Comments on: Historic photos of female scientists at work

By: CRonMorgan

CRonMorgan — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:40:00 +0000

Thank you for this reference.

By: Catherine Roberts Shteynberg

Catherine Roberts Shteynberg — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:37:00 +0000

Many thanks to you,
Jacquelyn Gill, for your wonderful profile of our “Women in Science” set on the Smithsonian Flickr Commons stream. Our archivists at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, are always thrilled to add photos to this set yearly. It has been incredible to see the detailed research the public has been able to add to some of these women’s profiles, and to see the identifications of unidentified women within the set come in thanks to the generosity of so many.

We have many sets of images on the Flickr Commons, but this one in particular has generated so much interest and has a special place in my own heart. For those of you who are interested, the Archives is doing profiles about some of these women on our blog. Feel free to hop on over: http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/tag/women%E2%80%99s-history-month and if you have any hunches about those scientists who are still unidentified, please do chime in on Flickr!

Best,Catherine Shteynberg
Smithsonian Institution Archives

By: Catherine Roberts Shteynberg

Catherine Roberts Shteynberg — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:32:00 +0000

You might enjoy the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ blog post on Leavitt and other women “computers” that worked in astronomy labs in the 19th century: http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/pickering-women

Thanks for calling out Leavitt, who was one amazing woman.

Best,
Catherine Shteynberg
Smithsonian Institution Archives

By: anondrea

anondrea — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:53:00 +0000

That’s how I felt when I learned about Rosalind Franklin’s contribution to the discovery of DNA.

By: MadRat

MadRat — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:43:00 +0000

What about Darleane Hoffman… don’t you mean what about Leona Woods?? You know, the woman who helped invent the nuclear reactor and saved the Manhattan Project?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Woods

Say has anyone ever told you your avatar picture looks like Jared the atonal amigo?

By: Tynam

Tynam — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:37:00 +0000

XKCD is right, Noether for the win.

My personal favourite overlooked female scientist right now, however, is WWII crypto nerd Joan Clarke Murray, a name that by rights ought to be nearly as famous as her co-worker (and one-time fiance) Alan Turing. A key member of the Bletchley Park team and critical to Naval Enigma decryption in particular, despite the prejudice against female mathematicians.

(She was also, later, a big figure for historians interested in Scottish coinage, but that’s not the mathematical achievement I think she should be known for.)

By: benher

benher — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:23:00 +0000

Girl scientist in Sailor-fuku saves world – a popular motif with sexy results!

By: Lupelu

Lupelu — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 05:21:00 +0000

Well thanks for clearing that up.

By: Mark Dow

Mark Dow — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 05:14:00 +0000

Smarts.

By: Lupelu

Lupelu — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 05:11:00 +0000

What does sexy have to do with anything in this post?

By: jimmersd

jimmersd — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 03:14:00 +0000

Ms Curie was a ground breaker in the physical sciences. The shame is that there are items of her personal property that still can’t be handled without special protections. Makes me wonder about the antique stuff that can be found at the flea market.

By: petsounds

petsounds — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 01:27:00 +0000

Smart is sexy. I wonder if there’s a similar collection of women in early computer engineering?

By: DeanCutlet

DeanCutlet — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 01:22:00 +0000

Hawt!

By: Hoyden Here

Hoyden Here — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 01:03:00 +0000

A lovely image from the collection of Library and Archives Canada:
http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=3198784&rec_nbr_list=3612809,3612808,3198784,3629824

By: Jeb Adams

Jeb Adams — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Hard to believe no shots of Darleane Hoffman in there. She was in government sponsored posts from about 1953 or so at Oak Ridge and then LANL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darleane_C._Hoffman

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 23:05:00 +0000

Somebody missed a golden opportunity for a bad radiation pun. The title should have been “Marie Curie: A Half-Life.”

By: suburbanhick

suburbanhick — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:25:00 +0000

My 7-year-old daughter’s science hero is Lise Meitner. She was SO pissed to learn that Otto Hahn got all the credit just ‘cuz he was a guy. Grrr!!!!

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:11:00 +0000

As women were not allowed to operate the telescopes in early 20th century…

That would be funny if it weren’t so sad… some of the greatest deductive minds of their age acting like a bunch of kindergarteners.

“Can I look?”

“NO! You’ll get cooties on it!”

By: CRonMorgan

CRonMorgan — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:45:00 +0000

See also, Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921). As women were not allowed to operate the telescopes in early 20th century, she performed the manual task of computing star luminosity from photographic plates. She went on to discover the luminosity-period relationship of cepheid variable stars. This was ground breaking (sorry, bad pun). @aricol, I used to teach the Ada programming language; always pointed out the genesis of the name to the students.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:30:00 +0000

Is this the late unicorn chaser for the 80MPH post?

By: arikol

arikol — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:50:00 +0000

I also think of the first computer programmer (the ENIAC programmers, and of course Ada Lovelace) as examples I want to have visible to my children.
That kind of suggests that the “girls don’t know math” and “girls don’t know technology” lines are somewhat stupid..

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:49:00 +0000

I can already hear them asking. “Aren’t you doing a disservice to female scientists by singling them out as something special?”

Singling out women scientists won’t be doing them a disservice until the prompt “name 10 famous scientists off the top of your head” routinely elicits answers including 4 or 5 or (dare I dream?) 6 female scientists instead of, you know, one. Thanks for posting this, Maggie.

http://xkcd.com/896/

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Ms. Foster was an important trailblazer for both female scientists everywhere and cartoon ducks alike.