Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews Nobel Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries, 2nd Edition by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne Joseph Henry Press: Washington, DC, 2001. 450 pp, photographs, figures, notes, index, ISBN 0-309-07270-0 (paperback). $19.95 Reviewed by Cheryl Baldwin Frech
At first glance, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne’s book, Nobel Women in Science is a grand collection of biographies of 15 outstanding women scientists. Of these, ten have won a Nobel Prize and the remaining five arguably should have won for their substantial contributions to the body of work that led to someone else’s prize. The book’s subtitle, Their Struggles and Momentous Discoveries, hints at McGrayne’s central, deeper question: “Why so few women?” In a compact but compelling Chapter 1, McGrayne summarizes the complex and varied reasons for the dearth of women at the highest levels of scientific achievement. Perhaps more valuable is her summary of why these women persevered in the face of tremendous obstacles: this list may contain a few surprises. Did you know that only two universities are associated with the six American women Nobels? The biographies are more than simple recountings of dates and facts. The author conducted personal interviews with eight of her subjects and used 250 interviews with surviving family members, friends, and colleagues to flesh out her portrait of each woman. Humanizing details emerge: Rosalind Franklin introduced her co-workers to delicacies such as artichokes by cooking and serving the food at dinner parties. Crystallographer Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin suffered crippling rheumatoid arthritis. The portraits illuminate no stereotype of a “woman scientist”: among them, they married, divorced, had children, enjoyed rock-climbing, were homesick for their native lands, and struggled with their parents. The women winners are divided into three broad chronological groupings, with each woman’s story presented in a 20- to 30-page chapter. First Generation Pioneers begins with the most famous woman scientist, Marie Sklodowska Curie. Devotees of Madame Curie will find the
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familiar facts enhanced by additional anecdotes added from the original French sources. Lise Meitner and Emmy Noether, both non-winners, are also considered in this group. Multiple photographs of each woman, ranging from publicity stills to snapshots of them on holidays or with their children, are included. The Second Generation moves from the early women in radioactivity to a large group of women representing the entire spectrum of scientific and mathematical achievement. Gerty Cori, Irène Joliot-Curie, Barbara McClintock, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Gertrude Elion, and Rosalyn Yalow all are Nobel winners, while Chien-Shiung Wu and Rosalind Franklin are the non-winners considered in this section. The two women in The New Generation are Jocelyn Burnell and Christiane Nüsselein-Volhard. Although Nüsselein-Volhard is the most recent woman to win the Nobel Prize (in 1995), her struggles within the German research system, and the Max Planck Society in particular, echo the earlier struggles of many of the women in the book. In 1984 Nüsselein-Volhard became only the third woman director of a Max Planck Institute; Lise Meitner, in the 1920s and 1930s, had been the first. At the time this book was written, McGrayne noted that only five of 234 directors were women. McGrayne points out in her Acknowledgements that many problems faced by women scientists “have been exacerbated by German attitudes about research science and working wives”. Lest American readers feel too smug, here in the United States Emmy Noether, Gerty Cori, and Barbara McClintock (among others) struggled for much of their career without hard-money positions or professorships. A variety of readers will enjoy this book. Students, from middle school to university, can use it as a resource. The 20page Notes section is a good starting place for finding additional information. It includes a special section on books for young people. Historians of science and those interested in women’s studies will find much to contemplate. As a girl, I read and re-read a children’s biography of Madame Curie. I plan to keep this book around for my daughters to read someday. This book belongs on the bookshelf of every practicing and aspiring scientist. Cheryl Baldwin Frech is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK 73034-5209;
[email protected].
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 80 No. 3 March 2003 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
