WOMEN IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1800; GRACEANNA LEWIS P/29

  

In this post I will continue to share the story of a woman named Graceanna Lewis. She lived from 1821 - 1912. Following the completion of her studies in 1842, Graceanna entered the teaching profession, which was one of the few career fields open to educated women in that day, taking a position as a teacher of botany and chemistry at a boarding school in York, Pennsylvania, run by her uncle Bartholomew Fussel.

During the 1850s Graceanna moved to Philadelphia, where she worked closely with a small circle of Quakers who were active in the natural sciences. She met one of America's leading ornithologists, John Cassin of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, in 1862 and studied ornithology at an advanced lever under his tutorship for the next half decade. 

From the middle of the 1860s Graceanna began to give private lectures on the field of ornithology in Phildelphia. Her area of interest and expertise gradually spread throughout her life to include the broad spectrum of natural history, including plants, animals and mineral.