During the long nineteenth century, there was rarely a place
in scientific societies for women. During the age of exploration and
expeditions to collect new specimens, the female species seeker was considered
a “rare animal for that era”.[1]
Most women had to remain in the home during the age of exploration, perhaps
enduring their husbands’ inattention to them and their families while they
focused most of their energies on their scientific endeavors. Those women who
did have interest in science had few ways of expressing that interest. Some
women could potentially “provide illustrations for their husbands’ books” or
they could “become collectors” and “supply specimens to male scientists”.[2]
Most of the male scientists of the age believed that women were incapable of
scientific pursuits; Thomas Huxley wrote in a private letter to Charles Lyell
that, “five-sixths of women will stop in the doll stage of evolution, to be the
stronghold of parsonism, the drag on civilisation, the degradation of every
important pursuit in which they mix themselves – intrigues in politics and friponnes
in science”.[3]
Faced with such prejudices from the male scientists of the day, women had to
express their views and opinions on the science of the time in distinctly feminine
forms.
One such woman, Anna Letitia Barbauld, turned to poetry to express her
views on the use of animals in scientific experimentation in “The Mouse’s
Petition.” Using the language of the transmutation of souls, Barbauld
anthropomorphizes a mouse into an eloquent rhetorician. Despite the complex
ideas included in the poem, later dispersal of the poem after its initial
publication saw its inclusion in school curriculums meant to teach children to
be kind to animals. For that reason, Barbauld’s poem became wrapped up into a
much larger body of literature, predominantly written by women, that became
part of the anti-vivisection movement of the late 19th century in
both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Anna
Letitia Aiken, later Barbauld, was no stranger to science during her
adolescence. Her family moved to Warrington, Lancashire in 1758, where her
father was employed as a tutor in languages, literature, and divinity at
Warrington Academy. Growing up in this academic environment, Barbauld met many
intellectuals of the time who were working or studying at the academy, including
Reverend Joseph Priestley. Priestly became a tutor of languages at Warrington
Academy after Barbauld’s father, John Aikin, left the role to become the tutor
of divinity at the school. During Priestley’s employment at the school, Anna
became friends with both Rev. Priestley and his wife Mary. Barbauld visited the
couple when they lived in Leeds in 1771, during which time she wrote “The
Mouse’s Petition” in response to scientific experiments Priestly was
conducting.
According
to Barbauld’s memoirist, William Turner, Barbauld visited the Priestleys while
Joseph was in the middle of his experiments with air that would lead to his
discovery of seven different gases including oxygen. Turner wrote that, “In the
course of these investigations, the suffocating nature of various gases
required to be determined, and no more easy or unexceptional way of making such
experiments could be devised, than the reserving of these little victims of
domestic economy [i.e., mice], which were thus as easily and as speedily put
out of existence, as by any of the more usual modes”.[4]
Viewing mice as household vermin that would be killed anyway, Priestly decided
to use them in his experiments with air as he had in his previous experiments
with electricity. Barbauld was present one evening when “a captive was brought
in after supper” by a servant.[5] Priestley
decided to keep the mouse in a cage overnight because it was too late to begin
any experiments. When the mouse was brought in the next morning, Barbauld’s
“petition” in the mouse’s voice was found “twisted among the wires of its
cage”.[6] At
the conclusion of his account of the event, Turner wrote, “it scarcely need be
added, that the petition was successful.”[7]
Barbauld had challenged Priestley’s scientific practices using the
stereotypical feminine writing form of poetry, allowing her a limited
engagement with science.
[1]
Conniff 746
[2]
Conniff 748-749
[3]
Holmes, Guardian Article
[4]
The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld, 244
[5]
Poems 244
[6]
Poems 244
[7]
Poem 244
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