Arms Sheldon, Jenny Maria

Jenny Maria Arms was born in 1852 in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Her parents were Eunice Stratton (Moody) Arms and George Albert Arms, director of a home appliance store. She studied first at a high school in Greenfield, Massachusetts, then continued her studies at Mrs. Badger School in Boston (1873–76) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1877–79). She entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the year the Women's Laboratory was opened under the supervision of chemist Ellen Swallow Richards. Although she entered in 1881, she did not finish her studies.

For two years, starting in 1879, she was a special student of zoologist and paleontologist Alpheus Hyatt at the Boston Society for Natural History (a predecessor to the Boston Museum of Science). After that, she continued to work as his assistant for another quarter of a century. For about thirteen years, she also taught at Pauline Agassiz Shaw's School in Boston.

Sheldon has published publications on zoological, geological and historical issues, including Insecta (1890), a review of insects co-authored with her mentor Alpheus Hyatt. Hayat and Sheldon were the first to describe scorpion flies ( Mecoptera ) and mayfly ( Ephemeroptera ).

In 1897, she married George Sheldon, a politician, judge, and historian, after which she shared time between Boston and George Deerfield's hometown, Massachusetts. Together, they cataloged collections at the Deerfield Memorial Hall Museum, located in a building that used to be the home of the Deerfield Academy, and Sheldon served as curator of the museum from 1913 until her death. She has published several brochures on topics related to museum collections, as well as the historical biography Life of a Boy from New England , based on her father’s early life.

Sheldon belonged to several scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Development of Science and the National Science Club. She has also been involved with women's rights organizations such as the Naples Association for the Advancement of Laboratory Research for Women, the Massachusetts Women's Association and the Boston Equal Electoral Law Association for a Good Government. Died in Deerfield in 1938.

Own

• The life of a boy from New England (1896)
• Champlain clay stones in the Connecticut Valley (1900)
• Invertebrate Guide from the Synoptic Collection at the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural Sciences (1905)
• Deerfield Memorial Stones (brochure, 1905)
• John Sheldon and the manor in an old Indian house (pamphlet, 1911)
• Walter Titus Avery (pamphlet, 1912)
• Old Indian House in Deerfield, Massachusetts: and efforts undertaken in 1847 to save him from destruction (1922)
• Seedless stones (1925)
• Sycamore, Elms and Maples of the Old Deer Field (1930)
• Animal observation lessons: including drawings and descriptive, comparative and inferential work of children for use by teachers of primary and secondary schools (1931)

Co-authored

• Insect (1898, with Alpheus Hyatt)
• Newly identified geological features under an old grant of 8,000 acres (1903, with George Sheldon)
• Rev. John Williams House (1918, with George Sheldon)