Mendel the Mentor Yale Women Doctorates in Biochemistry, 1898-1 937 Margaret W. Rossiter Department of Science and Technology Studies, Corneil University, Ithaca, NY 14850
Lafayette B: Mendel, a physiological chemist on the faculty of the Yale Graduate School from 1896 until his death in 1935, trained a t least 124 PhD's, of whom 48, listed in the table, were women (13.This puts him among the small number of graduate professors in the history of science who trained a sizable number of women in their fields. Others include mathematician L. E. Dickson a t the University of Chicago in the early 20th century, anthropologist Franz Boas a t Columbia University, and entomologist James G. Needham a t Cornell University in the 1910's through 1930's. All were situated in the major graduate departments of the time in their field, but a n additional factor behind this concentration may have been a refusal by other members of the department to take women graduate students (2).In fact most of Mendel's women students came in the second half of his career a t Yale, having deliberately sought him out after learning from others of his openness and willingness to train them. Many had been referred to Mendel by his previous students in a kind of secondary recruitment. What is even more striking about Mendel's group of women doctorates than their number is their success in their subsequent careers. If one were to make comparisons with other women dodorates of the 1920's and 1930's Mendel's women may well have been among the most productive cohort in almost any science a t the time. Most were employed, and many stayed employed even aRer marriage (oRentimes to a fellow student) and motherhood. A prime example of this was Mary Swartz Rose, who married Anton Rose (both shown in Fig. 1) in 1910 and bore a son in 1915but remained on the faculty of Teachen College, Columbia University, until her retirement in 1940. Others, however, like Hilda Croll Koser who married a fellow faculty member a t the University of Illinois, encountered anti-nepotism rules that terminated one spouse's employment (hers). Several of the married and single won high honors, especially from the American Institute of Nutrition and various women's groups. More is lmown about Mendel's group of women than about some others, since three wrote autobiographies or were the subject of an oral history, and another was the subject of a biography (3-6). I n these published and unpublished accounts the women reminisced about the lifelongimpact Mendel had on them. For them the years in New Haven were among the most important in their lives and certainly their careers. Several were no longer young when they enrolled, having come after years a s school teachers or faculty members without doctorates. The professor dominated their lives in a positive way, starting the day of their arrival. After suffering rude remarks about women students a t Yale from bookstore clerks and boarding house landladies (only the nursing, art, and graduate schools were coeducational a t the time), the women were especially delighted to meet the friendly and helpfnl professor. He had not only anticipated their arrival but also had planned their year's work for them. The women graduate students responded with delight a t such rapid inclusion in the biochemical community a t Yale. Most Mendel students remained lifelong friends, and continued for years the tradition of a Yale dinner a t national meetings. After the Professor's health began to deteriorate in
Figure 1. Mary Davies Swam (second row, third fom left) and Anton Rose (second row, far left),who later married, both appeared in this 1908 ~ictureof L. 6. Mendel and his students (0.F. Pve. et al.. Maw ~ w a &Rose, 1874-1941, Pioneer in ~utriti& ~e&hkrsc&ege: New York City, 1979. p 26). Reprinted with permission of Teachers College Press. 1929, they passed around the dinner table a card or note to be signed and sent to him. Some of the women were a particularly close-knit group. Several had known each other even before they went to New Haven and had in fact recommended each other to the professor. In 1920 seeking a more formal community several of them formed a graduate-student chapter of the chemical fraternity for women, Iota Sigma Pi. The leaders of the Yale chapter (named Ytterbium, probably to emphasize the letter Y) was responsible for Iota's conferring honorarv members hi^ on Madame Curie durine her visit to the united ~ t a t e s ' i n1921. Some of these ~ a l g w o m e nthen held national offices in the oreanization. a s Yale PhD Zaila Jencks Gailey (later Rowe), initially of the Oxygen chapter a t the University of Washindon. served two terms a s its national in 1921-1927, and Yale PhD's P(recious) Mabel Nelson and Icie Maw (later Hoobler). orieinally of the Tungsten chapter (&iversity of ~ o i o r a z o ) were in 1921-1924 the secretary and treasurer,. resuec. tively. Nelson also later served term a s national vicepresident. As members of Ytterbium moved to other parts of the country, they, like its founders, set up still other chapters in their new locations, a s Nelson did the Aurum chapter a t Iowa State University in 1924 (7). Thus, to a certain extent Mendel's women formed a kind of "young-girl network" in physiological chemistry, starting in or even before graduate school and continuing for decades, a s they corresponded, saw each other a t national meetings, hired (or succeeded) each other for temporary or oermanent ~ositions.and in later vears. nominated one inother forAprofessidnalawards a i d elective offices. In particular, the multi-honored Icie Macy Hoobler, shown in Volume 71
Number 3 March 1994
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W o m e n Doctorates U n d e r Lafayette B. Mendel o f Yale University, 1898-1937 Yearof PhD
Name
1898
Alice H. Albro
1909
Mary D. Swartz Alice F. Blood Louise Stanley AmyL. Daniels Ruth Wheeler Lotta Jean Bogert Louise W. Farnam Sarah E. Judson Louise tii~annell
1910 1911 1912 1913 1916
1917
1920
1921
1922
1923'
1925
Helen B. Thompson Martha R. Jones lcie Macy
Undergrad Institution
Mrs. Bryn Mawr Charles A. Barker Mrs. Anton Denison R. Rose - MIT
-
-
Peabodyl Chicago Teachers?
-
Vassar
-
Cornell
Rossleene Arnold Mary C. McKee Jet C. Winters
Later Death employer
-
-
Peabody
Mrs. Charles E. Woodruff Mrs. Donald M. Hetler -
-
1927 Teachers College Simmons
1941
Missouri1 BHE U lowa
USDA
1928
1929 assorted
research in Hawaii Children's Fund
1931
7
1932 lowa State Phipps Inst. at U Penn. Illinois until marriage
1933
Women's Med. Coll. Pa.
1935 1936
Oberiin
Montana State
Penn. Coll. for Women
Connecticut College for Women Texas
1950
Journal of Chemical Education
Name
Married Name
Mildred Ziegler Verz R. Goddard Rebecca Hubbell Anna J. Eisenman Manha Koehne Helen T. Parsons Leah Ascham Ava J. McAmis
-
Minnnesota Minnesota
-
Radcliffe
UCWUSDA
-
Mount Holyoke Teachers?
Conn. Expt. Sta. USPHS
-
Kansas State Wisconsin
1937
So.rces
.
Undergrad Institution
-
Ohio Northern - RandolphMacon Women's Mrs. Brown Mount Holyoke
Helen Bennett Brown Lillias Francis Ellen Radloff Lucille Reed Mrs. William Wiepert Pearl P. Swanson Ethel Burack -
Olympic Junior College U MassAmherst
a Althouah some of the bioara~hical materials about Maraaret Justin in the r(ansass1aie-n ,er%ty arch v&nocale en0neo.s) 1nali;er 1973 Yaeooclorale &as awaroeo n n.lr ton she 5 r.01 nc .dm nCre WWLSC Yalc 0 reclar es no care tnal ner I e o was oactenolaov. Datnooar a r d DO . c naalln m a her dissertation on climate and disease raihk;than b&hchemistry.
216
1930
1984
Mount Holyoke
Texas
Year of PhD
1904
physician in 1949 Mrs. Hugh Vassar UK B. Wilson 1952 Mrs. Emil Vassar J. Baumann Mrs. Nashville Charles A. Browne - Kansas State UCLA 1969
Mrs. B. Central1 Raymond Chicago Hoobler Zalia Jencks Mrs. Gailey Chicago (later Rowe) Helen S. Mount Mitchell Holyoke Marion Bell Mrs. Wellesley Thomas F. Wiesen P. Mabel - California Nelson Florence B. Goucher Seibert Illinois Hilda Croll Mrs. Stewart A. Koser Marion S. Newcomb Fay Alice Miles
1926
Married Name
-
California
Later Death employer
1977
Kansas State San Antonio College Cleveland Clinic Kansas State 1941
South Africa South Africa Newcomb
Carleton
lowa State
Barnard
Albany Medical College Michigan
Iowa State
1935
Kathryn Horst Julia Outhouse Evelyn B. Man Esther H. Montgomery
Mrs. Arthur Wisconsin D. Holmes - Wellesley
lllinoislU Mass./lllinois Yale 1992
Mrs. Hugh Vassar Montgomery
Miriam F. Clarke
~ r sWard . Mount N. Madison Holyoke
Elizabeth R. B. Smith Caroline C. Sherman Ercel Eppright Aline Underhill Orten Marjorie Pickens
Mrs. Paul Bryn Maw1 K. Smith Mrs. Oscar Vassar E. Lanford Mrs. Frank Missouri 0. Eppright Mrs. Denver James M. Orten Wellesley
Jefferson Medical College Women's Medical College of Pa. NlMH science writer lowa State Wayne State University
Yae Lnversry Doctom 01 Ph,.osophy 1861--1960 hew rlaven.
1961 pp 19-20 ana258-265' VaSsarAalmnae Drrcrory 1939. NoraoleAmer(can Women. 1980 Amer can Men an0 Nomen 01 Scence. car 0"s eo Ions. .,am Schnmal Yae u n v r r s l { A m .es
h e secured Sterling, other Yale, and industrial fellowships for some of them and helped a few win prestigious outside awards, a s the Porter Fellowship of the American Physiological Society (Florence Seibert in 1922) or those of the American Association of University Women (Martha Jones in 1919, Ava McAmis in 1928, Ethel Burack in 1931, and Evelyn Man in 1933). Then upon completion of their degrees, he found them on occasion a precious National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship (McAmis in 19291931) o r more likelv " a "iob i n exDandine academic departments and hospitals. He then knergetGally guided them with advice and letters of recommendation to tenure and in Florence Seibert's case to a Guggenheim fellowship, which she used in 1937-1938 to go to Sweden to learn to use the newly perfected ultracentrifuge in her work on the proteins in tuberculin (15). On the whole he was behind them professionally and emotionally for 10-15 years while and after they earned their degrees. This, plus suitable placements, meant that manv of these women had verv successful careers. even to the point of transferring his research tnidition to new locations. a s Teachers Collem. Columbia. and the food and nutrition department a t w 1:a State u&ersity, which in turn trained a second-generation of Mendel grand-students with doctorates (16). Such extended protegee chains a t the graduate level were unusual for women, for even Boas' women students in anthropology went often to museums or to women's colleges without doctoral degree programs. "Women's Work" in Biochemistry
Figure 2. lcie G. Macy in 1924 (Icie Gertrude Macy Hoobler, Boundless Horizons, Porirait of a Pioneer Woman Scientist; Exposition: Smithtown, NY, 1982,frontispiece). Figure 2, took advantage of her service on many nominating committees, often composed of past winners of a n award, to promote the other accomplished Mendel women (8).
Although many of Mendel's male doctorates, to judge by a cumulative 1961 Yale alumni directory (17), had careers of distinction on medical school faculties, only a few of his women students taught a t medical schools for any length of time. These included Mildred Ziegler, for 30 years an assistant professor of pediatrics a t the University of Minnesota Medical School. Ethel Burack lone on the staff and faculty ofAlhany Medlcul CoIItyp wherc&e alio twrned an MD in 1945, and Allnc U Orten over YO vearson the ~uinor faculty and research staff of the wayne State uni;ersity School of Medicine, where her husband taught biochemistry. Meanwhile in these years of sex-segregated employ-
'
There may be some significancein the factthat both Mendel and Boas, so unusually receptive to women students, were among the first Jews on their respective faculties, but so far it seems merely a coincidence.
Mendel the Mentor Lafayette B. Mendel (18721935) earned his BAand PhD degrees a t Yale University, where he was the first Jew to serve on t h e medical school faculty (9, lo).' His field was physiological chemistry, which h a d grown alongside organic a n d o t h e r chemistries in the German universities, and he succeeded Russell H. Chittenden, whose subsequent history of the field had extensive coverage of Yale achievements (11). This was a growing field a h r World War I (121, especially a t Yale, where Mendel concentrated on training future leaders of the field and steering them into productive research paths (13). Most of h i s later ~ublicationswere articles co-authored with these students (14). Large numbers of students Figure 3. Florence Seibert appears in the front right in this 1922 picture of L. B. Mendel (bald,center) flocked to his laboratory where with his students (FlorenceSeibert, Pebbles on the Hillofa Scientist St. Petersburg, FL, 1968, p 98). Volume 71
Number3 March 1994
217
ment Mnrion Spencer Fay scrved a s acting dean, dean, and o r e i ~ d ~of n tthe Women's hIedlcal Colleee of Pennsslvania krom 1943 until 1964 during which g m e she hired, a s shown in the table, fellow Mendel student Miriam Clarke for the biochemistry department. The other Mendel women followed a variety of careers. Several held oositions in biochemical research. Among this distinguished group were Icie Macy Hoobler, who s t d i e d mother's milk a t the Children's Fund in Michigan, Florence Seibert (shown in Fig. 31, who analyzed the proteins in the blood a t the Phipps Institute a t the University of Pennsylvania, Helen Bennett Brown, who did research on lipids in the cardiovascular system a t the Cleveland Clinic, and Evelvn Man.. lone a research associate a t Yale. who developed certain tests for thyroid conditions, once a very orevalent medical problem. Several others in the table worked in state andfederal health departments (18). A few of the sinele women taught a t women's colleges. a s Ruth McKee dld'for decades i n ' c h ~ m i s tat~ ~onn&ticut College for Women and as Alice Blood lone did in nutrition a t ~ & m o n sCollege. Ruth Wheeler taughiboth physiology and nutrition a t her alma mater, Vassar College, from 1926-1940. Although few other women's colleges provided instruction i n nutrition, several did in physiology (19). Yet so many of Mendel's women became leading figures in the emerging science of nutrition that this was where thev had their ereatest collective imuact (20). I n oarticular several found their niche in the growing and feminized world of "home economics" a t land-mant and a few other institutions in the 1920's and 1930G. Although most faculty positions in these colleges of home economics had heavy teaching loads and little time for research, by the 1920's the mowing emphasis on eraduate work a t these universitiei mea& t h a t they needed research-oriented women, especially in the area of "foods and nutrition", which was supported by the U. S. Department of Agricnlt u r e a n d t h e s t a t e experiment stations. Oftentimes Mendel's women studenis fit the role of research professor in the foods department of a college of home economics, a s were Helen Tracy Parsons a t Wisconsin, Amy Daniels a t the child welfare station a t the University of Iowa (after Ruth Wheeler left for Vassar), J e t Winters a t the University of Texas, Verz Goddard a t UCLA, Julia P. Outhouse of the University of Illinois (to which she returned in 1958 after 16 years of married life in Massachusetts ended in widowhood), and Pearl Swanson and Ercel Eppright, part of the Mendel colony a t Iowa State. Some of these and other Mendel women also became administraton, a s department heads or even deans of home economics. Helen B. Thompson served a s chair and dean first a t Kansas State university, where she oversaw the construction of the first home economics building in the country, and then from 1923 until 1942 a s department chair a t UCLA. Similarly P(recious) Mabel Nelson, PhD 1923, was head of foods and nutrition a t Iowa State between 1926 and 1944, when %ooperative" research among stations and with the USDA was an innovation. As such she coordinated numerous cooperative research projects amone the several stations in the active North Central region, kcluding some of the most ambitious nutrition research of the time. She was then in 1944 promoted to dean and served until retirement in 1952. Meanwhile Pearl P. Swanson served a s associate director of the experiment station there from 1944-1961, the first woman in the nation to hold this rank (21). Dean Nelson was in turn succeeded by Ercel Eppright, one of Mendel's last women students. Similarly after World War I1 Helen S. Mitchell, who had suent more than a decade on the staff of the Battle Crcck Sanltarlum In Mlchlgan, moved to the Massschusctts Agricultural Collegc mnce renamed the University of
-
-
218
Journal of Chemical Education
Massachusetts a t Amherst), where she was its dean until her retirement in 1960. But oerhaos the most accomulished in high oolitical circles was ~ o & eStanley, PhD i911, who by19i7 was head of the home economics department a t the University of Missouri. She was also a member of the committee on legislation of the American Home Economics Association (AHEA), which was pushing for bureau status for the Office of Home Economics within the USDA. When Conmess passed the legislation and the President signed it in y923, Secretary ofAgriculture Henry C. Wallace appointed Stanley its first chief, making her the first woman to head a USDA bureau. She held the post until her retirement in 1950 (22). Though in some cases these werejobs that no man would take--as Icic Macy Hoobler's at the Children's Fund of Michigan (which was required to spend itself out in 20 years,leaving her to seek a new a t middle age), these women did not complain publicly about being so relegated to "women's work" in biochemistry, but were grateful to have had some choice of positions, accepted the one which Mendel recommended most highly, and then worked hard to do the research and win the honors of which he approved. Mendel inspired his students to their greatest work, and they attributed their success to him. He gave them confidence, and energized they became leaders, eager to prove their worth and to exuand his influence still farther. His esteem was the highest honor they would hope or want to achieve. and to their final davs thev cherished anv recoenition and honor they felt he wouldhave valued. icie ~ r ? c ~ , already motivated when she arrived a t Yale i n 1918, later attributed most of her success to the interest Mendel took in her and her work. She took his advice for vears. occa: sionally returned to New Haven to visit h i and ~ r sMendel, and was very upset years later when first his disconsola& wife comm&ed s u h d e and then he died in 1935. As she wrote Mrs. Mendel's sister, in apology for having "lost my grip" a t the funeral (231,
. . . you will never know how much I appreciateall you have done for Professor and Mrs. Mendel and incidentally me. I owe so much to them. In fact it has been their interest, their understanding, and their inspiration and encourage&t that has put me where I am today in a professional way. The confidence and trust that they put in me stimulated me to try to do things a bit better each day so that I might be more worthy of their confidence and friendship. So much of the research that I have underway at the present time is really Professor Mendel's. He had such a delightful and helpful way of starting you off on the right path and then urging and stimulating to keep you an the move forward. I have grown so dependent an him and his wise council (sic) as well as Mrs. Mendel's continuous eneauraws wa- such a mcrlt. One ran take adace m the fact t h a t h ~ life frulrfnl one and rhor he gave of hi* lime, his attamments and of himself so freely for others. A vear later Macv. finishim uu a bie oroiect on which ~ e n k ehad l startedher and f i r khich raised some of the funds. exuanded on what the Mendels had meant to her (24). I for one have missed their wise council (sic), their encouragement and their kindly interest perhaps more than anyone because I seemed to depend so completely on them. Professionally I felt quite secure heeause I tried to do my work in such a way as to bring them joy and their appmval meant success to me. But the challenge now is to continue their grand work because they invested much in their students-and Professor Mendel never hesistated to tell us he wanted to see returns, furthermore he expected it. With him (sic)expecting success-no one could fall down. If I have succeeded in even a small way it was due in no small measure to the Mendels.
Honors Mendel's women won many awards of certain types hut not others. Two were presidents of the American Dietetic Association (Ruth Wheeler in 1924-1926 and Martha Koehne i n 19311, and Helen Bennettt Brown served as president of the American Heart Association in the 1970's, only the second woman (after Helen Taussig) to have done SO. ...
As a p o u p they were especially adept in holding office and winning medals of the American Institute ofNutrition (AINI, which Mendel and his students had helped to found role in 1928 and in which they long played a p'minent (25).Mary Swartz Rose, Yale PhD 1909 and a professor at Teachers College, Columbia, served a s its first woman president in 1937-1938 and Icie Macy Hoobler was its second in 1944. Years later Hoobler, Parsons, Eppright, and Swanson were among the persons over age 65 elected fellows after this level of membership was instituted in 1959. Hoobler also sewed on the Food andNutrition Board of the National Research Council from 1940-1952, whereupon she was awarded the Osborne and Mendel Award of the AIN. which touched her deedv. Yet there were limits to thew rerognit~onmen w l t h n ;he AIN, for although both the AIN and the hlrrhlv-fem~n~zrd AHXA awarded Horden Awards for "merito>ok research in applied nutrition in dairy products", it was the AHEA and not the AIN that awarded i t several times to Mendel women: Daniels in 1937, Hoobler in 1939, Parsons in 1944, and Swanson in 1955. Besides being among the most honored women in the field of nutrition research, a few of Mendel's students were well situated to win the growing number of special prizes for women in the 1940's and the 1950's. Seihert and Hoobler, for example, were in 1942 and 1946 among the first winners of the Gawan Medal. the woman's orize of the American Chemical Society, and Seibert was in 1943 the first winner of the AAUW's Achievement Award. But there were also limits to the heights reached by Mendel's women. None. for examole. were elected to the National Academy of sciences ~ N A S I which , ' ~ ~ Mondel had been elected in 1913 and for which several of h s male students were chosen later. Nor is there much evidence that either he or they ever nominated these talented and accomplished women for membership. Men doing research in biochemistry a t medical schools made acceptable candidates for the NAS. Women (like Hoobler and Seibert) doing research in nutrition or medicine at a medical research institute, who were prominent and visible enough to he selected as outstanding women in their science or as outstanding researchers for a woman's prize, were just beyond the cut-off point for the NAS. Those other women doing research in nutrition a t a college of home economics were triply penalized and generally given neither scientific nor women's awards. Conclusion Thus, Lafayette B. Meudel and his many women students form a sizable and notable subgroup within women's history and the history of biochemistry and nutrition. Unlike many other professors a t major coeducational graduate schools in the first third of the 20th century, he willingly trained and even placed his women doctorates in
research positions. Knowing that there was a place for them in the expanding medical research institutes and colleges of home kconon&s, he took the pains to train them well. He included them in simificant professional activities from the start and helped them earn scientific honors and advancement. They, for their part. . . then strove to fulfill his ambitions for them; Over the years, however, their location within the women's field of "home economics" served to marginalize, minimize, and undervalue even their accomplishments, to the extent that, despite their training and publications, they and their work ceased to he eligible for the top honors in science or even to he considered a part of the history of bio~hernistry.~ Yet several, especially Rose, Hoobler, Seihert, and the several in foods and nutrition at Iowa State, consciously carried Mendel's tradition on long after his death. Acknowledgment I thank Aaron Ihde for a copy of reference 7 Literature Cited 1. Yale University Doctors o/Philoaophy, 1861-1960; New Haven, 1961; pp 19-20 and 258-2s. See also Pierson. G. W . The YnkBookofNumbers, HI8IoricolSLotirlicsof the Coil
