'Het einde van het Damesfysica. Natuurkundige fascinatie en vrouwelijke sociabiliteit in de negentiende eeuw', in: Historica 27 (2004) nr.2, p.6-8 Until today, scholarly studies on the Ladies' Society of Natural Sciences (1785-1887) founded in the Dutch city Middelburg have all focussed on the eighteenth-century part of its history. There is a good reason for this: nearly all archival materials of the nineteenth century have been destroyed. However, the ending of this unique society that was probably the first scientific organisation for women in the western world, is as much in need of an explanation as its beginning - especially since its fraternal counterpart, the local Society of Natural Sciences for the Middelburg gentlemen (formally established in 1780 but in existence since 1734), managed to survive till today. This essay sets the liquidation of the Ladies' Society of Natural Sciences in 1887 against the background of several longterm developments in the nineteenth century: the rise of new and competing forms of middle-class sociability, increased involvement of women with charitable institutions for the poor, modernisation of secondary and university education offering new schooling facilities for young women, decline of early modern physico-theological theories which had legitimated the scientific interest of women in the eighteenth century, and finally decreased openness of the natural sciences for amateurs and the simultaneous development of a more masculine image for the sciences - these were all developments that undermined the vitality of the first scientific women's organisation in Middelburg. The odds are that at a local level internal disagreements and financial problems played a role in the liquidation of the women's association in 1887 as well. However, because this kind of information has not been handed down, we are forced to adopt a wider perspective. But perhaps in the end this is not so bad: after all, juicy accounts of financial disasters and flaming rows have more than once distracted historians from seeing the larger picture in the disintegration of the society they studied.