The extent of coverage of a biographical dictionary is not trivial but economic—for it is costly to pursue and include minor figures— and quite political—for one does not have to be a historian to realize that once left out of a biographical dictionary, persons tend to be omitted from subsequent history and memory of their accomplishments essentially vanishes from sight and honor.
Despite America's late entry chronologically into the history of science, it has been uniquely well-served by previous reference works. Nevertheless, I had hoped to get beyond Ogilvie's now almost-familiar Americans to the still semi-obscure ones like Mary Griffith, who published articles on vision and halos in the 1830s, and Mary Treat, the New Jersey botanist who has never been included in any dictionary despite her work with Charles Darwin.
But Ogilvie's largest national group—the 80 Americans—is not her area of greatest contribution. Her great advance is in the ...
