Even Santa cannot resist learning about Mary Treat. Check your list for anyone interested in women of science, 19th century history, Pine Barrens ecology, and/or early environmental studies in America. Choose from paperback, hardcover—or for the kiddos, Mary Had a Little Zoo makes a great stocking stuffer. Just ask Santa!
special expanded hardcover edition
now on amazon
also available through lulu publishing: MT Books
Includes 15 transcribed letters exchanged by Mary Treat and Charles Darwin—perfect for libraries, keepsake gifts, STEM and STEAM students, science and history buffs!
read what pulitzer prize-winning novelist barbara kingsolver is reading! I was so excited to receive her handwritten note soon after I sent her the hardcover edition:
Mary Treat Biography
• Scroll down for upcoming author Events, including 40th anniversary garden club meeting in franklinville, nj.
“Book” the author for your book club, women’s event, outdoor festival, history presentation, etc.— email debe1@comcast.net
Botanist, entomologist, naturalist, 19th century flora and fauna hunter, nature writer, teacher, pioneer, trailblazer, daughter, sister, wife, aunt. All of these titles describe Mary Treat.
Recently, many have come to know her as one of the main characters in a 2018 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. The award-winning novelist naturally took liberties in her portrayal of Treat but now you can read about the real Mary Treat through letters and documents bequeathed to the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society.
Treat corresponded with Charles Darwin more than any other woman scientist as they shared groundbreaking work on carnivorous plants and evolutionary—as well as revolutionary—principles in the 1870s.
by deborah boerner ein
Mary had a little zoo
All About Pioneer Scientist Mary Treat … and Her Ants, Plants, and Spiders
by deborah boerner ein
purchase at publisher’s bookstore: https://tinyurl.com/4swsx4kw
or amazon
in time for summer camps and activities with the kids and grandkids!
kids, remember to send your drawings to debe1@comcast.net and check back to see them posted here! (scroll down to see drawings from Mikayla and Julianna and keep checking back for more.)
do you live in the New Jersey pinelands? if so, get your signed copy! for sale at these locations:
• Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, 22 N High St, Millville, NJ
• vineland Historical and Antiquarian society, 108 S. Seventh St., Vineland, NJ
• maria’s hair salon, 3600 E. Landis ave., NJ
• Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Bishop Farmstead, 17 Pemberton Rd., Southampton, nj
coming events
• thursday, dec. 5, franklinville garden club Meeting – 40th anniversary, “mary treat and her wonderful world of ants, plants, and spiders,” 1 to 4 pm. franklinville fire hall, 181 Swedesboro Road, Franklinville, NJ 08332
• saturday, dec. 7, noon to 4 p.m. Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Bishop Farmstead, 17 Pemberton Rd., Southampton, nj
• more to come
in 2025:
• saturday, March 8, Millville Historical society
• sunday, March 9, Lines on the Pines, stockton university, galloway, nj
• tuesday, March 25, penn state Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies, 30 E. Swedesford Rd., Malvern, Pa 19355
• more to come
what people are saying
“I’m surprised at how little Mary Treat has been studied or written about.”
— Barbara Kingsolver, pulitzer prize winning novelist, in a Sept. 2018 interview with Deborah Boerner Ein
“…how engrossing and moving I found your account of Mary Treat's life and work. When I was growing up and spending weekends wandering the woods of East Texas I dreamed of becoming a naturalist; the first book I bought with my own money was The Voyage of the Beagle. Reading your book brought those days back to me because you so vividly evoke, not just the dedication and hard-won expertise that Treat brought to her scientific work, but the sheer joy that she took in it, a joy that she conveyed so winningly to so many ordinary readers. I've loved learning about her, and found the passages you quote so appealing that I plan to go in search of her more popular writings.
— Patrick Leary, PhD., Indiana University, Bloomington; Royal Historical Society Fellow
“What an interesting book you have written! Women scientists of that era are so underrated, so she deserves to be in the spotlight. I think the fact that you made a book available for children is so wise and important, because if their interest starts now, at their young age, it will only develop further while growing up. And nature is such an important topic. Now more than ever.”
— Helga merits, international filmmaker
“Deborah was able to approach Treat’s life with understanding, appreciation and respect for her work. But in this book, she also examined the personal, bringing to light many details about Treat that had never before been gathered in one place.
— Patricia A. Martinelli, M.A., Curator,
Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society
“It’s wonderful! …very evocative and brimming with insights on the natural world and the pioneering female naturalist who helped shape how we understand it.”
—Robin F. Bachin, Ph.D., Charlton W. Tebeau Assoc. Professor of History, University of Miami
“Loved reading this well written and researched biography about this fantastic scientist. How could Mary Treat have been essentially forgotten when the breadth and depth of her research is outstanding?”
—Jon K. Gelhaus, Ph.D., curator of entomology, The academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
“You truly bring Mary Treat to life … and the way you present the science is very appropriate and comprehensible.”
— Vince Farinaccio, Charles K. Landis biographer
On a recent visit to the Dimmick Memorial Library at Jim Thorpe., PA, I was fortunate to acquire several bound copies of Harpers Monthly, which include articles that Mary Treat wrote for the publication in the 1870s and ’80s. I passed them along to the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society to be added to the Mary Treat collection housed there.
• on sUNDAY, MARCH 17, at the vineland Historical and Antiquarian society in Vineland, NJ…
We had a good crowd out to see Mary Treat (Deborah boerner Ein, left in photo) and friend Beatrice Braidwood (portrayed by Kate Ogden) learning all about the 19th century vineland residents. Braidwood was an illustrator who created some illustrations for Treat, including the portrait on the cover of Mary Treat: A Biography.
Jen Hainley, VHAS trustee; Deb Ein; and Meredith Koenig, who helps maintain the gardens
mary treat bog garden!
on 6/23/24, the vineland Historical and Antiquarian society hosted a garden party featuring a vegetable garden and a bog garden in tribute to Mary Treat. If you live nearby, stop over to view carnivorous plants and Amaryllis treatae!
3/10/24—WHAT A GREAT TIME at “It’s a Bug’s World,” Eastern Branch Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, held at West Virginia University, in Morgantown, WV! • I read Mary Had a Little Zoo to the kids in addition to having them stop by my lab table to color a page. • Here I am before the crowds arrived. lots of families with kids interested in science! Folks behind me are from the Mid-Atlantic Carnivorous Plant Society. They were selling pitcher plants, sundews, and Venus fly-traps—all plants that Mary Treat researched and wrote about in her letters to Charles Darwin.
12/5/23—Thank you to all the librarians and media specialists who stopped by my exhibit at the NJ Association of School Librarians at the Hard Rock in Atlantic City! It was a great opportunity to network with you and learn how you keep our students engaged with the world through books and reading. Also loved meeting with so many amazing authors. . Thank you all for helping me to spread the word about Mary Treat. Her story will certainly inspire budding ecologists and observers of nature. Can’t wait for next year!
10/27/23—I recently had the pleasure as one of five local woman authors to speak at a an event hosted by the Woman’s Club of Vineland. The event was also a fundraiser for the Emmanuel Cancer Foundation, which is the club’s Special State Project that helps families with children with cancer. Pictured from left: Marianne Lods, M. MacKinnon, yours truly, Paige DeYoung (from the Emmanuel Cancer Foundation) Lisa Shiroff, Tyrese Gould, and Judy Bonato (the Woman's Club of Vineland fundraiser chairperson).
great weekend at Philly’s bugfest 2023
thank you to all the organizers, the Academy of natural sciences staff, the partners, the volunteers, and all of you who came out to meet the entomologists and learn more about bugs!
I was honored to be a partner and to inform so many of mary Treat, likely America’s very first female entomologist. many thanks to all who listened to me tell her story—and to those who bought one or both of my books.
emmy, age 6
Mikayla, age 11
Julianna, age 13
Mary treat Artifacts on loan To New York Public Library as part of darwin correspondence exhibition, running through August 5, 2023!
A group of Mary Treat fans visited the Darwin exhibit at the New York Public Library recently.
The Charles Darwin Correspondence exhibition offered insight into the life of Darwin and includes copies of his most famous books and correspondence. During his lifetime, Darwin wrote and received more than 15,000 letters as part of a global network of scientists who studied the natural world.
Treat was one of the scientists who corresponded with Darwin and shared theories about the development of plants and insect life. After collaborating with the esteemed scientist in research on carnivorous plants, she uncovered an error in his work concerning the way one of those plants lured its food. Darwin acknowledged her contribution in his book, Insectivorous Plants, published in 1875.
The Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society (VHAS—SEE LINK BELOW) is the oldest local historical society in New Jersey and its museum is the oldest purpose-built museum in the state. It is where both novelist Barbara Kingsolver and biographer Deborah Boerner Ein researched the life and times of Mary Treat, since original letters, documents, and other items in Treat’s estate were bequeathed to VHAS.
Some of the items belonging to Treat wee included in the Darwin exhibition at the New York Public Library. These included a copy of Treat’s book, Home Studies in Nature, and handwritten research notes. The exhibit, organized by the library and Cambridge University, was open to the public from May through August 5, 2023.
https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/charles-darwin-life-in-letters
https://discovervinelandhistory.org
for more about south jersey efforts to recognize Mary treat in 2023 and beyond: https://snjtoday.com/year-of-treat-cont/
Mary Treat spent several winters during the 1870s in Green Cove Springs, Clay County, Florida. The biographer had the opportunity to visit the area where the 19th century scientist discovered two plant species, some ants, and a wasp. Read her travelogue at https://snjtoday.com/marys-winters/
saturday, april 15
vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society
Bronnie Sewall, Tom Davies, Ellen and Jon Peterson are among the many who attended the VHAS presentation on April 15, 2023. Afterwards, they visited Siloam Cemetery and the gravesite of Mary Treat, who died 100 years ago on April 11, 1923.
book reviews:
For a review of the book by the international journal of environmental studies:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207233.2023.2171567
For a review of the book by nj monthly:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207233.2023.2171567
a full review of the book by nature columnist Jane Morton Galetto:
https://snjtoday.com/readers-treat/
In the News
Entomologists Visit VHAS, Learn About Mary Treat and Her Entomological Work
On a Saturday in April, the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society (VHAS) welcomed several members of the American Entomological Society (AES) to a lecture about Vineland history, and specifically one of the town’s early residents, Mary Treat. The botanist/entomologist lived here from the mid-1860s to 1919 and conducted her scientific studies—including observations of ants, plants, and spiders—in her backyard on the southeast corner of Park and Valley avenues.
Treat corresponded with all the renowned naturalists of her day, and a total of 15 letters between she and Charles Darwin crossed the Atlantic as they shared research results on carnivorous plants.
“It was a pleasure to host the members of the Society,” said Patricia A. Martinelli, VHAS curator. “They provided some new insight into Mary Treat’s work and we look forward to sharing information with them in the future.”
Joining Martinelli in hosting the AES members was Deborah Boerner Ein, who has spent the last three years researching and writing the first full-length biography of Mary Treat.
“I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with this group, who seem as fascinated as I have been with this extraordinary scientist of the 19th century, who lived right here in Vineland,” Boerner Ein said. “In addition, the AES and the experts at Drexel [where vast collections of The Academy of Natural Sciences’ entomological specimens are housed] have been helpful to me in piecing together some of the details of Mary’s life and work. Dr. Jon Gelhaus, and Greg Cowper, for example, found a couple of ‘needles in the haystack’ of the Academy’s collections that were collected and sent there by none other than Mary Treat.”
The visit was coordinated by AES member Larry Henderson, a native of Vineland. He also arranged a Zoom presentation in November 2021 given by Boerner Ein to a broader AES audience.
Editor, SNJ Today, weekly newspaper in Cumberland County, NJ
Past editorial positions at American Forests, Lapidary Journal, New Jersey Outdoors, and Atlantic City Magazine
B.S. Forestry / Natural Resource management, Rutgers University
About deborah
My introduction to Mary Treat was serendipitous and my path to writing this, the first biography of the 19th century scientist, follows a chapter in my own life over the past dozen years. It occurred during my first year working as an editor of a weekly newspaper in Vineland, NJ, where our history columnist wrote an article about Mary Treat. I was immediately enthralled that this amazing woman scientist had lived and worked in this town that she so adored after settling here within the first decade of its founding. Researching her life and work as I’ve pored through the estate files at the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society has been an honor and a privilege, as it is bringing Mary Treat’s story to life 100 years after her death.