“We never
can tell how our lives may work to the account of the general good, and we are
not wise enough to know if we have fulfilled our mission or not.”
—Ellen Swallow Richards
Born this day in 1842: Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911), first woman to study science at MIT, promoter of science education for women, and pioneer in the fields of urban and industrial sanitation, food safety, water purity, ecology, and many other environmental sciences
Richards
was born Ellen Henrietta Swallow in Dunstable, Massachusetts. At age 25 she
enrolled in Vassar College, where she studied under Maria Mitchell. She
graduate in 1870 with a bachelor’s degree. She tried to get a job as an
industrial chemist, but no one would hire her. So instead she began studying at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a “special student”—special because no institute of science had ever
accepted a woman as a student. (MIT did not accept tuition
from her, not because of her financial situation, but in order, as she later
learned, that the president “could say I was not a student,
should any of the trustees or students make a fuss about my presence. Had I
realized upon what basis I was taken, I would not have gone.”)
In 1873 she earned an MS from Vassar and BS from MIT. She
remained at MIT, completing the work necessary to earn a PhD in chemistry. MIT
did not award her the degree because—say it with me, people—she was a woman.
Hers would have been the first PhD in chemistry awarded by MIT.
In 1876 she founded the Women’s Laboratory at MIT in order
to train women in science. At the time, many people opposed women in the sciences because they believed the rigors of learning would ruin their health. Richards argued that the opposite was true: that the underutilization of women’s talents was detrimental to their health. She taught chemical analysis, industrial
chemistry, mineralogy, and applied biology. She was officially recognized as an
assistant instructor in 1879, but received no pay. In 1883 the lab close
when MIT officially opened its doors to women.
The following year Richards was allowed to join the faculty as an instructor in the newly minted Sanitary Chemistry lab, a position she
would hold until her death. Richards had a keen interest in sanitation, in both
domestic and urban environments. Her accomplishements—at MIT,
for the state of Massachusetts, and for private industry—are too numerous to
mention in this small space. Among
the most notable, however, are the food adulteration investigations and the the
water quality survey that she undertook for the Massachusetts State Board of
Health. The water-quality analysis led to the first water-quality standards in
the nation and the first modern municpal sewage treatment plant. She was also
very interested in the role women could play in improving health by making sure
their homes were hygienic. She applied scientific principles to home sanitation,
nutrition, food purity, clothing, efficiency, and construction, creating the field
of home economics. In fact, she pushed back against the eugenics movement with
what she called “euthenics”—the idea that human intelligence and health could be improved via an improved environment.
She transformed her home in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston into living laboratory, applying her principles of
ecology and home economics. She changed windows, removed lead pipes, and
improved ventilation to create a healthier environment. Today it is a National Historic Landmark.
Richards authored 18 books including The
Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning: A Manual for Housekeepers (1882), Food
Materials and Their Adulterations (1886), Air, Water, and Food
from a Sanitary Standpoint (a classic text she wrote with A. G.
Woodman, 1900), and Sanitation in Daily Life (1907).
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