Nathan Schmidt

Nathan Schmidt Nathan Schmidt is a PhD candidate at IU Bloomington in the department of English. He studies the relationship between the development of technological infrastructure and environmental thinking in the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the American context. He is specifically interested in the relationship between popular science writing and science fiction.

Entries by Nathan Schmidt

“They have seaweed in the library?”: Algological books by Victorian women

Posted January 9, 2021 by Nathan Schmidt

[A picture of an open book with two specimens of seaweed pasted onto the right-hand page and a description of the seaweed on the left.]

Of all the wonderful things a great library can be, “a vessel for preserving the natural world,” may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But the library can be a preservational space as significant as a national park or a wildlife preserve. Not just in words and images, but in actual specimens. Take, for example, the copy of a rare and unusual book by Elizabeth Allom, The Sea-Weed Collector, found at IU’s Lilly Library.

College of Arts + Sciences

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