Women in Science' DORTHA BAILEY DOOLITTLE
Morris Harvey College, Charleston, West Virginia
T
try. Faraday, who worked in a book bindery, studied her book nights and repeated experiments in it a t home.. his interest resulted in his entrance to the scientific field where he formulated many of the fundamental principles of electricity and magnetism. Meanwhile in America, Mrs. Lincoln Phelps (17931884) was devotedly teaching natural sciences and publishing textbooks. She and her sister, Emma Willard, had attended some chemistry classes a t Rensselaer Institute a t Troy, New York, where a benevolent professor allowed women in his classes. These sisters and the famous astronomer, Maria Mitchell, were the first three women to he elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. There is a yellowed copy of one of Mrs. Phelps' books written in 1865 a t the West Virginia Statehouse Library. On the flyleaf i t is recommended as suitable for the perusal of the young ladies in female seminaries. Maria Mitchell, previously mentioned, was a librarian on Nantucket Island. Her father as an amateur astronomer owned a telescope in which Maria had been much interested from early childhood. In 1847 she discovered the first comet ever found by the use of the telescope, for which she received a gold medal offered by Denmark. She later became Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Vassar Observatory where she taught until her death in 1889. In 1881, a young German girl named Agnes Pockels, denied the privilege of admission to a German University, working a t home with "homely appliances" for her only apparatus, discovered the important phenomenon of surface tension of liquids. After pursuing research on this subject for 10 years in her home, she read of almost identical discoveries published by Lord Rayleigh in England. She wrote to him and he generously published her letter and arranged for acceptance of her papers in English journals until 1898 when Germany was proud to have her results appear in German journals. Agnes Pockel's work was of fundamental importance in physical chemistry and in understanding the chemistry of each body cell. The next name is one with which all of you are familiar-Marie Curie, who lived from 1867-1934. Since her life and work are so well known, we will not discuss her as fully as her importance merits. Madame Curie's fame rests on her discovery, in partnership with her husband, of two important elements-polonium and r a d i u m a n d a study of the strange phenomenon of radioactivity exhibited by these elements. This was found to be a spontaneous disintegration of the atom. . Her work led to a complete revision of our theory of Presented before the West Virginia State Meeting of the atomic structure, opening up fields of research in American Association of University Women at Clarksburg, chemistry and physics in which hundreds of scientists West Virginia, May, 1940.
HE rapid advance in scientific achievement is one of the most pronounced characteristics of our present-day civilization. From the time, not so long ago, when laughter, skepticism, and prejudice greeted the idea that women follow scientific pursuits, we have progressed to the quite different present. This change in attitude has resulted from the fine contributions made by women in many scientific fields-work which has won for them respected recognition of their ability. The fact that 800 women are listed in the current volume of "American Men of Science" is evidence of the extent to which women are adding to our scientific progress. With such a broad subject and limited time, our survey will necessarily have to be rapid and incomplete. From the achievement records of several hundred women I have selected those whose work seemed to me to be especially significant or of unusual interest. Madame Lavoisier, who lived in France in the latter part of the 18th century, is the first woman deserving of special mention. Most of you are probably familiar with the name and work of the immortal Lavoisier, the most famous of the founders of modem chemistry. His work on oxygen and combustion, which established the law of Conservation of Mass was of first importance, and he was aided materially by his capable and thoroughly devoted wife. She learned Latin and English in order to translate scientific papers for him, assisted him in the laboratory and wrote out the results of his experiments, illustrated with her own skilful drawings and engravings. Her home was the gathering place for the most eminent men of the time. After Lavoisier's tragic death on the guillotine, his griefstricken widow edited his "Memoirs on Chemistry." These volumes were not for sale but were distributed gratuitously to famous scientists. At about the same time in England, little Caroline Hershel was distinguishing herself as an astronomer, elected to honorary membership in the Royal Astronomical Society. It is told that she sat recording a t the telescope through the night until she could write no longer for the ink had frozen. The rigors of these physical hardships seem not to have hurt her, for she lived to be 98 years old. In 1809 Mrs. Marcet, the wife of a London doctor, first puhlished h k widely read "Conversations in Chemistry." This curious book was composed of 23 conversations on chemical topics written in dialogue form. By 1863 more than 160,000 copies had been sold in England and America. Michael Faraday stated that Mrs. Marcet's book gave him his foundation in chemis-
are today working. The application of the radium rays to the treatment of disease, particularly cancer, was another consequence of her work. The first woman professor a t the Sorbonne and Director of the Radium Institute in Paris, Marie Curie still stands pre-eminent among women scientists-pre-eminent in fame, in her complete devotion to scientific research, in the farreaching results of her investigations both in pure science theory and in medical application, in honors.and prizes bestowed upon her, and in her unique and selfless personality. Einstein once said, "Marie Curie is of all celebrated beings the only one whom fame has not corrupted." Recently I visited the Eastman chemistry wing a t Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The long corridors there are hung with pictures of the great investigators in science. I searched diligently, but found only one woman in that illustrious companyMarie Curie. The next four women resolutely overcame many obstacles and prejudices in getting their training and blazed new trails in four different fields-chemistry, physiology, physics, and astronomy. I call them the "American Pioneers." Ellen Swallow, better known by her later name of Ellen H. Richards, after graduation from Vassar, was admitted by special permission to classes a t Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1871. She was the first woman to attend a technical school in America. She applied her chemistry to a study of nutrition and sanitation, being especially interested in pure food and the analysis of air, water, and sewage. She conducted the great sanitary survey of the waters of the state of Massachusetts, which involved analyzing 40,000 samples of water. No one ever put her knowledge of chemistry to more practical use than Mrs. Richards. Once when visiting a newly married couple in the Berkshires she became concerned about the safety of their water supply and decided to give them a water analysis for a wedding present. For 27 years she was an instructor in sanitary chemistry a t M.I.T. where her husband taught engineering. Mrs. Richards was responsible for training a great many men who carried out similar work through the country, besides acting as consultant in hundreds of problems. Had she not felt it her duty to devote all of her time and tireless efforts to these public health projects, she would no doubt have made a notable record in pure science, as she laid aside research on material which she repeatedly predicted contained new elements. Later the elements samarium and gadolinium were recovered from this same material by two French chemists. Ida Hyde had a long and distinguished career as professor of physiology in Kansas State Medical School. She was the b t woman to get a Ph.D. a t Heidelberg in Germany. The almost endless red tape and difficulties which she had to overcome to be allowed to study a t Heidelberg are related humorously in an article by her in the Journal of the American Association of Uninersity W m e n in 1938, under the title "Before women were human beings." After leaving Heidelberg, Dr. Hyde
studied a t the famous Marine Laboratory a t Naples. When she returned to America in 1897, she was instrumental in the organization of the Association to Aid Scientific Research by Women. This was a committee composed of most of t h e leading women educators of the time which subscribed 500 dollars a year to maintain the so-called "Naples Table" for an American woman to do research a t the Naples Laboratory. Later excess funds of this association were given tb outstanding women as the Ellen Richards Research Prize. This organization was active until 1932, when it ceased to exist, as the members considered that its objects had been achieved, since many fellowships were by then open to women. Our candidate for honors in physics is Margaret Maltby, retired head of the physics department a t Barnard College. She was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from a German university. Dr. Maltby returned from Gottingen and a research position in Germany to Barnard where she taught for 31 years. Her research was of such high calibre that her name is starred in "American Men of Science." Caroline Furness gained fame as a pioneer American astronomer. She was Director of the Vassar Observatory until her death in 1936. Her book "Introduction to the Study of Variable Stars," was chosen in the list of 100 most valuable books written by women a t the Chicago Century of Progress. Women have also had influence in the industrial world. Carrie Everson, while washing gold and silver ore sacks for her brother, who was a mining engineer, npticed that the fine particles of ore floated to the top in the soap bubbles. From this olkemation she was led to numerous experiments which resulted in her patenting the Ore Flotation Process. This was the forerunner of a method which annually recovers millions of dollars worth of fine powdered materials which would otherwise be lost and gives employment to tens of thousands of workers. During the last World War, Mary E. Squire, General Manager and chemist of the Allwood Lime Co., played an important role. She found a special kind of lime in her own plant similar to that imported from Germany. This was a war necessity to finish steel ball bearings and to make lime cake for polishing all metals. From December, 1915, until the end of the war, her plant was the sole source of this lime for England, Canada, and the United States. One of the substances now on the United States list of strategic war materials not found in America is mica. This material which is imported is used for insulation in motors and other electrical equipment. Recently a substitute made from clay, called "Alsifilm," has.been developed by Professor Hauser a t Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His coworker in this discovery was Miss le Beau of the Dewey and Almy co. in Cambridge. For many years factory owners have been consulting Lillian Gilbreth of New Jersey. She is an expert in efficiency engineering, particularly the analysis of the
motions made by workers in factories, with the purpose of eliminating waste movements and doing a piece of work with the minimum of effort. She has raised a family of 11 children, in addition to achieving an internat~onal scientific reputation. Apparently Dr. Gilbreth has been able to apply the principles of efficiency engineering to her own life! One of the most notable advances in science in 1940 was the development of coated glass. This thin film coating (a few millionths of an inch thick) eliminates reflection and glare and makes the glass practically invisible. Katharine Blodgett in the research department of the General Electric Co. did the experimental work on this substance. There will be many commercial applications. An early one was the new Bausch and Lomb coated projection lens which was first used on a large scale in "Gone with the Wind." These lenses give 15 to 30 per cent better screen illumination. Lest you think of all women scientists as spending their days confined to a laboratory, I have chosen a small group who have traveled to far-off places to conduct scientific studies. Not all visitors a t the South Sea Isles go there solely in search of a romantic Utopia. Margaret Mead of the American Museum of Natural History has recently returned from three years spent there in the study of ethnology. The late Carlotta Maury was one of the few women successful in commercial geology. Her work as paleontologist for many states and corporations, including the Brazilian Government and the Dutch Shell Petroleum Co., took her to various parts of the world, even to remote regions in South Africa. Those who think a woman's place is in the home would not care to accompany Louise Boyd, outstanding Arctic explorer and geographer. She has directed six successful expeditions in Norwegian sealing vessels through the ice offthe coast of Greenland, charting new regions for the National Geographic Society and reaching a point farther north than that reached by ship by any other American. For these feats she was awarded the Cullum Medal for 1938. Denmark has also given her name to a large section of the explared land. How many would follow Erzebet Kol as she toils up dangerous icy slopes? The only woman professor in a Hungarian university, she came to America recently to add to her snow algae collection which is the largest in the world. She climbed most of the highest peaks in the United States and Alaska, frequently dispensing with guides in her adventuresome trips. This work will throw light on the history of the North American continent and its relation to Europe. Even a conventional chemist like Marie Reimer, head of the chemistry department a t Barnard College, progressed from the roof of her laboratory in New York to California and from there to Java in search of stronger sunlight in her work on the effect of light on various organic reactions. And Dorothy Garrod, appointed professor of archeology a t Cambridge in 1939-the only woman on their faculty--directs excavations in Bulgaria to study the pre-history of the Near East.
Women have been especially active in medica research. You can have nearly any disease and be sure that a woman has had some part in the treatment or cure of it. Probably the outstanding name in this field is that of Dr. Florence Sabin, now retired from the staff a t Rockefeller Institute. She has a long string of firsts after her name which many a man might envy. She was the &st woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins Medical School-the first woman appointed to the' Rockefeller Institute staff. She is the only woman member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Sabin has received wide recognition for her researches on the processes of the lymphatic system, the mechanism in the development of red and white blood corpuscles and especially for her work on tuberculosis. 'In 1929, Dr. Simon Flexner, former head of Rockefeller Institute, called her "the greatest living woman scientist and one of the foremost scientists of all time." Twenty-six years ago in Chicago, Dr. Maud Slye started with one pair of mice. From these she has bred 25,000 mice in her studies to determine the cause of cancer. She has bred races in which 100 per cent developed cancer, proving that susceptibility is transmissable. Dr. Slye has also bred a strain 100 per cent cancer resistant. She has stated that cancer could be bred out of the human race in the same way if mating could be done scientifically. New and important knowledge which we have on eyesight and scientific lighting is due to research by Gertrude Rand, formerly on the Johns Hopkins faculty. At present, she and her husband have a private laboratory in Baltimore. She has designed intricate and sensitive instruments used in testing eye responses. Dr. Rand is Consultant for the Air Service of the Army and Navy and is also consulted on many special lighting problems, such as that of the Holland Tunnel. While Dr. Rand saves eyes, Dr. Alice Hamilton does research and writes books which are instrumental in saving many lives, for her field is industrial poisons. She is the only woman on the faculty a t Harvard Medical School and her work on toxicology makes her a world authority on this subject. In research on foods and vitamins, women have found an attractive niche. So many women have made important contributions in this field that it will not be possible to mention their work in detail. Many of the new papers on vitamins have women for authors or coauthors. A few of these advances in which women have assisted are: the preparation of vitamin A in its purest known form by Ruth Corbet, the premature gray hair developed in rats by lack of vitamin Bp in experiments by Agnes Fay Morgan, the successful use of vitamin C in treatment for lead poisoning by Kathryn Campbell, and the recent work by Rosemary Murphy on vitamin K, which is found to be necessary for the clotting of blood. The pioneer work of Dr. Mary Pennington on scientific refrigeration was recognized in 1940 a t the American Chemical Society meeting in Cincinnati, where she was awarded the Garvan Medal. Adapting
woman's classical job of feeding the family to modern life, she studied the problem of scientifically controlled refrigeration and cold storage. Once in the early stages of her research, she made a trip on a freight train from coast to coast taking the temperature of the refrigerator cars and studying food spoilage, much to the amazement of the train crew and the disgust of the hoboes. A few women are achieving the most lasting renown by doing fundamental research. Wanda K. Farr as Director of Cellulose Research a t Boyce Thompson Institute is throwing new light upon the very complicated structure of the cellulose molecule. Emma Carr, head of the chemistry department a t Mt. Holyoke College, uses the spectroscope to determine molecular patterns of hydrocarbons. This work is purely theoretical but has already found practical application in the petroleum industry. Dr. Carr received the first award of the Garvan Medal in 1937, when her work was described as an "incomparable contribution to American chemistry." Meanwhile in France a series of outstanding experiments come from the laboratory of Frederick and Irene Joliot-Curie. These partners have already received the Nobel Prize for their work on artificial radioactivity. This is accomplished by bombarding ordinary atoms with high-speed streams of particles, such as neutrons or heavy hydrogen nuclei. Some of the internal structure of the atom is thus thrown out of balance by the gain or loss of some particle and it becomes temporarily radioactive. In 1940 the Joliot-Curies were announced as winners of the Barnard Medal for "meritorious service to scienc6." If any woman is soon to join Marie Curie in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Hall of Fame," i t will probably be her brilliant daughter, Irene. Women seem to have the vision and patience necessary to become great astronomers. The life work of Annie Jump Cannon of the Harvard Observatory has consisted in the exacting and laborious task of classifying the spectra of a quarter of a million stars. She has been called the "census taker of the skies." There is probably no astronomer anywhere in the world who does not a t some time use Miss Cannon's work, which is considered unusually reliable. Associated with Miss Cannon is the brilliant young astro-physicist, Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin, starred in "American Men of Science" a t the very early age of 27.
She is the author of more than a hundred scientific papers and is doing pioneer work in interpreting the spectra of stars to determine their life histories. Married to a fellow astronomer a t Harvard and the mother of two children, she says: "I should like to emphasize the fact that my home life has not detracted from my scientific career." One mathematician should be included in our li$. Emmy Noether, a great creative genius in algebra, wa's a t Gottingenuntil 1933. She came to the United States as an exile and taught mathematics a t Bryn Mawr until her death in 1935. Einstein has stated that she discovered methods of enormous mathematical importance. We also pause to mourn the premature death of Leta Hollingsworth of Teachers College. Her research and writings on the psychology and education of the snbnormal and gifted child made her a world renowned authority on exceptional children. She started the famous experimental school, P. S. 500, in New York City in 1937. A selected group of gifted children received special education for a period of five years. This project is of such educational importance that it is considered stark tragedy that Mrs. Hollingsworth died before the final reports were in. For progress in civilization, creative workers are needed but the world also needs teachers and writers to interpret, correlate, and disseminate the original and creative ideas of others. In these educational roles a very large group of women are rendering important service. From the work of this short list and the general groups mentioned, it is quite apparent that women have contributed much to the fund of scientific knowledge and that those of exceptional training and ability can reach the top in any field they choose. When we consider that 100 years ago the first college class containing women had just been graduated and that only 65 years have passed since the first technical school allowed women to matriculate, I think we can be proud of the record of achievement made by our sex. We have come a long way since Mrs. Phelps wrote in 1865 "From the nature of chemical experiments, woman may not aspire to add to the stock of chemical science discoveries of her own, but she may dare to raise the curtain which conceals the operations of Nature and entering Her laboratory, behold the experiments which are there exhibited."
Use what tolente you possess; the woods mould be very silent if no birds sang there ezcept those who sang the best. Politeness is like an oir cushion; there may be nothing in i t , but i t eases the jolts.
A man's age can be measured by the degree of pain he feels as he comes in contact with a new idea. Stopping a t third base adds no more t o the score than striking out. -Rig
and Red (Parkersburg Rig and Reel Company, Parkersburg, West Virpinia)
