Science and Sensibility: Louise Lind-af-Hageby’s Diary as Female Testimony, Scientific Publication, and Antivivisectionist Tool, 1890–1918

The existing scholarship on the link between feminism and antivivisectionism has not fully contextualized the innovative rhetorical strategies and traditional forms of female writing that empowered Louise Lind-af-Hageby’s political message in her published diary, “The Shambles of Science” (1903). Drawing upon a female literary tradition of refashioning scientific findings for non-scientific audiences, Lind-af-Hageby developed a record of first-hand observations and scientific arguments against vivisection that placed her on an equal footing with the men in her profession. At the same time, her work challenged contemporary gender scripts of female antivivisectionists as sentimental and uninformed. This paper adopts both a “long view” of “Shambles’” form and its place within women’s writing on“Nature” and science between 1890 and 1918, and a “wide view” of Victorian female antivivisectionists’ texts to situate this work within and to assess the interaction of relevant currents of women’s writing, feminist thought, and antivivisection advocacy.