Lessons in Collections and on Collecting

What is it about?

What did learning natural history as a young boy in eighteenth-century Sweden entail? In this article I study the education of a budding naturalist, Carl Bäck (1761-1776), and how he learned to organize the different “kingdoms of nature” according to the latest taxonomic standards. A key feature and context of Bäck’s education was the collection. With sample shells and books with images of shells, Bäck was introduced to conchology at the age of 5, probably before he could read and write. Later, Bäck was presented with herbariums and assortments of plants that provided systematic overviews linking species to their families, orders, classes, and kingdoms. He also learned material literacy, including how to dry and mount plants onto paper. Some of the specimens came from afar. Bäck met several naturalists who had travelled to China, Africa, and the South Pacific. Examples from their collections became conversation pieces for histories which reflected on the ongoing forces of globalization, growth of trade, and European colonialism. Focusing on the system of education that existed outside institutions, specifically within the network of students of Carolus Linnaeus, the article finally demonstrates the need to consider the role of private education in reproducing knowledge relating to natural history in the second half of the eighteenth century.

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