William Henry Edwards helped change that. Throughout his career, the grandfather of the butterfly movement identified hundreds of species, tapping into Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species to help guide the study of the butterfly as a living thing, and not just as a dried museum specimen.
This sehnsucht for butterflies couldn't sustain its fever pitch and around the beginning of the 20th century, it burned out. Leach writes that our love for technology and innovation overshadowed the natural world. And increasing development, which killed off much of the butterflies' habitat, didn't help either.
But Leach is hopeful that, even in this modern world, America's passion for butterflies can be stoked once again.
"This tradition allowed for what was virtually the free play of the sensuous impulses of individuals — but not in a way that would have violated Victorian principles — but it got them into the beauty of nature as nothing else could have," he says.
A question remains, he says: "How do you get children to connect with the richness of the natural world?"
Perhaps, it is as simple as heading outside with a homemade butterfly net and a racing heart.
Read an excerpt of Butterfly People