Crèvecoeur's "Curious Book": Natural History, Loss, and Decay in the Early Republic

In “Crèvecoeur’s “Curious Book”: Natural History, Loss, and Decay in the Early Republic,” Reed Gochberg shows how J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer invokes practices of botanical... [ view full abstract ]

In “Crèvecoeur’s “Curious Book”: Natural History, Loss, and Decay in the Early Republic,” Reed Gochberg shows how J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer invokes practices of botanical collecting to consider questions of literary form and composition. Drawing on botanical treatises, material objects, and correspondence, she argues that Crèvecoeur links the form of the Letters to the material practices of botanical collecting, self-consciously drawing analogies to the pressing of plants on paper in an herbarium to consider questions of collection, circulation, and preservation. During an era when objects frequently circulated around the Atlantic world, the herbarium represented both the possibilities and limitations of portability and storage, with specimens that could as easily crumble beyond recognition as contribute to imperial botanical projects. By blurring the distinction between text and specimen, Crèvecoeur registers his concerns about the possible loss and decomposition of natural history collections during uncertain political climates.