AustLit

'The most important time of Amalie Dietrich's remarkable life was the ten years from 1863 to 1872, which she spent as a naturalist-collector in the colony of Queensland. Dietrich was engaged for this undertaking by Johann Caesar VI Godeffroy, a wealthy shipping and trading magnate of Hamburg, w h o sent her to collect specimens in Australia for his private museum , the Museu m Godeffroy in Hamburg. She spent that decade in arduous and meticulous scientific collecting on the fringes of some of the newest and remotest white settlements of north Queensland (Sumner 1988a).Dietrich's role in the history of science has not been fully recognised for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, she published nothing under her ow n name. Furthermore, both the scientific studies of her collections and the popular literature about Dietrich were in German and remained unknown to English readers. Also, the collections were held in European, mainly German, museums . Finally, Dietrich left very little personal manuscript material, while the extensive scientific notes she made concerning her field collections were destroyed in the Second World War.' (Introduction)