Woman in Science / With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind

by J. A. Zahm

The names of the women in the United States who have become prominent by their researches and writings in the various branches of the natural sciences would make a long list. And when one recalls the fact that it was only in the latter part of the nineteenth century that American women were afforded an opportunity to study science, it is a matter of surprise that the list is so extended. For practically no provision was made for the serious pursuit by them of the natural sciences until the opening of Vassar College in 1865, and it was not until the closing years of the century that the portals of many men's colleges were unlocked and thrown open to the hitherto proscribed sex. Considering all the obstacles they had to overcome, the ignorance, the prejudice, the opposition of all kinds they had to combat in the United States, women have already accomplished wonders and bid fair to achieve much more in the near future.

Now almost every educational institution in the land, private or state, has one or more women professors or associate professors. They teach all the branches of the natural sciences that are taught by their male colleagues,—botany, geology, mineralogy, zoölogy, anatomy, bacteriology and all the numerous subdivisions of these sciences,—and they teach them with success and éclat.

They also occupy responsible scientific positions in various state and federal institutions. Thus one woman has been the principal of the Denver School of Mines, while another has been the state entomologist for Missouri. Women are also found doing important work in the National Museum, in the Smithsonian Institution, and in the Agricultural Department in Washington, as well as in the various museums, botanical gardens and public laboratories of the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Among those who have deserved well of science in the United States by their investigations and writings are Olive Thorne Miller and Florence Merriam in ornithology; Susanna Phelps Gage, Dr. Ida H. Hyde, Mary H. Hinckley, Cornelia M. Clapp, Edith J. and Agnes M. Claypole in biology; Rose S. Eigenman in icthyology; Edith M. Patch, Elizabeth W. Peckham, Emily A. Smith, Cora H. Clarke, J. M. Arms Sheldon, Mary Treat, Mary E. Murfeldt, Annie T. Slosson in entomology; Elizabeth G. Britton and Clara E. Cummings in cryptogamic botany; Sarah A. Plummer Lemmon, Katherine E. Golden, Alice Eastman and Almira Lincoln Phelps in general botany; Ada D. Davidson, Ella F. Boyd and Florence Bascom in geology. Besides these, special mention should also be made of Dr. Julia W. Snow for her work on the microscopical forms of fresh-water algæ; Anna Botsford Comstock for her contributions to our knowledge of microscopic insects; Katherine J. Bush for her monographs on shallow and deep-water molusca; Harriet Randolph and Fannie E. Langdon for their studies on worms, and Katherine Foot for her papers on cellular morphology. Particularly notable, too, is the work that has been done on marine invertebrates by Mary J. Rathbun in the United States National Museum and by Florence Wambaugh Patterson in vegetable physiology and pathology in the Department of Agriculture in Washington.

But much as the women just named deserve recognition for their achievements in the various branches of science to which they have severally devoted themselves, the one who will always be specially remembered, not only for her valuable contributions to divers branches of natural science, but also for her labors in behalf of higher female education—particularly as president of Radcliffe College—is Mrs. Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the wife of the celebrated Swiss-American naturalist, who gave such an impetus to the study of natural science in the United States, and whose influence on the general advancement of science in all its departments has proved so enduring and so far-reaching. As an inspirer of and collaborator with her gifted husband, Mrs. Agassiz deserves a large page in the annals of science, while as an enthusiastic student of nature and as one who communicated her enthusiasm to her students, and at the same time held up before them the highest ideals of womanhood, she is sure of a portion of that immortality which has been decreed to her illustrious life-partner, Jean Louis Agassiz.

This chapter would not be complete without some reference to that large class of women travelers who, directly or indirectly, have contributed so much to the advancement of the natural sciences. The gifted Roumanian writer and traveler, Princess Helena Kolzoff Massalsky,—better known under her pseudonym, Doria d'Istria,—somewhere expresses the opinion that a woman traveler admirably supplements the scientific work of the male explorer by bringing to it aptitudes that the latter does not possess. For she notes many things in nature, as well as in the national life and popular customs of the countries which she traverses, which escape the more hebetudinous perceptions of men, and thus a vast field, that would otherwise remain unknown, is opened to observation and critical study.

One of the most noted travelers of her sex in the nineteenth century was the famous Ida Pfeiffer, of Austria. During the years intervening between 1842 and 1858, the date of her death, she traveled nearly two hundred thousand miles and, in so doing, visited nearly every quarter of the globe. When one recalls the difficulties and discomforts of transportation in the early part of the last century, as compared with our present facilities and conveniences, and bears in mind the fact that her traveling expenses for an entire year were less than those of a Lamartine or a Chateaubriand for a single week, we must admit that her achievements were, indeed, extraordinary.

Besides being the author of numerous books which had for many years a great vogue—books which, by reason of the keen observations and the absolutely truthful narratives of their author, are still of special value to the student of geography and ethnology—she made collections illustrative of botany, mineralogy and entomology which were subsequently secured for the British Museum and other similar institutions in Europe.

No one more highly appreciated Frau Pfeiffer's efforts in behalf of science than did the illustrious Alexander von Humboldt, whose friendship was one of the greatest joys of this remarkable woman's life. Through his recommendation and that of the noted geographer, Karl Ritter, she was made an honorary member of the Geographical Society of Berlin. Besides this, the King of Prussia conferred on her the gold medal for arts and sciences.