Molly Gleiser 1920 Bonita, Berkeley, CA 94704
Prizes for women in other fields such as communications and athletics are plentiful but in chemistry on a national level there are onlv two: the Agnes Faye Memorial Research Award given by 1ota Sigma P,: and & American Chemical Societv award: the Garvan Medal. Francis Garvan and his wife Mabel devoted their wealth to research after their daughter Patricia died of a streptococcus infection in the bloodstream. In 1937 they established the Garvan Medal. Today it is sponsored by the W. R. Grace Company and is awarded for outstanding achievement to one American woman chemist annually. So far onlv 41 women have won the prize. Thev include such major scientists as the 19 18 winner, Gerty Cori ! I ) , who won the Nobel orize in 1947: Florence Sribert, u,hn thouah severely lamed b y an early attack of polio (2) helped gain control of tuberculosis in this country (3);Arda Green (41, a posthumous winner who successfully cleared up the centuries-old mystery of firefly luminescence; and the latest winner, Ines Mandl, who developed a diagnostic test that may allow for early detection of emphysema. The Garvan women are outstanding as pioneer women as much as they are as chemists. Over half of them have scored "firsts" ranging from Gerty Cori, in 1947 the first woman scientist in America to win the Nobel prize, to Pauline Beery Mack ( 5 ) , the first woman to receive the "Silver Snoopy" award, not a joke based on the cartoon character hut a legitimate honor awarded those who have done exceptional work with NASA missions. Professor Mildred Cohen (6), University of Pennsylvania 1963 winner, has scored five of these "firsts" that include being the firstwoman president of the American Society of Biological Chemists. Yet despite their accomplishments, the Garvan winners have been largely forgotten and receive less prominence in the press. At one time their photographs were featured on the cover of Chemical and Engineering News. In recent vears thev are luckv to receive an inch-sauare picture and a column &ward the-back of the journal, hard to trace, since the name index recently disappeared. Their names no longer appear in Biography Index, a reference hook on which historians denend. Even locallv thev are no longer remembered: the files-of the university of California ~ i h l i Information c
Socioeconomic Orlglns of Garvanists (1937-83), AmericanReared Laureates (1901-72), Scientists Receiving Doctorates (1935-40), and Employed Males Father's Science Employed ~ Occupation Garvanists' Nobelistsa D o ~ l ~ r a l e ~Malesd 29.1% 3.5% 53.5% 37% Profe~~ional~ Managers and 18.7% 7.7% 28.2% 37% proprietors 19.5% 34.7% 2.8% Farmers 5% Sales, service, and 13.1% 12.8% 7% 10% clerical workers Workers: skilled 18.0% 41.3% and unskilled 5% 8.5% 1.5% NO information 7% (2695) (29,847,000) 71 Total 41
mte drawn hom interviews, questionnaires, and blogaphical sources, Vlis study. EZuckerman. H. "Scientific Elite: Nobel Lavrestes in the United States." Free Press. New YO*. 1977. p 56. enamon. L. R. "~rofuerof P~.D.'sin me sciences: ~atlonslAcademy d Sciences -National Re9eam.h Council. Pvblicatim no. 1293. Wanhingtm. DC. t965,39. #Data are for mles emolwed in 3910. Us. Burwv 01 me c%nsus. serles 89-105.
Office, for example, contain no trace of alumna Arda Green, one of the finest protein chemists of the century. Luckily their names and details of their lives have not yet been lost, and this, one of the first bodies of elite women scientists, can still be explored. First. where do thev orieinate? Thevcome from evew area ofthe united States k i t h i h e exception of the Pacific coast. Nine (22%)were horn abroad. Just ~ r i o to r 1969 only about 13% ~merica'sscientists came from abroad. ~ h L f i g u r e s need more detailed analvsis than is possible here. A well-documented theory called'the "principle of cumulative advantages" (7)exists in science to the effect that those with financial or' other advantages are able more easily to accumulate further advantages, such as better education and positions, at an ever accelerating rate that eventually leads them to the top. The Garvan winners superbly fulfill this theory. ~ l t h o u g hmany were graduated during the Great Depression, only three stated that they came from noor families. The rest. like the American science Nobelists r - ~ -~~ from 1901-72, a predominantly male group described by Harriet Zuckerman in "Science Elite" (a),came from middle
df
~~
A study conducted under the auspices of the American Chemical Society, 1155 Sixteenth Street NW. Washington, DC.
Volume 82
Number 12
December 1985
.
1065
or upper-middle class families in far ereater proportion than occ&ed in the general population of the timi (see the table). Unlike these Nobelists, 55% of whose fathers were in science or science-related professions, Garvanists' fathers were primarily businessmen (39%) or managers and professionals (another 37%) engaged in other activities. Their mothers sometimes added to their middle-class status. Of the 30 mothers for whom information is available, 18 qualified for professions or worked before or during marriage. All were skilled and nine were teachers. The Gawanists also came from advantaged ethnic hackground. No single Black, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American Indian is among them, and a handful, like Pauline Beery Mack, who was a member of the DAR, came from pioneerhe American stock. In fact, so far are they removed frim minority groups that several women did not understand the question but thought it referred to membership of groups like
.....
N A A C P. A
-A
"I don't have time," one replied. The group did, however, contain eight (20%)Jewish women. an extremelv high nrooortion considerine that onlv 3 4 % of the US.pophation*is jewish, and comp&able to the high percentage (25%) of Jews among Zuckerman's group of Nobel scientists. Of the Jewish Garvanists, incidentally, only five were native American women. All were horn in New York City whirh rontainsonly 40%of the Jewish pupulation, posiihle tribute to the high standards of science education there. The popular conception of famous xomen scientists as s t r u.... d i n e against overwhelmine odds is false. Almost with,. out euceptiun their parents encouraged them in science. The Gawanists deicribe them as.. "oositi\.e." "deliehted." . . "verv supportive." Any obstruction seems to have been minor: one set of parents was "surorised and ~uzzkd." while another, both physicians, simply "preferred medicine as a career." They showed their support in the schools their daughters attended. Though in thk-1950's students a t public cdleges outnumhered those a t private institutions by about seven to one, twwthirds of the karvanists atwnded private colleges. and ahout three-rourths of these were elite schools like Rryn Mnwr and Juhni Hopkins. The graduate school of Columhia alone can claim five Garvnnists, u hile the ilniversity of Chicago, where fnrsighted Professor .lulius Stieglitr rnrouraged wrmrn scientists at the turn of the century, graduated nine. Rut the must striking f ~ a t u r of e the (;arvanists'schooling is the prominrnce of women's colleges. Thest,, which hetween 1910 and 1957 runstituted only between 13-lGq of all U S . colleges and contained an even smaller percentage of students since they are small colleges, played a part in educating over half of the G a ~ a n i s t s .If one includes women provided with research or faculty positions there, then twothirds of the Garvanists came under their influence. The women who studied there almost unanimously agree that attending a women's college was helpful.
-
"It (Bryn Mawr) was and is an ideal place to attend college," said one. "All the leadership positions went to women." "It allowed me to be myself without the social pressures that come from a coeducational situation." "There was no sex discrimination." But i t is impossible to draw conclusions about the advantages of women's colleges. The only two women whodissented 3ttended Hunter, n,hirh, unlike the others, is a Ewe institution. One of them did say that the science education there was poor, hut we are left wondering how much the advantaees of these schools were due to their exclusivitv and how m k h to the sexually segregated situation. from the The nrecocitv of the Garvanists showed UD . rieht " start. Their median age for getting a bachelor's is well over a year younger than the national median of 22.4 for those 1066
Journal of Chemical Education
holding science doctorates today. Three of the Garvanists received bachelor's a t 18, the age at which most people graduate from high school; five got it a t 19; and Gladys Emerson, the 1952 winner achieved both a BS and a BA a t 22. Once started they keep going. Of the 41 women, only three show gaps in their careers, and these are only a couple of years apiece and occur early. They are definitely not what is now called "reentry women": women who drop out to have children and reenter the work world in middle age. With some exce~tions-ohviouslv one can produce more with R grant a ~ l d large numher o
