May the real Lee Boone stand?
The practice of publishing under pseudonyms stems from underlying motivations. In the case of Pearl Lee Boone, it meant access to research collections.
Boone (1895/96-1954) was a carcinologist—crustacean expert, not carcinogens—who researched at Yale’s Bingham Oceanographic Laboratory from 1928. During her time, she published a number of articles related to crustaceans. “Scientific Results of the First Oceanographic Expedition of the “Pawnee”, 1925. Crustacea from Tropical East American Seas. By Lee Boone”.
Lee Boone..where did Pearl go?
Before coming to Yale, Boone worked as an invertebrate zoologist at the US National Museum, now Smithsonian, from 1913 to 1922. Articles during her time there were published under the name Pearl Lee Boone.
But it was at the Smithsonian that her research reputation began to be questioned. Boone had a tendency to split species that were not actually separate species. Incidents with other zoologists on the management on specimens only worsened her scientific standing. Once, while working for echinoderm expert Austin H. Clark in his collections, Boone accidentally poured 37,000 myzostome specimens—small marine worms—down the drain while replacing alcohol from jars of crinoid specimens (myzostomes are parasites to crinoids). Clark was not pleased, to say the least.
Dave Pawson—Senior Scientist, Emeritus, Curator of Echinoderms at at the Smithsonian’s Invertebrate Zoology Division—was kind enough to share such stories about Boone while at the Smithsonian, including her dramatic last day at work.
“In 1922, Dr. Waldo Schmitt, Head of Zoology, had completed all of the paperwork to dismiss Lee Boone from the Smithsonian, and Friday was her final day as an employee. Miss Boone had acted normally all day… but at 5pm on that day, Dr. Schmitt heard the sound of breaking glass in the room next to his office, and he ran in, and saw Lee Boone smashing empty specimen bottles on the floor. Waldo went over to restrain her, and she whacked him over the head with an umbrella; he raised his arm over his head to protect himself and she whacked him on the arm. The diminutive (less than 5 feet tall) Dr. Mary Jane Rathbun, renowned crab scientist, saved the day! She heard the commotion, and she ran from her lab. into Miss Boone’s room, and saw what was happening. In those days, buckets of water were hanging on hooks on one wall, to be used in case of fire. Dr. Rathbun grabbed a bucket of water and threw it all over Miss Boone. This calmed her down, and she was escorted from the building by security guards. In a dispassionate one-page memo to the museum’s Director, Dr. Schmitt described the incident.”
After Boone left the Smithsonian, she worked briefly at the Miami Aquarium and Biological Laboratory and at the US Department of Agriculture. Her work at Yale began in 1928, as a research associate at the Bingham Oceanographic Collection. There she began publishing under the name, "Lee Boone".
The altered name may have been a way to escape presupposed bias against her research. Boone eventually left the Bingham Oceanographic Collection, but continued using the pseudonym for other purposes. Though less confirmable through archival material (meaning, we just can't find the physical letter in the IZ archives right now), Eric said that Boone sometimes elaborated Lee Boone into a male graduate student who needed access to particular collections for research. Albert Parr, the director of Bingham Oceanographic Collections at the time, recognized the typewriting style on the letter sent from Lee Boone as the same as Pearl Lee Boone's style (Boone took her typewriter with her after she left the BOC). The collections were denied to her for research.
Even still, Boone made important, lasting works. The volume of the Bingham Oceanographic Collection Bulletin is well creased at the pages of Boone’s articles, particularly on the image of Figure 18. Nephrops binghami (now Metanephrops binghami). Eric pulled an orange book from a shelf in the IZ library to show me. “FAO SPECIES CATALOGUE, VOL 13: MARINE LOBSTERS OF THE WORLD”. FAO stands for Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “The species that she discovered was incredibly important, so important as a potential food source that it made it into this journal.” said Eric.
Boone described this new species found in the Caribbean on the Bingham Oceanographic Collection’s 1925 Pawnee Expedition.
Boone was pleased about the discovery. “Most conspicuous in this dredge haul were the five strikingly large specimens of Nephrops binghami new species”, she noted in her report. Boone named the species for the collector, Harry Payne Bingham, the founder of of the Bingham Oceanographic Collections. The Payne in Bingham’s middle name is the same Payne in Yale's Payne Whitney Gym (likewise, the wealth).
“I wish to express my appreciation of the kindness of the owner of the collection, Mr. Harry Payne Bingham, in giving me an opportunity for the preparation of this report”, Boone stated in the acknowledgements. Though Boone's identifications were often questioned, and some incidents inflamed parts of her personality, hindsight is 20/20. Clark could have placed the myzostome specimens in separate glass bottles from the crinoid specimens. Had Parr not recognized Boone's typewriting, would he have given the 'graduate student' Lee Boone access to the collections? To what degree would a male scientist have been denied access to research opportunities for the same mistakes she made, as a female scientist? It is difficult to say what all biases have been present throughout the evaluation of Boone's research career. Boone was bold. She may be remembered as a crazed woman brandishing an umbrella at her zoology colleagues in the Smithsonian, but maybe Boone can also be remembered as a woman unwilling to compromise research opportunities—that's what all of the Lee Boones stood for.
UPDATE, Fall 2019. Eric found a photo of Pearl Lee Boone in the IZ archives (after a thirty-year search for it!) The caption in the article states: "Miss Pearl Lee Boone is an authority on cephalopod mollusks, and acts as assistant to Dr. Paul Bertsch of the Division of Biology at the Museum. That she does not confine her attention to cephalopods is evident from the cut, where altho an octopus and a squid appear as cephalopodous objects for her study and investigation, the bunch of lilies in the background shows that she has not lost the sense of beauty, so strong in her sex, and has at least an aesthetic feeling for botany." Here too, the justifications and assumptions made about her place as a female scientist in the field of invertebrate zoology are apparent.
By the end of this article, these two will be connected.
Boone (1895/96-1954) was a carcinologist—crustacean expert, not carcinogens—who researched at Yale’s Bingham Oceanographic Laboratory from 1928. During her time, she published a number of articles related to crustaceans. “Scientific Results of the First Oceanographic Expedition of the “Pawnee”, 1925. Crustacea from Tropical East American Seas. By Lee Boone”.
Lee Boone..where did Pearl go?
Before coming to Yale, Boone worked as an invertebrate zoologist at the US National Museum, now Smithsonian, from 1913 to 1922. Articles during her time there were published under the name Pearl Lee Boone.
 |
| Article by Pearl Lee Boone, 1918 |
But it was at the Smithsonian that her research reputation began to be questioned. Boone had a tendency to split species that were not actually separate species. Incidents with other zoologists on the management on specimens only worsened her scientific standing. Once, while working for echinoderm expert Austin H. Clark in his collections, Boone accidentally poured 37,000 myzostome specimens—small marine worms—down the drain while replacing alcohol from jars of crinoid specimens (myzostomes are parasites to crinoids). Clark was not pleased, to say the least.
Dave Pawson—Senior Scientist, Emeritus, Curator of Echinoderms at at the Smithsonian’s Invertebrate Zoology Division—was kind enough to share such stories about Boone while at the Smithsonian, including her dramatic last day at work.
“In 1922, Dr. Waldo Schmitt, Head of Zoology, had completed all of the paperwork to dismiss Lee Boone from the Smithsonian, and Friday was her final day as an employee. Miss Boone had acted normally all day… but at 5pm on that day, Dr. Schmitt heard the sound of breaking glass in the room next to his office, and he ran in, and saw Lee Boone smashing empty specimen bottles on the floor. Waldo went over to restrain her, and she whacked him over the head with an umbrella; he raised his arm over his head to protect himself and she whacked him on the arm. The diminutive (less than 5 feet tall) Dr. Mary Jane Rathbun, renowned crab scientist, saved the day! She heard the commotion, and she ran from her lab. into Miss Boone’s room, and saw what was happening. In those days, buckets of water were hanging on hooks on one wall, to be used in case of fire. Dr. Rathbun grabbed a bucket of water and threw it all over Miss Boone. This calmed her down, and she was escorted from the building by security guards. In a dispassionate one-page memo to the museum’s Director, Dr. Schmitt described the incident.”
After Boone left the Smithsonian, she worked briefly at the Miami Aquarium and Biological Laboratory and at the US Department of Agriculture. Her work at Yale began in 1928, as a research associate at the Bingham Oceanographic Collection. There she began publishing under the name, "Lee Boone".
Article by Boone, 1928
(1925 refers to expedition date)
The altered name may have been a way to escape presupposed bias against her research. Boone eventually left the Bingham Oceanographic Collection, but continued using the pseudonym for other purposes. Though less confirmable through archival material (meaning, we just can't find the physical letter in the IZ archives right now), Eric said that Boone sometimes elaborated Lee Boone into a male graduate student who needed access to particular collections for research. Albert Parr, the director of Bingham Oceanographic Collections at the time, recognized the typewriting style on the letter sent from Lee Boone as the same as Pearl Lee Boone's style (Boone took her typewriter with her after she left the BOC). The collections were denied to her for research.
Even still, Boone made important, lasting works. The volume of the Bingham Oceanographic Collection Bulletin is well creased at the pages of Boone’s articles, particularly on the image of Figure 18. Nephrops binghami (now Metanephrops binghami). Eric pulled an orange book from a shelf in the IZ library to show me. “FAO SPECIES CATALOGUE, VOL 13: MARINE LOBSTERS OF THE WORLD”. FAO stands for Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “The species that she discovered was incredibly important, so important as a potential food source that it made it into this journal.” said Eric.
 |
| FAO Species Catalogue |
 |
| Boone's illustration of M. binghami from original report in the Bingham Oceanographic Collection Bulletin |
 |
| 1925 Pawnee expedition route |
Boone was pleased about the discovery. “Most conspicuous in this dredge haul were the five strikingly large specimens of Nephrops binghami new species”, she noted in her report. Boone named the species for the collector, Harry Payne Bingham, the founder of of the Bingham Oceanographic Collections. The Payne in Bingham’s middle name is the same Payne in Yale's Payne Whitney Gym (likewise, the wealth).
 |
| All five M. binghami specimens (a male and female specimen are together in the left-most jar) |
 |
| Boone's original label of M. binghami |
|
| Payne Whitney Gymnasium |
“I wish to express my appreciation of the kindness of the owner of the collection, Mr. Harry Payne Bingham, in giving me an opportunity for the preparation of this report”, Boone stated in the acknowledgements. Though Boone's identifications were often questioned, and some incidents inflamed parts of her personality, hindsight is 20/20. Clark could have placed the myzostome specimens in separate glass bottles from the crinoid specimens. Had Parr not recognized Boone's typewriting, would he have given the 'graduate student' Lee Boone access to the collections? To what degree would a male scientist have been denied access to research opportunities for the same mistakes she made, as a female scientist? It is difficult to say what all biases have been present throughout the evaluation of Boone's research career. Boone was bold. She may be remembered as a crazed woman brandishing an umbrella at her zoology colleagues in the Smithsonian, but maybe Boone can also be remembered as a woman unwilling to compromise research opportunities—that's what all of the Lee Boones stood for.
UPDATE, Fall 2019. Eric found a photo of Pearl Lee Boone in the IZ archives (after a thirty-year search for it!) The caption in the article states: "Miss Pearl Lee Boone is an authority on cephalopod mollusks, and acts as assistant to Dr. Paul Bertsch of the Division of Biology at the Museum. That she does not confine her attention to cephalopods is evident from the cut, where altho an octopus and a squid appear as cephalopodous objects for her study and investigation, the bunch of lilies in the background shows that she has not lost the sense of beauty, so strong in her sex, and has at least an aesthetic feeling for botany." Here too, the justifications and assumptions made about her place as a female scientist in the field of invertebrate zoology are apparent.
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