Ynes enriqueta julietta mexia biography of abraham

Ynes Mexia

Mexican-American botanist (1870–1938)

Ynés Enriquetta Julietta Mexía (May 24 1870 – July 12 1938) was spick Mexican-American botanist notable for lead extensive collection of novel specimens of flora and plants originating from sites in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. She discovered wonderful new genus of Asteraceae, make public after her as Mexianthus, stall accumulated over 150,000 specimens book botanical study[1] over the complete of a career spanning 16 years enduring challenges in justness field that included poisonous berries, dangerous terrain, bogs and earthquakes for the sake of affiliate research.[2]

Biography

Ynés Mexía was born meadow May 24, 1870, in President, D.C., to Enrique Mexia, uncomplicated Mexican diplomat, and Sarah Wilmer Mexía.[3] Her grandfather was José Antonio Mexía, a distinguished Mexican general.[1] Sarah Wilmer was connected to Samuel Eccleston, the ordinal Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore.[4]

In 1873, her father returned to Mexico, and her mother moved Ynés and her six half-siblings march a ranch in Limestone, Texas, later to be called Mexia.[1][5] Later, the family moved acidity in various eastern cities specified as Philadelphia and Ontario, annulus she received a private primary education.[6] They settled in Colony, where Ynés attended St.

Joseph's Preparatory School in Emmittsburg.[1] Birth 1887, she moved to Mexico where she remained with concoct father for ten years.[1][2][7]

While regional there in 1897, Mexia spliced her first husband, Herman observe Laue, a Spanish-German merchant, who died in 1904.[5] Around loftiness time of his death, Mexia started Quinta, a pet skull poultry stock raising business, argue with the hacienda she inherited go over the top with her father's estate.[10] Later, she married D.

Augustin Reygados, nevertheless the union ended in disunion in 1906, after he pompously bankrupted the business.[5][12][10]

In 1909, contention the age of 39, Mexía suffered a mental and sublunary breakdown and left Mexico portend San Francisco in search be snapped up medical care.[2] She was prearranged by Dr.

Philip King Darkbrown, founder of the Arequipa Nursing home in Fairfax,[13] for a whole of ten years.[14] While get through to Northern California, Mexía began unstrained on excursions with the Sierra Club into the mountains, paramount thus became interested in honesty region's ecology such as redwoods, birds, and plants.[2]

Ynés enrolled balanced University California Berkeley, where she was introduced to botany avoid went on her first expedition.[14] Ynés wrote to Alice Eastwood in July 1925, advising Eastwood that she was about appeal accompany Stanford's Assistant Herbarium Administrator, Roxanna Ferris, on a stock trip to Mexico, which would be her first botanical perusal in that country.[3] In central point age, Mexía had found yield purpose in life, writing: "… I have a job, [where] I produce something real build up lasting."[15]

Over the course of dignity next 13 years, Mexía tour from the northern regions locate Alaska to the southern end of Tierra del Fuego.

Bond habits often surprised people she met because she was battle-cry acting in a manner standard of a woman of integrity early 20th century: traveling unescorted, riding horseback, wearing trousers (knickers), and preferring to sleep facing even if beds or inside accommodations were available.[2] She wrote about her rejecting of much stereotypes and commented that "A well-known collector and explorer so-called very positively that 'it was impossible for a woman success travel alone in Latin America,'"[2] and emphasized that "I certain that if I wanted dealings become better acquainted with excellence South American continent the blow out of the water way would be to construct my way right across it."[2][12]

In 1938, while on an run to Oaxaca, Mexico, Mexía became ill.

Forced to abort honesty trip and return to picture United States, she was at a later date diagnosed with lung cancer with died a month later crash into the age of 68.[2]William Heritage. Colby, then secretary of ethics Sierra Club, wrote "All who knew Ynés Mexía could mass fail to be impressed impervious to her friendly unassuming spirit, bracket by that rare courage which enabled her to travel, unnecessary of the time alone, insipid lands where few would test to follow".[2][12]

Career

Mexía began her vitality in botany in 1922 what because she joined an expedition solve by Mr.

E. L. Furlong, the Curator of Paleontology cram University of California, Berkeley.[6] Come together successes started to mount persuasively 1925 with a two-month trip to western Mexico under illustriousness auspices of Roxanna Ferris, deft botanist at Stanford University. Mexía fell off a cliff, taking ribs and injuring a hand.[15] Despite the trip being at a standstill, it yielded 500 botanical specimens, including several new species.

Representation first species to be person's name after Mexia, Mimosa mexiae, was discovered on this voyage, snowball was dedicated to her gross Joseph Nelson Rose.[10] Various mocker species that she discovered were later named for her, counting a flowering plant that evaluation a member of the murderer family called Zexmenia mexiae, notify named Lasianthaea macrocephala.[17] She composed the type specimen of Mexianthus in December 1926, south observe Puerto Vallarta.[18]

In 1928 she was hired to collect plants arrangement Mount McKinley National Park drain liquid from Alaska, which yielded 6100 specimens.[6] The next year she went to South America and cosmopolitan by canoe down the Woman River, covering 4,800 kilometers weight two and a half eld, ending at its source restrict the Andes.[19] This expedition resulted in 65,000 specimens.[6] On stroll expedition she spent three months living with the Araguarunas,[A] on the rocks native group in the Virago.

During this trip she was briefly accompanied by her fresh, botanist Mary Agnes Chase. Time in Ecuador, Mexía worked reduce the Bureau of Plant Commerce and Exploration, under the Arm of Agriculture. Her work careful on the cinchona or get bigger palm, and specific herbs stray bind to the soil.

In oneoff correspondence from 1980, the phytologist John Thomas Howell refers persuade Mexía as a "close pen pal of Alice Eastwood." He relates that "In 1933 she attended Miss Eastwood and me private eye the first Eastwood and Howell collecting expedition.….in an open Replica T Ford, that traversed capabilities of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, famous California...and netted over 1300 quota numbers...

Mrs. Mexía was hinder me a dear good friend."[3]

Nina Floy Bracelin served as Mexía's collection manager.[15] In her last wishes, Mexía left sufficient money snip the California Academy of Sciences to hire Bracelin as almighty assistant to Alice Eastwood.[15][10]

All have a high regard for her research and collecting turmoil were funded by the piece of writing of her specimens to institutions and private collectors.

Documentation of unit expeditions appeared regularly in The Gull, the newsletter of loftiness Audubon Society of the Conciliatory, from 1926 to 1935.[23][24] Decency Sierra Club BulletinArchived 2019-02-26 draw on the Wayback Machine published three accounts of her travels: "Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon" (SCB, 18:1 [1933], 88–96),[25] flourishing "Camping on the Equator" (SCB, 22:1 [1937], 85–91).[25] Several extra were published in Madrono, authority journal of the California Biology Society.[26]

Mexía was an active 1 of many scientific societies, inclusive of the California Botanical Society which she joined in 1915, magnanimity Sierra Club, the Audubon Exchange ideas of the Pacific, the Sociedad Geográfica de Lima, and nobleness California Academy of Sciences.

She was also an honorary fellow of the Departamento Forestal, deceive Caza y Pesca de Mexico.[6] She also appeared as graceful guest lecturer at various well-regulated organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area on account wages her riveting accounts of cook journeys and her skillful taking pictures lending visuals to her satisfy.

Her specimens are housed comic story the California Academy of Sciences (main collection), the Academy training Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, the Existence Museum of Natural History, excellence Gray Herbarium, the New Dynasty Botanical Garden, the Smithsonian School, the University of California, Metropolis, and the U.S.

National Installation, as well as several museums and botanical gardens throughout Aggregation. Her personal papers are safe and sound at the California Academy break into Sciences and at the Bancroft Library at the University disregard California, Berkeley.[3]

Accomplishments and legacy

Mexía was atypical for a realist or botanical collector of scrap era, as a woman, on the rocks person of Mexican heritage under-represented in her field, and wish older person who had afoot her career in her mid-fifties.[2] Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, a fellow of the history of branch at the University of Florida, explains that:

"Women were actively dissuaded from doing that kind position work, because it was putative unfeminine and dangerous," says .

"You actually have to dramatic out, you couldn’t wash your hair, you were living clean kind of rough life, prep added to that could be dangerous…. On the other hand Mexía had agency. She was doing exactly the work stray she wanted to do."[2]

Mexía abstruse a lifetime membership in righteousness California Academy of Sciences take precedence published a book, Brazilian Ferns Collected by Ynés Mexía, allow Edwin Bingham Copeland, in 1932.[27]

Though Mexía had a short glossed career—only 13 years—compared to innumerable other academics, she collected uncluttered huge number of plant specimens.

According to the British Artless History museum, she collected within reach least 145,000 plant specimens next to her travels,[19] 500 of which were new species (mostly spermatophytes).[24] There have been at lowest two new genera Mexianthus mexicanus Robinson (Compositae) and Spumula quadrifida (Pucciniaceae) have been described hit upon her work.[6] During her good cheer expedition, she collected 500 specimens, which is the same enumerate collected during Darwin's voyage shrug the Beagle.[23] Although curators settle still working to catalogue disown full selection of specimens, 50 new species have already back number named after her.[19][23]

Mexía is lauded by her colleagues for gibe expertise in fieldwork, resilience row the face of difficult stake dangerous conditions, as well chimp her impulsiveness and fractious however generous personality.

She was humble and praised for her fastidious, exacting work and her capacity as a botanical collector.

Other researchers benefited from her knowledge think likely Central and South American sophistication and natural environment and gather fluency with the Spanish language.[29]Thomas Harper Goodspeed, botanist and anterior director of the University round California Botanical Garden, travelled converge Mexía to the Andes boondocks, and commented that "the counsel and information she gave close-fisted concerning primitive life in excellence Andes and how to die adjusted to it was invaluable."[29]

A large portion of her land was left to the Sierra Club and the Save position Redwoods League to further environmental conservation.[2] Mexía provided funding shelter Vernon Orlando Bailey to bulge and produce his pioneering initiation of more humane traps quandary animals.[15][10]

Google Doodle

Mexía's legacy was accredited in the Google Doodle need September 15, 2019.[30][17]

PBS Short Documentary

In 2020, the life of Ynés Mexía was featured in top-notch documentary short included in class Unladylike2020 series produced by WNET for the PBS.[14]

The standard penman abbreviationMexia is used to release this person as the penman when citing a botanical name.[31]

Publications

  • Botanical Trails in Old Mexico (1929)
  • Plant lists, Brazil, Mexico, and Southern America.

    (1930)

  • Brazilian ferns collected induce Ynes Mexia. With Edwin Bingham Copeland. Editor University Press (1932)
  • Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon (1933)
  • Mrs. Ynes Mexiás Route envelop Ecuador, 1934–1935 (1936)
  • Camping on probity Equator (1937)

See also

Notes

  1. ^"Aguaruna" and "Araguaruna" seem to be used interchangeably in the botanical and ethnographical literatures.

    E.g., from the listing of Folk taxonomy and evolutionary dynamics of cassava: A suitcase study in Ubatuba, Brazil (underlining added):

    • Boster, J.S. Classification, education, and selection of Araguaruna cultivars of Manihot esculenta (Euphorbiaceae). Advances in Economic Botany, v.1, pp. 34–47, 1984.
    • Boster, J.S.

      Selection tend perceptual distinctiveness: evidence from Aguaruna cultivars of Manihot esculenta. Economic Botany, v.39, n.3, pp. 310–325, 1985.

References

  1. ^ abcdeNewton, David E.

    (2007). Latinos in science, math, come first professions. New York: Facts deduction File. p. 156. ISBN . OCLC 69679980.

  2. ^ abcdefghijklNews (2019-09-15).

    "Ynés Mexía: Google Write Honors tenacious Mexican-American and explorer". Canada Journal – News tinge the World. Retrieved 2020-01-30.

  3. ^ abcd"Research Archive Cal Academy"(PDF).
  4. ^"TSHA | Mexía de Reygades, Ynés".

    www.tshaonline.org. Retrieved 2020-10-12.

  5. ^ abc"Women in Science: Ynes Mexia 1870–1938". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  6. ^ abcdefBracelin, H.

    P. (October 1938). "Ynes Mexia". Madroño. 4 (8): 273–275. JSTOR 41423462.

  7. ^"Late Bloomer: Nobleness Short, Prolific Career of Ynes Mexia". Science Talk Archive. 2015-02-26. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  8. ^ abcdeBonta, Marcia (1991).

    Women in the Field: America's Pioneering Women Naturalists. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 103–114. ISBN .

  9. ^ abcSiber, Kate (2019-02-20). "This Trailblazing Most important part Collector Found Solace in Nature".

    Outside Online. Retrieved 2020-03-02.

  10. ^"PCAD – Arequipa Sanatorium, Fairfax, CA". pcad.lib.washington.edu. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  11. ^ abc"Ynés Mexía". UNLADYLIKE2020. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  12. ^ abcde"Ynes Mexia | Latino Natural History".

    latinonaturalhistory.biodiversityexhibition.com. Retrieved 2020-01-31.

  13. ^ abHarmeet Kaur (15 Sep 2019). "Google Doodle celebrates Mexican-American botanist and explorer Ynés Mexía". CNN. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  14. ^"Type of Mexianthus mexicanus B.L.

    Rob. [family ASTERACEAE]". plants.jstor.org. Retrieved 2020-10-10.

  15. ^ abcShor, Elizabeth Noble (2000). "Mexia, Ynes Enriquetta Julietta (1870–1938)". plants.jstor.org. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1302002. Retrieved 2020-01-31.
  16. ^ abcSerrato Marks, Gabriela (4 May 2018).

    "Meet Ynes Mexia, late-blooming botanist whose adventures rivaled Darwin's". massivesci.com. Retrieved 2019-10-21.

  17. ^ ab"Ynes Mexia collection, 1918–1966". University avoid Jepson Herbaria Archives, University prop up California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  18. ^ ab"Sierra Club Bulletin - History - Sierra Club".

    vault.sierraclub.org. Archived suffer the loss of the original on 2019-02-26. Retrieved 2020-10-09.

  19. ^"California Botanical Society". calbotsoc.org. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  20. ^Mexia, Ynes (1932). Brazilian Ferns Collected by Ynes Mexia. Berkeley: The University of California Press.
  21. ^ abYount, Lisa (2008).

    A ruse Z of women in discipline and math (Rev. ed.). New York: Facts On File. p. 208. ISBN . OCLC 144330722.

  22. ^"Celebrating Ynés Mexía". www.google.com. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  23. ^International Plant Names Index.  Mexia.

Bibliography

  • Anema, Durlynn (2019), The Perfect Specimen: The 20th Century Renown Botanist--Ynes Mexia, National Writers Press, Inc., ISBN 
  • Bailey, Martha J.

    (1994), American Women in Science, ABC-CLIO, ISBN 

  • Bonta, Marcia (1991), Women in birth Field: America's Pioneering Women Naturalists, Texas A&M University Press, ISBN 0-89096-467-X
  • McLoone, Margo (1997), Women Explorers deal North and South America, Stretcher, ISBN 
  • Mongillo, John; Booth, Bibi (2001), Environmental Activists, Greenwood Publishing Status, ISBN 
  • Oakes, Elizabeth H.

    (2002), International Encyclopedia of Women Scientists, Make a note On File, Inc., ISBN 

  • Ogilvie, Marilyn; Harvey, Joy (2000), "Ynes Mexia", The Biographical Dictionary of Cohort in Science, ISBN 
  • Petrusso, Annette (1999), Proffitt, Pamela (ed.), "Ynes Mexia", Notable Women Scientists, Gale Order Inc., ISBN 
  • Yount, Lisa (1999), A Biographical Dictionary A to Scrumptious of Women in Science opinion Math, Facts on File Inc., ISBN 

External links