For Mothers’ Day, a note on a woman of science, Anna Children Atkins (March 16, 1799-June 9, 1871), who is a little-known but fascinating figure on the border between art and science. She was the daughter of John George Children, a botanist and chemist (who in 1813 hosted a dinner and demonstration of his huge voltaic battery for thirty-eight of Britain’s leading chemists, including W.H. Wollaston and Humphry Davy). Anna had been given a scientific education by her father, which was most unusual in those days. As a young woman, she produced 250 detailed engravings to illustrate her father’s translation of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s classic work Genera of Shells.

In 1825 Anna married John Pelly Atkins and moved to Kent, where she began to collect dried plant specimens later donated to the Botanical Gardens at Kew. She was made a member of the Botanical Society of London–one of the first scientific organizations to admit women as full members–in 1839.

John Children was a friend of both William Henry Fox Talbot and John Herschel, and chaired the Royal Society meeting in February 1839 at which Talbot discussed his new process of “photogenic drawing” (which Herschel would later rename “photography”). In 1841 Children told Talbot that he had ordered a camera for his daughter.

During the summer of 1843, Anna Atkins began to work on a book about algae, using the cyanotype method of photography, which had been invented by Herschel. In the preface of that work Atkins explained that “the difficulty of making accurate drawings of objects as minute as many of the Algae and Confervae, has induced me to avail myself of Sir John Herschel’s beautiful process.” Herschel himself had probably taught here the method, which survived into the 20th century as the basis of the architect’s blueprint. By washing paper with a solution of ferric ammonium citrate, an iron salt, Herschel created photographic paper higly sensitive to the action of the light. After 30 minutes or one hour of exposure to sunlight, followed by a wash in a solution of yellow potassium ferrocynate, a white image would appear on a bright blue background.

Anna made a series of original cyanotype plates that were contact prints, made by placing specimens of algae that had been washed, arranged, and dried on top of a sheet of prepared paper, and set in the sun; the exposed sheet was then washed, dried and flattened. The resulting book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, consisted of 389 captioned plates, and fourteen pages of titles and text. At least a dozen copies of the book were made and distributed to interested men of science, including Talbot and Herschel (Herschel’s copy is now at the New York Public Library).

This means that Anna prepared thousands of sheets of cyanotype paper by hand (her father’s giant battery could have been used to produce the ferric ammonium citrate and the potassium ferrocyanide required for the process). She also collected and painstakingly prepared each of the specimens of algae. This monumental accomplishment took ten years to accomplish. It was the first time photography had been deployed publicly in a scientific field. Indeed, it was the first published book to use photography. The choice to use Herschel’s cyanotype method was particularly apt, as Anna must have realized. The cyanotype process produced a deep blue color wonderfully appropriate to showcase the algae, which appear to be floating ethereally in a cerulean sea.

I admit it: I am an archive rat. I just love to get into a hoard of letters, diaries and notebooks from the past, especially when I know that not too many other hands have touched the material before me! I love that there are now sites like Genealogy Bank that allow you to search through newspapers as well. In writing The Philosophical Breakfast Club, I was so fortunate to have at my disposal the vast archives of Charles Babbage, John Herschel, and William Whewell, as well as numerous letters from Richard Jones (which are preserved in his best friend, Whewell’s, archive, which somehow seems fitting–even in death their papers are together).

Since publishing the book, I have been asked by a number of readers about the experience of reading so many letters of my protagonists. First, the practical details.

Most of the letters are in these archives: the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge; the British Library (in London); the Royal Society of London, and the Science Museum archives in Swindon (home of a railway museum and the largest UK outlet mall!). Once you have permission to visit these archives, you must request the bound volume (as in the Babbage collection at the BL) or the box of letters. The paper must be handled carefully, touching the ink as little as possible. The handwriting is very horrible–so hard to read. I rediscovered a passage recently from Eliot’s MIDDLEMARCH where it is noted that it was the mark of a gentleman to NOT have the clear handwriting of a clerk! None of these four men could be accused of that. I usually need a magnifying lamp, especially with Whewell’s handwriting. When I am away from the letters for a while, the first day back is usually wasted, as I try just to get used to deciphering the handwriting again! But there is no substitute for holding and reading these letters–the men and their time just comes vividly to life in a way that mere digital transcriptions could never fully convey. I feel so fortunate to be able to have had that experience. It is almost as if I was able to eavesdrop on their conversations–and I hope that sense is conveyed to readers of the book.

Some people wonder whether it is really important to see the letters themselves, for instance if there are digital transcriptions. In the case of these four men, there are no complete transcriptions, but even if there were I would still have wanted to see the original letters. There are a few reasons for this.

I was recently asked what surprised me the most while writing The Philosophical Breakfast Club.  I think it was my realization that what had started out as a book about the power of ideas to change the world had become a story about a friendship that revolutionized science.

Read the full story here.

Photos from the book launch party at the Lotos Club Tuesday evening, and a very, very big review coming out on Saturday!