Natural History as a Family Enterprise: Kinship and Inheritance in Eighteenth-Century Science*

Abstract

As recent research has shown, many of the activities of early modern (including eighteenth-century) naturalists were carried out in the household. This article investigates the ways in which family members in particular, both male and female, ended up engaging in kinds of labor which furthered the pursuit of natural history in the eighteenth century. Examining evidence from various different parts of Europe and its colonies, the article argues that natural history can be seen to have often been what might be termed a family enterprise, one to which many different family members might contribute in ways shaped by concerns of kinship and inheritance.

Keywords: family; gender; household; inheritance; kinship; labor; natural history.