Extended answers from Susan Kattwinkel (SK), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 1: The Promise of Citizen Science

Question: Your paper is situated within the Progressive Era. But of course not all citizens were equal. We know a lot about skepticism of immigrants’ abilities, for example. Could you talk a little about elitism within the communities and scholars you are studying?

SK: Incubator baby shows participated in elitist practices of the period in some ways and were
pretty egalitarian in other ways. The spectators for the shows were anyone who went to
amusement parks, world’s fair, and local carnivals, and reports indicate that people of all
classes found them interesting. The managers were almost exclusively white men, although
some were immigrants. They came from the show business world, which was largely white at
the management level. The central element of the shows – the babies themselves – was very
egalitarian, and that’s one of the things that gives them lasting significance. Unlike most
hospitals at the time, the shows accepted any infant brought in, regardless of race or the
parents’ ability to pay for care. That wasn’t a purely altruistic gesture, of course. The shows
needed infants, and non-white infants could be exploited in advertising as an extra spectacle
for a mostly-white audience. But many infants were saved in the shows who would have
otherwise died, either from the lack of a nearby incubator and specialized care, or because they
would have been turned away from hospitals.

Extended answers from Cristina Luís (CL), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 2: Historical Perspectives

Question: There was a large Jesuit university in Coimbra. Is there any evidence they were involved in citizen science? Any evidence of the religious involvement more broadly?
CL: We have evidence of the scientific activity developed by several Jesuit priests who taught natural sciences at the Colégio de S. Fiel (a primary and secondary school). The works developed, with a great prevalence for the study of insects, are published in the journal Brotéria, which is being analysed.

Question: Considering the complications of the term “citizen science” (both in terms of citizenship and definitions of science) is there alternate language we could/should use to better describe the world of scientific inquiry before professionalization?
CL: This is and excellent question, but without a simple answer. On this subject I would advise reading: Strasser, B. J., Baudry, J., Mahr, D., Sanchez, G. and Tancoigne, E. (2019) “‘Citizen Science’? Rethinking Science and Public Participation”, Science & Technology Studies, 32(2), pp. 52-76. doi: 10.23987/sts.60425.

Question: Have you found a particularly powerful 'hook' for getting people involved in biodiversity citizen science?
CL: Unfortunately, so far, I have not found that "hook". However, usually people are more motivated because, among others, there is some knowledge gain, curiosity, contribution to science and environmental preservation, and, when using biodiverity recording applications, there is an interest in making virtual collections. Here is an example of a study on this subject: Peter, Maria & Diekötter, Tim & Höffler, Tim & Kremer, Kerstin. (2021). Biodiversity citizen science: Outcomes for the participating citizens. People and Nature. 3. 10.1002/pan3.10193. 

Question: At Smithsonian Environmental Research Center we give folks the opportunity to take more central roles as the scientists rather than as technicians. They develop questions, methods, conduct analyses, and even present work at professional conferences. Are we a throw-back to the 17th and 18th centuries?
CL: That is excellent! More than a throw-back to past centuries, I would say you are an excellent example for the present and the future in what concerns public participation in scientific research.

Question: On the top of your head, who are some of the outstanding citizen scientists of today?
CL: All those who, for example, contribute to all the projects within the Zooniverse platform. But nowadays it is hard to individualize. There are plenty of people outstandingly collaborating with scientists.

Question: In present time can the case of kids engagement in digital technology be one such example? And in same way people's engagement in advancement of knowledge in other fields?
CL: Many citizen science projects make use of digital technologies to enable participation, and many of those projects are directed to children. There are also some examples of citizen science projects that introduce gamification to increase participation of kids.

Question: How should historians incorporate your research in searching for examples of knowledge making?
CL: If searching for examples of knowledge making, historians should look, e.g., for cases where there are calls made for the contribution with data for a specific research.

Question: To what extent is the history of citizen science a history of inequality?
CL: In my view, citizen science tries to counterbalance inequality by opening science to the participation of everyone. 

Question: Why are the stories of citizen science in some countries still largely unknown?
CL: In fact, the stories of citizen science has not been explored in most countries. It is a subject largely unexplored. 

Question: What we know about past Citizen Science projects seem to depend upon the survival of archives. Did past Citizen Science projects tend to create archives, or are there types of projects that we don't know about because its archive did not survive?
CL: Absolutely. Archives are essential for any study of the past and this is also the case for the study of the history of citizen science. We will only know what existed in the past if some information has survived into the present.

Question: Can you talk more about the importance of collections for citizen science, both as it was understood historically and for aiding present-day initiatives?
CL: Museum collections are excellent repositories of information about, e.g., the network of collectors, and the information collected may be used for comparison with the present.

Question: One of the themes from yesterday was about community science (which empowers the community) as opposed to citizen science (which is individual volunteering to support science). How do you think this distinction may (or may not) apply to your subject?
CL: In the research I am conducting there are examples of both individual and community volunteering involvement. In many cases, particularly in the current cases, although there are many cases of individual involvement, generally individuals contribute with the vision of contributing to the benefit of the community.

Extended answers from Marilé Colón Robles (MCR), Dr. Russane Low (RL), and Brian Campbell (BC), panelists from a Showcase during “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science"

Question: Unfortunately we are a year into the pandemic. What has the response been to your adaptations for at-home observation?
BC: The adaptations for at-home citizen science during the pandemic has been great. We, as NASA and GLOBE have developed many hands-on activities, videos, and resources that keep the knowledge flowing. We thought that we might have a great reduction in the number of NASA GLOBE Observer citizen science observations, but that wasn't the case. We saw a lot of observations, sometimes several thousand per week come in across all 4 NASAGO protocols.
RL: I think our whole team was surprised at the increased interest in citizen science we saw as a whole. Parents and teachers conveyed interest in resources to support informal learning at home, and we stepped up by creating family guides (Clouds and Tree Height),and a  Mosquito Activity Notebook (Mosquito Habitat Mapper) for upper elementary and middle school students.  We also created resources for GLOBE Observer at home. It was rewarding to see people being generous with their time and supporting citizen science, even when many other things were going on during the pandemic-together, we can get through this :-)

Question: Even though you use volunteer labor, I expect there must be a lot of labor behind the scenes at GLOBE to make this happen. How many people are on your team?
RL: This is a great question. NASA is supporting our team work through a cooperative agreement, and funds our science and outreach teams. There is also institutional support for app development and data base management supported by NASA for the GLOBE program. These federal investments in citizen science infrastructure makes it possible to provide participation in observations and research for all. Many of us wear more than one hat, but there are 3 or 4  scientist and education outreach staff members working on each protocol team (clouds, trees, mosquitoes), not including our artist and management team. NASA has put a significant investment into Earth system citizen science.
BC:  So, we  have 20+ people on our NASA Sci Activation Team (NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative), but we have adjunct folks working with us from all corners of the GLOBE, internal and external to NASA and the GLOBE Program.

Question: Who can access the data you collect? Is it freely accessible to scientists?
RL: Anyone can access the GLOBE and NASA data, we are committed the open data paradigm. You can visualize GLOBE data through a map interface in the GLOBE Visualization System, download filtered data using the Advanced Data Access Tool (ADAT) or pull data using an API. You can access these tools here. Citizen scientists have the same access as professional full time scientists. 
MCR: Research-ready datasets are also available here. You can access cloud reports from citizen scientists matched to satellite data, observations collected during the recent solar eclipses, dust event observations, and mosquito habitat mapper data.

Question: Can you talk about "my NASA data" and data literacy cubes?
MCR: The My NASA Data website offers a variety of opportunities to explore Earth Science phenomena of the Atmosphere, Biosphere, Cryosphere, Geosphere, and Hydrosphere using uniquely NASA related content. It contains Mini Lessons with pre-generated graphs and mapped visualizations as well as Lesson Plans, Story maps, STEM career connections, and ties to The GLOBE Program. The Data Literacy Cubes are an interactive way teachers can teach students about reading maps, graphs, and datasets. There are sets aimed for different learning levels (beginners, intermediate, advanced, and English Language Learners) and each side of the cube has a question for groups of students to discover with the data. Find out more here.

Question: Brian, you had an image that mentioned an Urban Heat Island campaign. Could you speak more about this?
BC: The Urban Heat Island Effect - Surface Temperature Field Campaign is a GLOBE Campaign led by Dr. Kevin Czajkowski, GLOBE Partner and professor at the University of Toledo in Ohio. You can find more information on the campaign here. 

Question: Are there scientific breakthroughs that have come from the data you’ve been collecting over the years?
RL:  I would say that what takes my breath away scientifically would not necessarily be recognized as a breakthrough, but I know of several discoveries made by NASA citizen scientists. It takes a while for our citizen scientist data to be of sufficient scope to make discoveries, but we do have important tasks and challenges to address. For instance, there are two new invasive and potentially dangerous mosquitoes that have just been seen for the first time, one in Florida and one in Cuba. Citizen scientists are poised and ready to find and track these critters, so that they can be located and eradicated before they take hold in the ecosystem.
BC: We have not seen scientific breakthroughs per se, but we do notice that we have developed a ground-breaking way to compare NASAGO observations with space-based observation. Right now, the app allows you to take Cloud observations at the same time satellites are nearby/overhead and you receive a satellite data match with your information and the satellite information. We are working to do this, on the App, for Trees and ICESat-2, Land Cover and MODIS, and Mosquitoes and GPM.
MCR: With clouds, we have found some really surprising results. We were able to test the impact of total cloud cover on the eclipse-induced temperature depression observed during the 2017 North American Total Solar Eclipse. The data has also been used to test climate model validations of worldwide total cloud cover showing a general climate model over estimation of total cloud cover. We've also found unique ways to collect ground observations of marine haze over the Southern Ocean and to report dust storm events around the world.

Question: Do you ever work with artists, writers or musicians?
RL: The answer is yes, and I wish we had the funds to do more. The tapestry I showed in the Mosquito Habitat Mapper talk was created by a digital artist to describe the history of the yellow fever mosquito. Part of the communication of science involves engaging hearts as well as minds, and art media do an amazing job of translating science data and experiences into something we can see and feel. You can take a look of three different artists in our educational resources, and download them here.   
BC: One thing we are proud of with the Trees Around the GLOBE Student Research Campaign is that we like to focus on not just the science of trees, but also the personal and cultural aspects of trees. Also, we have developed several art-related activities on tree and land cover that are part of the Trees Family Guide.

Question: I hope there will be a follow up to this? great info!
BC: We hope so too. In the meantime, please join us for the 2021 Trees Community Challenge.
RL: Thank you! For more information go to the GLOBE Observer website, which is a gateway to all our activities.  You can also learn more about the GLOBE Mission Mosquito campaign here -check out our webinar series (all are recorded).  And if you want more follow up, contact [email protected], and I will try and find the right person for you.

Question: Great opportunity to link up with environmental and health orgs!
RL: Yes! Thank you and I agree, and if you would like to make introductions to a local community environmental or health group, I would be very excited to follow up, please use this email:  [email protected]


​​​​​​​Question: Have you experienced any challenges working globally? Earlier papers today spoke about how projects might be focused more on individual countries.
RL: Great question! We do not have many issues with working globally, because GLOBE is an international program, offered in 125 countries. There are some countries that do not agree to share data with the United States, which is why there are some countries where citizen scientists are not able to contribute data. The GLOBE Observer app is now used by individual projects in many places. The Mosquito Habitat Mapper was used in a USAID project in Brazil and Peru, and in a Department of State project in 10 countries. The GLOBE Observer team hosts regular webinars and these are attended by people around the world.  
BC: We haven’t really experienced many issues working globally, outside the variations in types of phones being used that might not display the NASAGO App in the right way and the issues with country pandemic lockdowns having an effect on potential data collection. With the phone, there are many cheaply made phones that do not have a built-in magnetometer and therefore cannot measure the angles needed for the tree height observations.

Question: Can you talk about where you work with communities as opposed to just individual citizen scientists? What are the opportunities and challenges?
RL: With respect to Mosquito Habitat Mapper, we have seen that it is more productive to partner with a trusted community organization, who can frame the importance of the work citizen scientists are doing in a local context. In Ethiopia, the problem is a new invasive species that is causing malaria. In Brazil, the local problems have focused on a different mosquito and transmission of pathogens that cause Zika and dengue. Finding a local partner who can continue to message about the importance of citizen science participation is key to long term engagement by citizen scientists. 

​​​​​​​Question: Should we eradicate the yellow fever mosquito again? Like lantern bugs?
RL: You hit the nail on the head here- both globalization as well as shifting climate zones have exacerbated the big problems we face with invasive species. When an invasive species moves into a place where its traditional predators do not live, their populations can explode and dramatically change the ecosystem balance. From an ecological perspective, I'd have no issues eradicating invasives like lantern flies and the yellow fever mosquito. However most of the means of doing so would do equal harm to our natural biota. This is a fundamental challenge and why invasive species are so insidious and damaging to our ecosystems. 
​

Extended answers from Ashley Rubin, author of The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America's Modern Penal System, 1829-1913 (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Q: What type of Prison was the Walnut Street prison? Why was it replaced by Eastern State Prison?
A: Walnut Street began as a colonial jail, then was used to contain prisoners of war, then it was reformed while still a county jail, then it became a state prison (the third in the nation) or what I call a "proto-prison" or what was sometimes called at the time a "penitentiary house" (although parts of it, even after the reforms ended in 1794, contained a jail, a prison, and a penitentiary house, confusingly, so it was kind of a hybrid). It was replaced or really supplemented by a number of county prisons (jails) like Moyamensing and others, but the prison part of it was really replaced by Eastern and Western. These two modern prisons were initially supposed to help the overcrowding at Walnut Street, but also fix some of its design flaws, so Eastern and Western and their Pennsylvania System were really supposed to live up to the ideals that initially underlay Walnut Street but that didn't really happen in practice. Michael Meranze's Laboratories of Virtue offers an excellent account of its rise and fall, by the way.

Q: What are the major differences between later use of Walnut Street Jail (Prune Prison) and Eastern State regarding reform techniques? Didn't Walnut Street Prison exercise reform measures (vocation, education, seperation, sewer) first?
A: Walnut Street included a number of really important innovations like hygiene measures—and was one of the first in the country to do so. One way to think about their achievements is what they were replacing. Walnut Street was a reformed colonial jail intended to fix the problems of colonial jails like the spread of disease, the comingling of different groups of prisoners (accused criminals, convicted criminals, debtors, witnesses, children of debtors, men and women, young and old, all together), and corruption by the keeper/jailer. Eastern was designed to fix the problems of Walnut Street and the other proto-prisons: things like overcrowding, disorder/lack of control, the spread of criminality, etc. There are a lot of difference between their regimes, but the biggest is perhaps the use of solitary: Walnut Street was still much like a colonial jail in that prisoners were kept in large rooms (but sorted by status--like gender and criminality) and solitary was only used as punishment. At Eastern, everyone was in solitary. 

Q: Regarding prison Administrators in Eastern, did they self-select to work in this institution? Is there something about them (as individuals) that makes them advocate for the institution?
A: They absolutely self-selected. Technically, inspectors (the highest level) were appointed by the Governor (and later the Supreme Court), but many of them were already active in penal reform circles. Wardens, physicians, and moral inspectors applied for the jobs (or sometimes were asked). Many of them came from a tight-knit group of upper-crust families that basically hung out together in social reform and charitable meetings, local and state government, lived or worked with each other, and many married within this group. The interesting thing is this group contributed both to the admin side and the non-admin reformer side, so a priori, I'd say there was nothing distinct about the administrators relative to the penal reformers. It's more that once they became administrators, a lot of them focused on more practical issues than ideological ones (or both, but recognized the tension). Those who stayed reformers, or who were short-lived admin, sometimes wouldn't allow ideology to give way to practicality. But interestingly, it's that later group that did end up rejecting the Pennsylvania System, or rather requesting its heavy modification, while the admin rejected these (even while they privately manipulated practice behind the scenes) and insisted the Pennsylvania System was perfect as it was (even though they weren't really following that system as they claimed).

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about the brief experiments with public labor post-Revolution?
A: In Philadelphia, Baltimore, and I think one other city, people who previously would have been executed were sentenced instead of public labor in the streets basically doing public works, cleaning the streets, etc. In Philadelphia, they were called Wheelbarrow Men because of the wheelbarrows they used. It was very short lived, only lasting for about a year or two before being repealed in those various places. 

Q: What caused public work penalties in the 1780s to fail?
A: Both public criticism (this was seen as degrading from some folks) but also public un-cooperation: crowds would jeer and harass the prisoners and sometimes provide them with drink. Also, some of the Wheelbarrow men were able to escape. So across the board, it was seen as a disaster. I highly recommend Michael Meranze's book Laboratories of Virtue, which covers this period in several chapters. 

Q: Did Jeremy Bentham’s famous Panopticon figure in the Philadelphia vs Auburn debate, and did Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison figure in your approach?
A: Bentham was not terribly influential at that time. The Western State Penitentiary was however initially (sort of) modeled on the Panopticon, but in practice, it was missing important components (like the central watch tower). In the end, they had to tear it down because it was so badly built, and they did not keep that design in the rebuild. Eastern is built on the radial model, which was also popular in England but is distinct from the panopticon. I don't really use Foucault directly because his account is one of the big national overviews that just sees Eastern and the Pennsylvania System as part of a larger trend rather than taking seriously their differences from the national norm, which people at the time took very seriously. Basically, for Foucault's purposes, that difference didn't matter, but I argue that difference is central to the experience and history of Eastern as well as for the larger story of U.S. prisons in the 19th century.

Q: I am curious when/how your interest in ESP came to be and how that became a book?
A: I've been interested in Eastern since I first learned about it as a sophomore in college taking a history of crime and punishment class. It's so iconic and full of myths (so many of which are wrong or misleading, but intriguing nonetheless). I knew I wanted it to be a big part of my dissertation and even though I ended up changing my diss topic, I stayed with Eastern and focused on what I considered to be an even harder question, why it retained its unique system. And writing my diss, I knew I wanted it to be written like a book, so my diss is basically my first draft of my book. A very early, incomplete draft that took about seven years to fully revise. 

Q: I note that David Rothman's brilliant The Discovery of the Asylum (Little, Brown and Company 1971), which shares your cover image, was published 50 years ago! How does your work relate to his Conscience and Convenience thesis?
A: It is ironic, because I draw much more on Rothman's C&C book than his Discovery of the Asylum, which covers the same time period that I'm looking at. My main interaction with C&C is to take complicate his idea of reformers v. administrators and the ideology v. practice. On the one hand, I see what he says happen much earlier than the Progressive Era he's looking at. But it's also more complicated: these administrators were also penal reformers. It's really everyone in Philadelphia was a penal reformer, but some were penal reformers and administrators. Once they became administrators, they did have a more practical outlook (and those who couldn't quite adapt to that often left sooner than later). So that's one part, just clarifying that the reformer-administrator line is blurrier in this period. The other contribution is to think of Rothman's C&C work (along with similar pieces like Jacob's Stateville) that sees admin as rational managers in conversation with earlier historical works that saw admin and reformers as true believers (part of the Great Man and Whig history orientation of the early and mid-20th C) and with some of the recent historical work that sees admin as basically evil, horrible people. I argue that we can't see admin as wearing just one of these hats---the rational manager, the true believer, or the bad actor. The men in my study really were all three (or at least two). For example, some of the most devoted, true believer like admin (such as two of the Quaker wardens) also manipulated the system (like many other admin there) and also tortured prisoners and embezzled from the prison. If we only think of them as rational managers, or as bad actors, or true believers, we can't understand their behavior. We really have to recognize that complexity and try to understand them on their own terms rather than on a single frame we impose on them.  

Q: My great grandfather was in the prison after the Civil War, where he served in the Irish Brigade.  Is there a way to research more about my great grandfather and why he was there?
A: There are registries of prisoners listed in a variety of locations. The APS has the moral instructor's log books, that contain some prisoners and details about their behavior. There are also intake logs at the state archives which list the incoming prisoners and their features (including sometimes scars, height, complexion, drinking habits, marital status, etc.). Beyond that, the warden's log contains some info on prisoner misbehavior, intake behavior, and release. There's also a record of discipline that was meted out. I think most of those use the prisoners names, but some documents only use their numbers. I would start by finding his name in an intake log and finding his number as well as the years of his confinement and then you can consult those sources to find references. Depending on the years, you might also find him mentioned in the Foulke diary I mentioned or even some correspondence, especially in the later years as restrictions about correspondence loosened.  

Q: Since he had thoughts on virtually everything else, did Benjamin Franklin have any thoughts about incarceration?
A: He helped to found the first major penal reform society; in fact, he hosted at his own home Benjamin Rush's great talk (later published as a pamphlet) calling for "penitentiary houses." That talk became the de facto first meeting of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, which was founded in 1787. Unfortunately, Franklin died in 1790 (basically right when Walnut Street Jail was undergoing substantial reform based on Rush's and others' comments, and the efforts of PSAMPP's lobbying and hands-on work). So basically, all of this was happening at the very end of his life, but he did have a big impact on helping facilitate the early conversations.  

Extended answers from Peter Davidson (PD), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 2: Historical Perspectives

Question: Do meteorites fall evenly across the earth or do some areas seem to get more - or are better observed?
PD: In general meteorites can fall anywhere on Earth. Areas where meteorites are more easily spotted are in large deserts and in Antarctica. As you can imagine, most of the meteorites that land on Earth fall into lakes, seas, and oceans. 

Question: What is the composition of the meteorite?
PD: Meteorites fall into three very broad categories - stony, stony-iron and iron. Their composition varies widely depending on which category they fall into. Stony meteorites are composed of silicate minerals such as olivine and pyroxene but often contain iron-bearing minerals. Some stony meteorites (chondrites) are very primitive and date back to the very beginning of the formation of the Solar System. Carbonaceous chondrites contain organic compounds such as amino acids and may have had a part to play in the beginning of Life on Earth. Iron meteorites are composed of iron-nickel alloys and are thought to represent the core of a planet or planetoid.

Question: How widely known was the meteorite fall beyond the British Isles? And have the citizen science drawings and other contributions proved useful over time?
PD: Although the meteorite was not a particularly rare type, indeed it was one of the most common types of meteorite, two facts served to make this famous. One was the striking and falling through the roof of the house, the other that it was seen to hit the ground - both rare occurrences even today. The photographic archive also was unique in its time for the record it made of the fall sites and the people involved. 

Question: What is the importance of collections for citizen science, both as it was understood historically and for aiding present-day initiatives?
PD: As a curator in a National Museum, I am perhaps a little biased in talking about collections. I would say that public collections like ours is available to both professional and non-professional researchers and organizations to further "citizen science" projects. The availability of curators is also vital to projects and many of my colleagues take part in them. 

Question: Are there incidents where observers and scientists disagree about whether a rock is a meteorite?
PD: As part of my day-to-day job, I get many inquires from members of the public who think they have found a meteorite - so far the total count is nil! One or two have found it difficult to accept that they are wrong despite whet they have read online. Nevertheless I always preface my reply by saying "In my opinion...". In the meteorite world, a new word has arisen to describe these false finds and that is "meteorwrongs". We do have a sample of a discredited meteorite in our collections which was listed as a bona-fide meteorite before further research revealed its new identity. Today, with all the tools at our disposal, it is very rare to get an identification wrong. 

Question: When did professional scientists become interested in meteorites? Are there folk interests/traditions that predate?
PD: The science of meteoritics came of age when scientists began to accept that meteorites came from space and were not volcanic or weather related phenomena. It is not by accident that meteoritics and meteorology have the same semantic root. One suggestion for the origin of meteorites was that they were created in thunder clouds. If I had to pick a year when the extra-terrestrial origin of meteorites was established it would be 1794 when E F F Chladni's book on the Pallas iron was published. After that, despite early skepticism, meteorites were eventually recognized for what they were. Observations of meteors, shooting stars and fireballs dates back to ancient times. Aristotle is generally accepted as one of the earliest authors on the subject and was the first to use the term. 

Select answers from Charles Williams and Eliane Norman, editors of André Michaux in North America Journals and Letters, 1785-1796

Q: Are any plants that Michaux documented now extinct?

CW: Many plants that Michaux documented in North America have been extirpated from the locales where he found them because of local habitat destruction, but we are not aware of any that have become extinct. However, some of Michaux's plants are now rare, so there is cause for concern. Bruce A. Sorrie, then with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, and now retired, authored a notable study presented at the 2002 André Michaux International Symposium. Sorrie's "The Status of Rare Vascular Plants that Bear Michaux's Name" treated nineteen rare plant species and reported that two were then federally listed as endangered while nine more were federal species of concern. His work was published in Castanea, Occasional Papers in Eastern Botany no. 2 (2004) and is accessible via JSTOR.   

EN: I am not aware of any. Of course, Franklinia is a Bartram discovery; Michaux collected specimens, but no data is given.

Q: The planned expedition for Michaux funded by the APS sounds an awful lot like the Lewis & Clark expedition! Did the planning for it influence Jefferson's plans for the latter?

CW: Indeed, planning the APS expedition for Michaux appears to have been something of a practice run for Jefferson. Many of the interesting documents are posted on the Library of Congress website and chapter nine of our book reproduces these documents. One might also examine vol. 25 of the "Papers of Thomas Jefferson" edited by John Catanzariti, Princeton University Press.

EN: Definitely. His text spelling out what Michaux's exploration would entail is very similar to the one he wrote for the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Q: Where are Michaux's herbarium specimens?

CW: Michaux's herbarium of North American plants is housed as a separate collection within the French national herbarium at the Museum National d'Historie Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris. There are about 500 additional Michaux specimens in the herbarium of his colleague Anton-Laurent de Jussieu also housed as a separate collection at the MNHN. When Michaux gave these specimens to Jussieu in 1797, they were duplicates of specimens in his own herbarium, but today the Shortia specimen he gave to Jussieu is the only one that can be found. There are also Michaux specimens in Geneva and perhaps elsewhere. The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia also has a small collection of seeds from Michaux.

Q: Did Michaux engage with Native Americans to get information on plants used for food, medicine, etc.?

CW: Yes, he recorded interactions with the Cherokees in the Carolinas, as well as other tribes in Canada and Illinois. He noted plant remedies several times in his journal. Some examples in our book are: rheumatism and skin problems (p. 170), scurvy & venereal diseases (p. 280), scabies, purgative (p. 286), jaundice, venereal diseases, laxative (p.  288). There is a short discussion of Michaux's connection with medicinal plants in the paper presented to the American Pharmaceutical Association in 1962 by Clifton F. Lord Jr. and Martha Jane K. Zachert "The Botanical Garden of André Michaux near Charleston, 1786-1802." Unfortunately, it is only available on interlibrary loan from a handful of institutions.

EN: Several times. He interacted with the Cherokees in the Carolinas and other tribes in Canada and Illinois. He noted throughout his journal several remedies, i.e for rheumatism (p. 170), skin (p. 170), scurvy (p. 280), scabies, purgative (p. 286), venereal diseases (p. 288, 508).

Q: So delighted to be able to hear Charlie talking about this wonderful new book! And so pleased to hear more about the NJ garden. We're going to try make sure it is not forgotten!

CW: We certainly hope that change can be implemented and this historic site can be appropriately marked in the future.

Q: Did Michaux and William Bartram interact much?

CW: Michaux visited with the Bartrams each time he was in Philadelphia. He also corresponded with them and sent them seeds and plants. Both William and John Bartram, Jr. were definitely Americans that Michaux respected and considered his friends. His son François André later extolled their friendship in a letter to William Bartram that has survived.

EN: Yes, Michaux visited the Bartrams five or six times. Michaux would send them or bring seeds of plants that might be of interest. William Bartram told him of places that he visited that would be worthwhile.

Q: How did Michaux travel?

CW: Most of Michaux's travels were overland on the poor roads of the day by foot and horseback. At times in the back districts he lost his horses to thieves or they wandered away, but he always managed to find or replace them and continue his journeys. Early in his residence in the US, he rode the regular stagecoach between New York and Philadelphia, but this was an exception.  When there was a water route, he traveled in the available watercraft. In Florida he traveled by dugout canoe and in the Canadian wilderness by birch bark canoe. He traversed Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence in bateaux. He sailed up and down the Hudson River on a sloop, and traveled on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Cumberland Rivers in substantial river barges equipped with oars and sails.

Q: Were there donkeys in America?

CW: Michaux did not record any encounters with donkeys or people employing donkeys. All of his travels were east of the Mississippi and those animals were more likely to be found in the Spanish lands west of the river.

Q: I had read that the root of Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla) that Michaux collected was the first to produce a flower for botanists in Philadelphia. Is that true?

CW: Yes, Michaux collected live plants of this species when it was in fruit and described it in botanical terms in his journal entry for July 3, 1789 (p. 127-128, 304, 452, 517).  He was then 35 miles northeast of Abingdon in Smyth County, Virginia on his way to Philadelphia and New York. He gave the plants to his friends the Bartrams about three weeks later. Benjamin Smith Barton later obtained it from the Bartrams and after study and presenting a paper about the plant to the APS, named it for Jefferson. The volume by Joseph and Nesta Ewan, Benjamin Smith Barton, Naturalist and Physician in Jeffersonian America (Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2007), tells a part of this story on p. 276.    

EN: Michaux found it in Virginia, gave some to the Bartrams, who grew it. Benjamin Smith Barton saw it and gave it its genus name "Jeffersonia."

Q: Can you comment on any extensive associations with the Bartram family of botanists or William Hamilton of the Woodlands who had hothouses on his property and imported and exported America’s plants to England?

CW: Michaux visited William Hamilton several times. Unfortunately, most of Hamilton's correspondence is lost but a surviving letter suggests that Michaux discussed plants in depth with Hamilton and one of his gardeners. Michaux also gave plants to Hamilton, including Zelkova, trees that Michaux had brought back to France from his voyage to the Middle East before he came to America. This row of large trees survived at the Woodlands until the 1900's. Curator Joel Fry at Bartram's Garden has old photographs and knowledge of these trees.

Michaux had a warm relationship with the Bartrams. During his visits to Philadelphia he even boarded his horses at their farm. Early in his American travels he visited areas in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida that William Bartram had visited in the 1770s searching for plants that Bartram had told him about; an example is Bartram's "Magnolia montana" (M. fraseri) that Michaux mentioned in 1788 (p. 112). A letter from Michaux to John Bartram Jr. from 1791 (p. 159) shows that Michaux sent live M. fraseri plants to the Bartrams that he had likely obtained on this 1788 expedition. This relationship only deepened over time. In a letter from Charleston Nov. 14, 1794, Michaux mentioned to Rev. Nicholas Collin in Philadelphia: "I have the custom of sending to Mr. Bartram everything that one can find here." This relationship continued when Michaux's son returned to America in the early 1800s.

EN: Michaux visited William Hamilton several times and Michaux gave him plants, including Zelkova, trees that M. had brought back to France from his voyage to the Near East before he came to America. This row of large trees existed at the Woodlands until the 1900's.

Q: What plants did Michaux introduce to America?

CW: Over the years there have been a number of articles in popular magazines crediting Michaux with introducing old world plants to America and the evidence shows that he clearly did do this, but information on specifics is often lacking. For instance, when he became an honorary member of the Agricultural Society of Charleston, Michaux simply offered any of the plants growing in his garden that were not of North American origin to these men and no records seem to have been kept. The late James R. Cothran, the distinguished Atlanta landscape architect and landscape historian who authored Gardens of Historic Charleston (University of South Carolina Press, 1995), addressed the issue of Michaux's plant introductions at the 2002 André Michaux International Symposium. His study "Treasured Ornamentals of Southern Gardens-Michaux's Lasting Legacy" was published in Castanea, Occasional Papers in Eastern Botany no. 2 (2004) and is also accessible in the JSTOR database.  

Q: Did Michaux discover the magnolia?

CW: In addition to the familiar evergreen, Magnolia grandiflora, there are six (some taxonomists say seven) species of deciduous magnolias native to eastern North America.  Michaux discovered one of the deciduous magnolias, the bigleaf magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla. My study of Michaux and this species "André Michaux and the Discovery Magnolia macrophylla in North Carolina" appears in Castanea, vol. 64, no. 1 (March 1999), and is available in the JSTOR database.

Q: Did Michaux correspond with Alexander von Humboldt?

CW: We have only seen only one letter from Humboldt to Michaux about the growth of trees in North America when he had already returned to Paris. It might be of interest to see if there is an answer to his query in the Humboldt archives.

Q: Did Michaux and Humboldt meet?

CW: They certainly could have, and would have even traveled together had Bouganville been selected to lead the expedition to the south seas that Nicholas Baudin eventually did lead and Michaux joined, but we have not seen evidence that the two men actually met although they were in Paris at the same time.

Q: Did Michaux use enslaved persons to work on his farm in Charleston?

CW: Yes, it is documented that he did take advantage of the labor system he found in South Carolina at that time. The enslaved persons helped him in collecting and planting and the upkeep of his garden. Michaux specifically mentions that an enslaved person accompanied him on some of his early collecting journeys. Later during his residence in Charleston he also seems to have thought so well of some of them that he essentially left his garden in their care while he traveled to the Mississippi in 1795-1796. Perhaps surprised by such an unusual arrangement, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt specifically mentioned it in his memoir of visiting Michaux's garden in March and April 1796. Michaux also brought back to France a young boy whom he trained in natural history, collecting and preserving specimens. He later accompanied Michaux to Madagascar.

April 5-9, 2021

Papers for "The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science" can be found below.  You will be required to enter a password provided by conference organizers to access them. Please contact Adrianna Link at [email protected] if you are attending the conference but have not yet received the password.

Papers are not to be cited or circulated without the written permission of the author

All events will be held via Zoom (times listed in EDT)

Monday, April 5

1:00 - 2:30 p.m.: Keynote: Past, Present, and Future of Citizen Science

Featuring:
Caren Cooper (Associate Professor, Forestry & Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University)
Arthur Caplan (Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor, Division of Medical Ethics, New York University School of Medicine)

3:00 - 4:15 p.m.: Panel 1: The Promise of Citizen Science

“Negotiating the Mushroom Fad: Women and Mycological Work in the Era of Professionalization”
Madeline DeDe-Panken (The Graduate Center, CUNY)

“Citizen Science and Public Health: The Development of the Infant Incubator”
Susan Kattwinkel (College of Charleston)

“How Citizen Science is Super-Charging the Study of Evolutionary Adaptation in the Anthropocene”
Michael Moore (Living Earth Collaborative, Washington University, St. Louis)

Tuesday, April 6

1:00 - 2:15 p.m.: Panel 2: Historical Perspectives

“Citizen Observers in the Eighteenth-century Republic of Meteorological Letters”
Jin-Woo Choi (Princeton University)

“Traveling Across Citizen Science in Portugal through Old Publications and Museum Collections”
Cristina Luís (University of Lisbon)

“The Strathmore Meteorite Fall of December 1917”
Peter Davidson (National Museums Scotland)

3:00 - 4:00 p.m.: Showcase 

“Transitions in Citizen Science with the GLOBE Program during a Global Pandemic: Shifting Gears from Data Collection to Data Literacy”

Marilé Colón Robles (NASA Langley Research Center/SSAI), Dr. Russane Low (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies), and Brian Campbell (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility/GST, Inc)

Wednesday, April 7

1:00 - 2:15 p.m.: Panel 3: Community Perspectives

“Tribal Community Science: Advancing the Understanding of Philosophical Tenets from Local Knowledge Production Processes”
Shandin Pete (University of Montana)

“Citizen Science for Social Science”
Evan Roberts (University of Minnesota)

“The Oceans as Site and Subject of Citizen Science”
Penelope K. Hardy (University of Wisconsin-La Crosse)

3:00 - 4:00 p.m.: Showcase 

“The Environmental Justice Academy: Strategies for Scientific Inquiry, Knowledge Production, and Citizen Empowerment”

Sheryl Good (Environmental Protection Agency), Ernest “Omar” Muhammad (South Carolina Department of Natural Resources), Joan M. Wesley (Jackson State University), Dana H. Z. Williamson (Environmental Protection Agency), Daphne C. Wilson (Environmental Protection Agency)

Thursday, April 8

1:00 - 2:15 p.m.: Panel 4: Global Perspectives

“Stalinist Citizen Science: Grassroots Drug Development in the Early Cold War USSR”
Pavel Vasilyev (HSE University St. Petersburg)

“"Mr. Crane, the Faithful Husband": Making an "Indicator" and "Flagship" Species for Ugandan Wetland Conservation, 1986 to Present”
John Doyle-Raso (Michigan State University)

“Study Radio for Revolution: The Making of Amateur Technologies in Socialist China”
Yingchuan Yang (Columbia University)

3:00 - 4:00 p.m.: Showcase

“Are We Alone in the Universe? Millions of SETI@home Volunteers Search for ET”

Dan Werthimer (Marilyn and Watson Alberts Chair in Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley)

Friday, April 9

1:00 - 2:15 p.m.: Panel 5: The Pitfalls of Citizen Science

“Breaking Bread: Social Media, Personal Intimacies, and Accidental Surveillance on Citizen Scientists”
Darcie DeAngelo (Binghamton University)

“Conflictual Collaboration: Citizen Science and the Governance of Radioactive Contamination after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster”
Maxime Polleri (McGill University)

“The Future is Accessible: "Access" in Citizen Science Must Include Disability Accessibility”
Kaitlin Stack Whitney (Rochester Institute of Technology)

3:00 - 4:00 p.m.: Wrap up 

Featuring:
Robert M. Hauser (Executive Officer, American Philosophical Society)
Darlene Cavalier (Founder, SciStarter.org and Professor of Practice, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University)