Mary Griffith

Born Mary Corré in 1772, she was a French-born American author, horticulturist, and scientist who built a literary and scientific life that was unusual for her time. After the death of her husband, merchant John Griffith, she supported herself through writing and research, publishing in newspapers, journals, and books.

Her work ranged from practical and scientific subjects to fiction. She wrote about bees, horticulture, geology, and light and vision, and she also published novels including Camperdown; or, News from Our Neighbourhood (1836). That book included Three Hundred Years Hence, which is often described as the first known utopian novel by an American woman.

She spent important years at her New Jersey estate, Charlieshope, where she carried out many of her experiments and observations. She died in 1846 in Red Hook, New York, leaving behind a body of work that connects early American literature with the history of science.