Margaretta Hare Morris

Margaretta Hare Morris (3December 1797 – 29 May 1867) was an American entomologist.Morris is sometimes said to have been the first female member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. but was actually the second being preceded by Lucy Say, the widow of Thomas Say who founded the academy above a cake shop.She was, with Maria Mitchell one of the first two women in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Morris was born on 3 December 1797, probably in Philadelphia, one of three daughters of Luke Morris (1760-1802), apparently a wealthy man, and Ann Morris (1767-1853), (née Willing) who also had one son, Thomas Willing Morris.Morris had no formal education.She lived in the same house in Germantown most of her life, with her mother, until her death in 1853, and her sister, Elizabeth Carrington Morris who was interested in botany and had correspondence with Asa Gray.Her youngest sister Susan Sophia Morris (1800-1868) married, in 1832, John Stockton Littell (1806-1875).The sisters were part of a network that include Gray and Dorethea Dix.Morris attended scientific lectures in Germantown with her mother, and was acquainted with the botanist and ornithologist Thomas Nuttall as well as other scientists.

Morris studied the habits of the Hessian fly, concluding that the eggs were laid in the grain rather than the stalk as had been previously thought.She also studied the seventeen year locust and fungi as botanical pests.Her results were important to agriculture.She sent her papers to scientific societies (which largely only had men as members) where they were read on her behalf.

Family papers

The Morris family papers passed, apparently through Susan and Kohn Littell, into the Littell family. They are incorporated in the Littell family papers, currently held in the special collections of the library of the University of Delaware.

Illustrations

Morris provided illustrations for a paper by William Gambel. (1848)

Papers

• "On the Cecidomyia destructor, or Hessian Fly". Trans. Am. PHil Soc. new series. 8: 49–52. 1843.
• "Observations on the Development of the Hessian Fly". Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 1: 66–8. 1841-3
• "On the Discovery of the Larvae of the Cicada septemdecim". Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 3: 66–8. 1846-1847
• "On the Cecidomyia culmicola". Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 4: 194. 1848-1849
• "On the Seventeen Year Locusts". Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist. 4: 110. 1851.