Something About Mary Anning

Gender Studies An Academic Field?

This is a gender study of the different kind. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) could use some revisiting. J

How Men Helped Women To Become Famous

For brevity sake, I will not go into any details of Ms. Mary Anning’s life and achievements. Please read e.g. Wikipedia about her or here.

Her father (and probably mother) send her to a Congregationalist School. I am not an expert on Congregionalism, but it appears that this church put great emphasis on local churches; freedoms of the laity etc. Thus, young Mary enjoyed a special education thanks to the men (and women) involved.

It was none less than her father, who got Mary interested and taught her in geology and trading of fossils. Had he not perhaps Mary would have taken a different path.

It was one of Mary’s male customers, a wealthy collector, who became disturbed by the Anning’s family's poverty. So he auctioned off her fossils. He wrote to a paleontologist that the sale was "for the benefit of the poor woman and her son and daughter at Lyme, who have in truth found almost all the fine things which have been submitted to scientific investigation ... I may never again possess what I am about to part with, yet in doing it I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that the money will be well applied." The auction raised £400 (a huge sum in today’s value). This male collector gave Ann all the credit and saved her from financial troubles.

In contrast to the finding of the plesiosaur skeletons a few years earlier, for which she supposedly was not credited, when Buckland presented his findings on coprolites to the Geological Society, he mentioned Anning by name and praised her skill and industry in helping to solve the mystery.

I would venture to guess, there are more examples like those above. Thus, a lady who was not a member of any academic faculty of her time and did not have an adequate education she had quite a bit of influence in the so called male dominated world of her time. Her extraordinary talents and achievements were recognized by males presumably more than was usual in those days. Ideally, Mary should have received the full credit for her discoveries … However, there are numerous men in history whose contributions were let’s say overlooked.