Susan Fenimore Cooper

(1813 - 1894)

Born in 1813, the naturalist Susan Fenimore Cooper, a daughter of novelist James Fenimore Cooper, wrote extensively about rural life in upstate New York. Her book Rural Hours, published in 1850 under the pseudonym “A Lady,” is considered the first major work of American environmental literature written by a woman. In an 1862 letter to botanist Asa Gray, Charles Darwin wrote that he was enjoying one of Cooper’s books. “Who is she?” Darwin inquired. “She seems a very clever woman.”