The conventions
and values of
late nineteenth
century New England
precluded female
inventors' achieving
any fame, but the
Post-Conference
Movement had its own
brilliant historian
in the person of
Laticia Jane Karsh
(1842-1921).
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Many thought
her wiser
than the men
she wrote about.
Her greatest fear
was that the
energy generated
by the original
Yankee Ingenuity
Symposium would
quickly dissipate,
leaving a great
vacuum in the
intellectual life
of New England.
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V
This elegant
Boston Brahmin
not only documented
the Retreat itself
and most of the
subsequent work
for a wide range of
scientific journals,
she also provided her
own perceptive and
passionate commentary
on trends and influences
within the movement.
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"Nature," she wrote,
"tends always toward
fecundity and
randomness, while
mind tends too often
to a soul-crushing
pragmatism. The
imagination is a
lofty but unstable
tower, and we must
be ever vigilant
lest it collapse
upon the muddy
plains of commerce."
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V
