Female Scientific Networks of the British Empire during the Long Eighteenth-Century

Knowledge practices and information networks in the history of European science have been the focus of significant new histories of science and empire, particularly influenced by Latour (1987) and Bayly (1999). However, the current literature ignores female agency despite the crucial role women played in global science networks during the decisive period of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Patriarchal social conventions obscured women's scientific contributions to global knowledge-making and the historiography has done little to remedy this. This exciting new project addresses this gap in the historiography of science and empire that is long overdue (Davids & van Driel 2002, Hawksworth, 2018). Combining gender history with history of science and new imperial history, it will reveal the functioning and importance of women's scientific networks in this crucially formative period before professionalism became the norm in the reform era.