals. In
1903, she took a Washington-based job as an illustrator for the US
Department of Agriculture. She would eventually become a senior botanist at the Smithsonian, and one of the world's experts on grasses of North America. She went on several collecting expeditions to Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico (her personal collection was donated to the Smithsonian and the National Herbarium). Her strongly feminist politics led her to activism that endangered her government employment, including jail time and forced feedings during a hunger strike for suffrage.
Here's a local history account mentioning her father's lynching, for
the murder of his son, the older brother of Mary Agnes Meara:
www.rootsweb.com/~ilicgs/monthly/meara2.htm
sezohanim 51 months ago | reply
An inspiring story, of success against the odds.
Just Back 50 months ago | reply
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Systematic Botany (not for "pretty flower images"), and we'd love to have this added to the group!
Arnaldo Principe 50 months ago | reply
I'm brasilian Veterinary of bovine . Beautiful History, beautiful woman!
Sorry about that my English, no speak.