Non-elite women's production, consumption and use of 'natural knowledge' (science and technology), 1740-1810

最近关于18世纪科学和自然知识的史学集中在精英女性和她们对智力和科学追求的培养上，比如植物学，作为“礼貌知识”的形式。在“大众”科学的舞台上，Fyfe和Lightman (2007), Coppola(2016)，关注的是生产和生产者，而不是观众或消费者。其结果是，非精英女性对自然知识的参与被忽视了。我的博士学位解决了这一学术差距，模仿了Mukerji（2007）、Hunter/Hutton（1997）和Leong（2018）的方法，他们发现了17世纪女性对科学和技术的日常体验，从家庭食谱到灌溉专业知识。我的研究表明，在1740年至1810年之间，省级的中等女性在植根于科学知识的职业中担任技术人员，作为帮助生产科学设备的工匠，以及作为科学讲座的消费者。他们是自然哲学文章的读者，也是儿童科学课本中教学人物的读者。我认为，这是由殖民帝国背景下的国内经济、金融需求、宗教信仰和自我完善驱动的，而不是由“礼貌知识”驱动的。我的研究借鉴了Golinski（1998）和Smith（2017）在知识制造方面的建构主义工作。它考虑了建立在实践经验中的技术知识与专家科学家的编纂知识之间的接口，并询问了中等类型的女性如何在家庭内外构建和整理自然知识。在重建女性经历的过程中，我将印刷的、档案的和材料的来源并列起来，包括《约克报》和《纽卡斯尔报》上的报道、《女士日记》等期刊、《牛顿写给女士们》（1738）等流行文本、账簿和丝绸染色工和酿酒厂的遗嘱、个人日记和实物。通过调查资料，我确定了两个彬彬有礼的度假小镇及其附近的小中心作为案例研究：约克、贝弗利、巴斯和农村制造业地区陶顿。四章将使用互补的方法：1重建了妇女的社会实践，她们通过酿酒师、染色工和袜架编织工的工作生产和/或从事自然知识。它通过遗嘱遗赠她们的设备、详细记录染色和酿造的工具和过程的贸易和农场分类账、食谱书和“如何操作手册”(包括詹姆斯·马丁的《死亡艺术散文》（1791年）和约瑟夫·科利尔的《父母和监护人名录》（1761年），辨别出她们的技能和对她们知识的期望。第二章考察了妇女对讲座、示范和场面的参与和反应。它重构了他们的经历，借鉴了活动广告、报纸报道、观众图像、演示设备、本杰明·马丁（Benjamin Martin）的课堂笔记，以及我认出来参加他演讲的一位约克妇女的日记。它考虑了科学在自我塑造中的作用以及妇女对科普建设的影响。第三章通过期刊和文本分析了女性与自然知识的接触，比如简·马塞的《化学对话》（1805），旨在向女性读者介绍科学。它考虑读者对这些材料的想象，并评估这些知识的期望和目的，重新审视《女士日记》中的谜题，寻找科学而非数学内容，并分析“面向女性”期刊中的科学材料。第四章评估贫困学校中科学理解的水平、目的和功能及其在确定性别方面的作用。它分析了课程内容和中等类型的女性为贫困儿童创作的书籍的修辞，例如Sarah Trimmer的《自然知识简单入门》（1780），并揭示了女性审讯者的概念。

Recent historiography of 18th century science and natural knowledge has concentrated on elite women and their cultivation of intellectual and scientific pursuits, like botany, as forms of "polite knowledge". Work on the staging of 'popular' science, Fyfe and Lightman (2007), Coppola (2016), has focussed on production and the producer rather than the audience or consumer. The result has been to render non-elite women's engagement with natural knowledge invisible. My PhD addresses this gap in scholarship, emulating the approach of Mukerji (2007) Hunter/Hutton (1997) and Leong (2018) who have uncovered 17th century women's everyday experience of science and technology, from household recipes to expertise in irrigation. My research reveals that between 1740 and 1810 provincial women of the middling sort acted as technicians in occupations rooted in scientific knowledge, as artisans aiding the production of scientific equipment and as consumers of scientific lectures. They were readers of articles on natural philosophy and pedagogical figures in children's scientific texts. I suggest this was driven by domestic economy, financial need, religious belief and self-improvement within the context of a colonial empire, rather than by "polite knowledge". My research draws on Golinski (1998) and Smith's (2017) constructivist work on knowledge making. It considers the interface between technological knowledge, founded in practical experience, and the codified knowledge of expert scientists and asks how women of the middling sort constructed and ordered natural knowledge within and beyond the household. In reconstructing women's experience I juxtapose printed, archival and material sources, including reports in the York and Newcastle Courants, periodicals like the Ladies Diary, popular texts like Newton for the Ladies (1738), account books and wills of silk dyers and brewers, individual diaries and material objects. Surveying the sources I have identified two towns of polite resort and their nearby minor centres as case studies: York, and Beverley and Bath and the rural manufacturing area of Taunton. Four chapters will use complementary methodologies:Chap. 1 reconstructs the social practice of women who produced and/or engaged with natural knowledge through their work as brewers, dyers and stocking frame knitters. It discerns their skills and the expectations of their knowledge, using wills bequeathing their equipment, trade and farm ledgers detailing the tools and process of dyeing and brewing, recipe books and 'how to manuals' including James Martin's An Essay on the Art of Dying (1791) and Joseph Collyer's The Parents and Guardian's Directory (1761) Chap. 2 examines women's participation in, and response to, lectures, demonstrations and spectacle. It reconstructs their experience, drawing on advertisements for events, newspaper reports, audience images, demonstration equipment, Benjamin Martin's lecture notes and the diary of a York woman I have identified as attending his presentations. It considers the role of science in self-fashioning and women's impact on the construction of popular science. Chap. 3 analyses women's engagement with natural knowledge through periodicals and texts, like Jane Marcet's Conversations in Chemistry (1805) designed to introduce science to women readers. It considers the reader imagined by this material and assesses the expectations and purpose of this knowledge, re-examining puzzles in the Ladies Diary for scientific rather than mathematical content and analysing scientific material in 'woman facing' periodicals. Chap. 4 assesses the level, purpose and function of scientific understanding in poor schools and its role in defining gender. It analyses curriculum content and the rhetoric of books created by women of the middling sort for poor children, e.g. Sarah Trimmer's An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature (1780), and unpacks the concept of the female interrogator.