20 women writing about the outdoors

Rural Hours (Cover image via University of Georgia Press)

15. Susan Fenimore Cooper

Emerging scholars of the outdoors and enthusiastic readers might be forgiven if they think that American nature writing starts with Henry David Thoreau. It’s easy to think that way, given how much Walden, published in 1854, shows up in curriculum and best-of lists for environmental nonfiction.

By the way, Walden deserves a bit of a takedown here. In the popular imagination, it is all about Thoreau living in blissful solitude at Walden Pond, communing with nature in thoughtful silence. Really, however, Thoreau had hundreds of visitors, to the point where he kept extra chairs for unexpected company. He also occasionally took his laundry home because he couldn’t be bothered to wash it himself.

But, there are numerous works that preceded Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond. In fact, Thoreau read quite a few, including Rural Hours, published in 1850 by “a Lady.”

Who was “a Lady”?

Nineteenth-century attitudes about women and work kept Susan Fenimore Cooper from including her name on Rural Hours. That said, Cooper deserves credit for what many believe is the first American nature book to focus on a particular place. Rural Hours follows a year in her home of Cooperstown, New York. Her grandfather, William Cooper, founded the village. Later, Susan’s father, James Fenimore Cooper, became well known as an author in his own right.

Though Susan Fenimore Cooper apparently stuck with the gender-related roles of amateurism and literary shyness, scientists of her time took note of her book. Why wouldn’t they? Cooper took a close look at the changing landscape of her home and often put forth ideas that would become central to ecology as a science.

Just be sure to check out the 1998 reprint of Rural Hours by the University of Georgia Press. Earlier editions made significant edits to Cooper’s book, cutting up to 40 percent of her text and greatly reducing her commentary on the environment of Cooperstown.