Elizabeth Cary Agassiz: The Art of Scientific Observation

Abstract

This chapter analyzes women’s scientific gaze through a close reading of Elizabeth Cary Agassiz’s travel narrative, A Journey in Brazil (1868), which she co-authored with her husband, famed Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz. A staunch creationist, Agassiz organized an expedition to the Amazon to find geological traces of glaciers in order to disprove Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Cary Agassiz accompanied her husband recording all aspects of their journey. While her husband searched for proof and pontificated about the perils of Brazil’s racial mixing, she observed nature as well as the people of Brazil, their social life, and race relations with a less judgemental stance. Her narrative illustrates how women approached science and engaged with the scientific shift as evolution took center stage.