Linda Jane Lear (born February 16, 1940) is an American historian of science and biographer.
Linda Jane Lear (born February 16, 1940) is an American historian of science and biographer.
A native of Pittsburgh, Lear received her A.B. from Connecticut College in 1962, following with an A.M. from Columbia University in 1964; she received a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University in 1974. From 1963 until 1965 she chaired the history department of the Vail Deane School, and from 1965 until 1968 held a similar position at the National Cathedral School. An assistant professor at New Mexico State University from 1974 until 1976, she next worked at the American Association of Retired Persons, remaining there until 1978. In that year she joined the faculty of the George Washington University, where she has since served as assistant director of experimental programs and associated professor. She has also worked for the United States Senate, and held a position on the board of directors of Connecticut College, [1] of which she is a Trustee Emeritus. Lear has also been active as a Senior Smithsonian Research Associate, a Beinecke Fellow, and a Senior Research Scholar in History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. [2] Lear married John Nickum, Jr. in 1974, and is the mother of one son, Ian Lear-Nickum, born in 1978. She is a resident of Maryland. She is an amateur horticulturist and collector of botanical art. [1]
Lear developed an interest in Rachel Carson while teaching environmental history in the 1970s. She conducted over 300 interviews over 15 years, eventually meeting Carson's former assistant, Shirley Briggs, and editor, Paul Brooks. She published her biography Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature in 1997; [3] two years later it received the Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize from the History of Science Society. [4] She has continued to write extensively on Carson, contributing introductions to a variety of new editions of her works and editing her unpublished writings for publication. [1] Lear is also the author of a biography of Beatrix Potter, titled Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, published in 2007; [5] it has received various awards, including the Lakeland Book of the Year, the Bookends Prize for biography, and the Delta Kappa Gamma literary prize. [6]
Lear's archival materials on Carson and Potter are held by the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives at Connecticut College, established in 2008. [7] [8] [9] [10] The college awarded her its Goodwin-Niering Center Alumni Environmental Achievement Award in 1999. [1]
Lear is also the author of introductions for editions of Carson's The Sense of Wonder (HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1998); Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 2002); and Under the Sea-Wind (2007). [1]
Helen Beatrix Heelis, usually known as Beatrix Potter, was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which was her first commercially published work in 1902. Her books, including The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck and The Tale of Tom Kitten, have sold more than 250 million copies. An entrepreneur, Potter was a pioneer of character merchandising. In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book Silent Spring (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement.
Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT, a pesticide used by soldiers during WW2. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.
Connecticut College (Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. Originally chartered as Thames College, it was founded in 1911 as the state's only women's college, a response to Wesleyan University having closed its doors to female students in 1909. The college became coeducational in 1969, adopting its current name.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he gets into, and is chased around, the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother, who puts him to bed after offering him chamomile tea. The tale was written for five-year-old Noel Moore, the son of Potter's former governess, Annie Carter Moore, in 1893. It was revised and privately printed by Potter in 1901 after several publishers' rejections, but was printed in a trade edition by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902. The book was a success, and multiple reprints were issued in the years immediately following its debut. It has been translated into 36 languages, and with 45 million copies sold it is one of the best-selling books in history.
The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in July 1909. After two full-length tales about rabbits, Potter had grown weary of the subject and was reluctant to write another. She realized however that children most enjoyed her rabbit stories and pictures, and so reached back to characters and plot elements from The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904) to create The Flopsy Bunnies. A semi-formal garden of archways and flowerbeds in Wales at the home of her uncle and aunt became the background for the illustrations.
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher is a children's book, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in July 1906. Jeremy's origin lies in a letter she wrote to a child in 1893. She revised it in 1906, and moved its setting from the River Tay to the English Lake District. The tale reflects her love for the Lake District and her admiration for children's illustrator Randolph Caldecott.
The Tailor of Gloucester is a Christmas children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, privately printed by the author in 1902, and published in a trade edition by Frederick Warne & Co. in October 1903. The story is about a tailor whose work on a waistcoat is finished by the grateful mice he rescues from his cat and was based on a real world incident involving a tailor and his assistants. For years, Potter declared that of all her books it was her personal favourite.
The Tale of Tom Kitten is a children's book, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was released by Frederick Warne & Co. in September 1907. The tale is about manners and how children react to them. Tabitha Twitchit, a cat, invites friends for tea. She washes and dresses her three kittens for the party, but within moments the kittens have soiled and lost their clothes while scampering about the garden. Tabitha is "affronted". She sends the kittens to bed, and tells her friends the kittens have the measles. Once the tea party is underway however, its "dignity and repose" are disturbed by the kittens romping overhead and leaving a bedroom in disorder.
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter as part of the Peter Rabbit series. The book contains eight chapters and numerous illustrations. Though the book was one of Potter's last publications in 1930, it was one of the first stories she wrote.
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in September 1904. The book is a sequel to The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), and tells of Peter's return to Mr. McGregor's garden with his cousin Benjamin to retrieve the clothes he lost there during his previous adventure. In Benjamin Bunny, Potter deepened the rabbit universe she created in Peter Rabbit, and, in doing so, suggested the rabbit world was parallel to the human world but complete and sufficient unto itself.
The Story of Miss Moppet is a tale about teasing, featuring a kitten and a mouse, that was written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published by Frederick Warne & Co for the 1906 Christmas season. Potter was born in London in 1866, and between 1902 and 1905 published a series of small-format children's books with Warne. In 1906, she experimented with an atypical panorama design for Miss Moppet, which booksellers disliked; the story was reprinted in 1916 in small book format.
The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published by Frederick Warne & Co. in October 1911. Timmy Tiptoes is a squirrel believed to be a nut-thief by his fellows, and imprisoned by them in a hollow tree with the expectation that he will confess under confinement. Timmy is tended by Chippy Hackee, a friendly, mischievous chipmunk who has run away from his wife and is camping-out in the tree. Chippy urges the prisoner to eat the nuts stored in the tree, and Timmy does so but grows so fat he cannot escape the tree. He regains his freedom when a storm topples part of the tree. The tale contrasts the harmonious marriage of its title character with the less than harmonious marriage of the chipmunk.
Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes is the first of two collections of nursery rhymes written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was first published in 1917. The title character is a brown mouse who takes food out of a cupboard in someone else's house.
The Sea Around Us is a prize-winning and best-selling book by the American marine biologist Rachel Carson, first published as a whole by Oxford University Press in 1951. It reveals the science and poetry of the sea while ranging from its primeval beginnings to the latest scientific probings. Often described as "poetic," it was Carson's second published book and the one that launched her into the public eye and a second career as a writer and conservationist; in retrospect it is counted the second book of her so-called sea trilogy.
Under the Sea Wind: A Naturalist's Picture of Ocean Life (1941) is the first book written by the American marine biologist Rachel Carson. It was published by Simon & Schuster in 1941 and received very good reviews, but sold poorly. After the great success of a sequel The Sea Around Us, it was reissued by Oxford University Press; that edition was an alternate Book-of-the-Month Club selection and became another bestseller, and has never gone out of print. It is recognized as one of the "definitive works of American nature writing," and is in print as one of the Penguin Nature Classics.
Marjorie Spock was an environmentalist, writer and poet, best known for her influence on Rachel Carson when the latter was writing Silent Spring. Spock was also a noted Waldorf teacher, eurythmist, biodynamic gardener and anthroposophist.
Lois MacIntyre Darling was an American author, illustrator and researcher. She was an accomplished yachtswoman.
Ruth Jury Scott was a lifelong environmental activist, naturalist, and conservationist. Scott was a close friend and colleague to Rachel Carson due to their shared passion for educating others about the environment as well as the deadly effects of chemical pesticides. She later served on the executive committee of the Rachel Carson Trust for the Living Environment, Inc.
Nellie Imogene Teale was an American naturalist and conservationist. She was an important contributor to the nature writing of her husband, Edwin Way Teale, serving as researcher, critic, and editor for his manuscripts. She was noted for her keen observations of flora and fauna; her motto was to "go slow and see more".
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