Bull. Hist. Chem.17/18 (1995)
RACHEL LLOYD: EARLY NEBRASKA CHEMIST
M r . S. Cr nd h M. Cr , Un v r t f K n
The lead editorial in the University of Nebraska student the first well-trained chemist, H[enry] Hudson newspaper for June 9, 1894 concerned the resignation Nicholson, was hired. The son of Wisconsin farmers, of chemistry professor Rachel Lloyd (1): Nicholson had taken an A.M. at Lawrence College in [ r. l d] h n d v l p, l r l b h r ff rt nd nd r h r , n f th l r t h l l b r t r n th W t. Sh h n h r l t r r r d d b nth t t d nt f ll r nd d p rt nt . Sh l v n n ln n r , l fr nd , b t t b th t d nt th t h r b n ll b t nl f lt ... Sh n f th n tr t r h t nd n t nl f r n r l n , b t f r d l nd ll h h r lt r . W n ll ff rd t l n f th , f r th r n b n n l n ... In all likelihood Lloyd was the first American woman to take a Ph.D. in chemistry and the first to hold a full professorship in any science at a co-educational state university. She was in Nebraska for only seven years, her career being cut short by f l n h lth, but the time was one of development and opportunity, and her con- tributions to the university and the regional agricultural community were notable. Her story has remained elu- sive, however; her early life unknown, and the question of how she got her chance in Nebraska, a matter of spe- cial interest to students of the history of women in chem- istry, has gone largely unasked. When Lloyd joined the faculty in 1887 the Univer- sity of Nebraska had been in operation for only sixteen years (2). Student numbers had increased from twenty Rachel Lloyd regular students in the first year (1871-72) to 334 (3). (University of Nebraska Archives) Most of the chemistry classes during the first ten years were taught by the professor of natural sciences, Samuel Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1872 and was to supplement Aughey, a clergyman like many of the early faculty, who his chemical education with further studies throughout had little formal scientific training but a vast amount of the 1880's at Harvard Summer School and the Univer- miscellaneous knowledge, tremendous energy, and un- sities of Heidelberg and Berlin (4). His description of bounded optimism in the future of Nebraska. In 1882 the facilities awaiting his arrival at Lincoln is graphic (5): 10 Bull. Hist. Chem. 17/18 (1995)
[Equipment] consisted of a plain pine table on the the firm of Powers and Weightman. Little more than six top of which was a rack of bottles. In one corner of years later Franklin Lloyd was dead. Their two children the room was a cupboard for supplies and in the up- had pre-deceased him, both dying in infancy (10). Rachel per part of the room, near the ceiling, was installed Lloyd then spent some time in Europe and when she a barrel tank for the water service. There were nu- came back, turned to teaching as a way of earning a merous bottles, jugs, demijohns and carboys-- living. Her first position was at the Chestnut Street Fe- mostly empty and unlabeled [sic ] — scattered about the room, and various packets and bottles of chemi- male Seminary in Philadelphia (11). cals, generally open and unmarked, stuffed in the She also continued her education: starting in 1875, cupboards. Of reference books, journals, or even she spent six of the following eight summers at Harvard texts, there were none ... Summer School, which had begun in 1874 and offered courses of intensive instruction in botany, chemistry, and Fortunately he brought with him his private collection geology tailored to the needs of college and high school of apparatus. teachers. Lloyd studied botany during two summers and In the fall of 1883, 295 students, more than ninety chemistry all six (12), specializing in advanced analysis percent of those on the campus, requested chemistry and organic chemistry; latterly she also collaborated with courses. Nicholson's laboratory could accommodate the course organizer, Charles Mabery, in a research twenty (6). The urgent need for more laboratory space project on the synthesis of substituted acrylic acids. The led to the construction of a chemistry building, the sec- work was reported in three substantial joint papers in ond structure on the campus, which opened in the fall the American Chemical Journal (13). In 1883 she be- of 1886. Additional teaching staff being also essential, came professor of chemistry at the newly opened Lou- Nicholson proposed Rachel Lloyd, whom he had known isville School of Pharmacy for Women in Louisville, as a fellow student at Harvard Summer School in 1880 Kentucky, and instructor at Hampton College, a small and 1883 (7). Although Lloyd was well-qualified (she liberal arts college for women, established in Louisville had completed her doctoral studies early in 1887) the in 1877 (14). Nebraska faculty nominating committee hesitated to Lloyd's ambitions reached beyond teaching in a recommend "unconditionally" the hiring of a woman small college, however. In 1885 she resigned from her chemist, and so her initial appointment was a one-year Louisville positions to continue her studies and went to position as acting associate professor of analytical the University of Zurich, which had been open to women chemistry (8). The need for a second chemist was since the 1860's. Thanks to her already considerable quickly becoming even greater than the rapid expan- laboratory experience, she completed her dissertation sion of the undergraduate chemistry classes dictated. reserch in two years (under the direction of Russian- With the passage by the federal government of the Hatch born chemist Victor Merz) and received her degree in Act in 1888, moderate federal support for experimen- 1887 (15). She was then forty-eight. The spring and early tal undertakings at the state Agricultural Experiment summer of 1887 she spent in London, at the Royal Col- Station became available. Consequently the work of the lege of Science (South Kensington) and the School of station, which was carried out by the university faculty Mines. From there she accepted the Nebraska offer. members, was also increasing; Lloyd joined the staff The work for which she became noted was her part as assistant chemist as soon as she arrived in Lincoln. in a systematic examination of the economic feasibility Who was this pioneer among early women chem- of the production of beet sugar in Nebraska (16), a multi- ists? She was born in the small community of Flush- year research and development project carried out by ing, in eastern Ohio, January 26, 1839, the second the staff of the Agricultural Experiment Station. Pre- daughter in the Quaker farming family of Robert and liminary trials of beet culture conducted by the station Abby (Taber) Holloway (9). The Holloways were of in 1873-74 had given discouraging results. Yields of beet English ancestry. Of the four children, she was the only per acre from a test plot on the university farm had been one who survived past infancy, and her childhood and disappointing, and the State Board of Agriculture had youth were marked by one tragedy after another. Her decided against continuing the experiment, despite the mother died when she was five and her father when she more hopeful outlook of the university's professor of was twelve, leaving only her step-mother, Deborah agriculture, S. R. Thompson (17). (Smart) Holloway. She acquired some early education By the late 1880s, however, Nebraska's farmers at the Friends' school in Flushing, and in 1859, at the were becoming somewhat more prosperous; prospects age of twenty, married Franklin Lloyd, a Philadelphian for the introduction of new crops were more favorable, of Quaker background, who worked as a chemist with and a modest but dependable amount of federal funding Bull. Hist. Chem. 17/18 (1995) 11
was available to help support experimental work on the In 1891, with her health beginning to fail, partly project. Furthermore, Nicholson was especially inter- because of overwork, Lloyd gave up her position as as- ested in sugar beets. Obtaining a variety of seed from sistant chemist at the station. She continued to carry a the U.S. Department of Agriculture (18), and from full teaching load at the university however; and, in 1892, France and Germany, where the beet industry was al- while Nicholson had seven months' leave for an exten- ready well established, he distributed it to farmers sive tour of sugar factories and beet farms in Germany throughout the state who were willing to raise test plots and France, she probably served as acting head of the while keeping records of the important variables; these chemistry department. Although she taught her share of included type of soil and seed, weather conditions, cul- more advanced courses (25), she frequently conducted tivation procedures and yields per acre. Lloyd, who had both lecture and laboratory sections of the large, lower- seen at first hand the success of the crop in Europe, level classes, and so had contact with most of the stu- shared Nicholson's enthusiasm for looking into the pos- dents who came through her department (26). She took sibility of beet culture in Nebraska. She undertook re- pains to meet the undergraduates in less formal settings sponsibility for the laboratory work the project en- as well, being an active member of the Camera Club tailed—the determination of the sugar content of the raw and one of four faculty who were members of the popu- product. For this she was provided with some student lar Scientific Club (27). assistance, but she carried out much of the laborious During the 1890s and the following decade a re- analytical work herself (19). Preliminary tests on the markable number of women chemists joined the Ne- 1888 crop gave encouraging results, and by the end of braska Section of the American Chemical Society. In- the following year the data she had accumulated pro- deed, women were much more prominent in that sec- vided a convincing demonstration of the potential of the tion than in any other local section in the country. Lloyd industry in Nebraska. Cultivation costs and yields per herself joined the national society in 1891, being the acre were reasonably satisfactory, and despite the diffi- first woman member admitted (except for Rachel Bodley culties caused by inexperience and periods of unfavor- who was given her largely honorary membership at the able weather, a number of farmers began to take a seri- formation of the society in 1874). The second was Ne- ous interest in sugar beets. Steps were taken to scale up braska graduate student and chemistry instructor Rosa the operation and establish a sugar factory. Enterprising Bouton, who joined in 1893 (28). Lloyd's presence on citizens of the Grand Island community guaranteed a the Nebraska faculty can hardly have failed to be a ma- certain acreage of beets, and the first refinery was es- jor source of encouragement for the women chemistry tablished there in 1890 by the Oxnard brothers, sugar students. technologists with experience in both France and the Following her resignation in 1894 she returned to United States (20). Encouraged by a bounty offered by the Philadelphia area, where she still had Lloyd rela- the state for Nebraska-produced sugar, the Oxnards tives. She died six years later at the age of sixty-one, opened a second factory a year later in Norfolk (21). In March 7,1900, in Beverly, New Jersey. 1892 the university started a Sugar School, one of only Although she came to the work late (at the age of two in the country and the only one dealing with beet forty-eight), and had to leave after only seven years, sugar technology. The instruction offered included a Lloyd occupied a senior faculty post in what was soon course in elementary chemistry as well as special work to become an important educational institution at a key in the chemical control of sugar factory operations (22). period in its development. Manley gives a picture of the Considerable pride was taken in the success of the Lincoln campus at the time that is especially interest- Experiment Station's sugar beet work, the university ing, because, along with other early faculty who were catalog published in 1899 claiming that (23): well known and long remembered in Nebraska, Rachel Lloyd is mentioned by name (29). Noting that the de- No state in the Union has made a more thorough re- cade of the nineties is in many ways the most interest- search into the many questions relating to the growth of the sugar beet, and its manufacture into sugar than ing period in the history of the University of Nebraska, has Nebraska, and no small portion of the solution of those years having seen its transformation from a small these questions has been carried on under the provi- frontier college into a major institution, Manley goes on: sions of the Experiment Station Act, and by means ....visitors to the campus were impressed by the ear- of the funds coming from the general government... nest attitude of students and faculty. An air of pur- Three of Lloyd's reports on the project appeared as part pose permeated the buildings, and the ornate iron of the Experimental Station's "Sugar Beet Series" (24). fence which surrounded the campus after 1891 2 ll. t. Ch . 8 (
seemed to proclaim that no outside distractions would r h nd, ll t n I xx 00 8. W r t be permitted to intrude upon those laboring within. r t f l t th f ll n r h v t f r th r h lp: University Hall and the newer buildings were ph G. Sv b d , nn d rn, nd M h l thronged with students pursuing a wide range of aca- n, Un v r t f br M r r t . Gl v r , demic and practical courses. Professor H. H. Bar- Nicholson and a brilliant woman professor, Rachel St. Cl r v ll bl br r , St. Cl r v ll , Oh Lloyd, who had joined the faculty in 1888 [sic], pre- bara S. Meloni and Kathleen A. Markees, Harvard Uni- sided over the Chemical Laboratory. Newly built versity; Olivia M. Frederick, Énvironmental and Com- Grant Hall symbolized the land-grant university's de- munity Development Department, Jefferson County, votion to the citizen soldier-scholar. And in Nebraska Louisville, Kentucky; Nancy Sp r , r nd t r l Hall, the home of the Industrial College, labored "the br r , S rth r C ll . W ld l l t four busy B's — Bessey, Bruner, Brace and Barbour, th n p ll rd Ephr Str tt n nd whose names are household words in Nebraska." Str tt n, f l h n , Oh , f r nf r t n b t th At l t thr p l dv nt h lp d l d t h r ll f l . Q t t n fr The Hesperian, p t n: f r t, h br ht x pt n l d l M nl Centennial History, and Crawford's "These f t n ( ll n d r bl t h n xp r n Fifty Years," are made with permission from the Uni- t th j b r t n 88 , v n r b f r th f r t versity f br . n r v d h. . n h tr fr n A r n n v r t ( 0 ndl , h h d l p r n l E E E CES A O ES nd pr f n l nt t th h l n, d d r n h r r t rv rd n th rl 880 , nd h 1. The Hesperian, 8 4, . 2 , n , 2. h r t r n p t n t tr n n h r f v r ( W ll C th r, l t r t b f f r h r n v l f th rdl , h j n d th br f lt j t h n th r p n r l f n br . Sh th n n nd r r d t p n d nd f pp rt n t , t t f xp n n t n ln nd n n d t r f th t d nt n p b t b f r th r n p rt n f th n t t t n p r. d th pr t n f n h t t n r 2. h n v r t r v d t h rt r fr th t t l l f lt p t n l l l ( 2 . t r n 86 , nl t r ft r br b t t . Alth h nd d b th M rr ll nd Gr nt C l l d h r t r h d b n f r d n h rd h l l A t f 862, t t bl h nt n t r t d th r th r th n b nd n nd r th f rt n f h r th, n n ppr v l, rt n f t n n th t t b n h v r, h t h v d v l p d r r bl n f th p n n th t br t th t t n d d n n r tr n th nd f rt t d . r fr nd nd t h r Ch rl v r t " b t h t n d t t l ." In tr M b r r r d n n b t r n h r r t f r f t n f r t ff r d n 8 ( b rt . M nl , h r t r nd ttr t v p r n l t ll h r n Centennial History of the University of Nebraska, v l. , r nd th br dth f h r lt r l nt r t ( . h Un v r t f br r , n ln, 6 , p ll r p rt nt l t , p rh p nt l, f r n p. 4 , t t n fr p. . " t d r" n h r nt n n t nth nt r . f r n 2, p. 2 , 2. h t t l nr ll nt f r d n . l d b l d r n v r l — f r th f r t r 0, b t 0 r t d nt n th pr p r t r d p rt nt. n t n th n t t v f n t E r p f r d t r l 4. Who Was Who in America, v l. l., A. . M r C ., tr n n rl 88 ( 4 , n r n n r p Ch , 4 , p. 8 . Inf r t n b t A h p nt nt n th h tr f lt f t t n v r t fr r f r n 2, p. 2 , 42 4 . n 88 , nd n t n j r r l n n xt n v nd . . . h l n, t d b M nl , r f r n 2, p. 82. f r r h n r lt r l r r h nd d v l p nt 6. Ibid., p. 82. pr j t b f r th t rn f th nt r . h r f ll . G n r l C t l , "S r C r f In tr t n n h t Ell n S ll h rd f MI ( , l d Ch tr , t n nd G l ." rv rd Un v r t , h ld p l pl n th h t r f n h t 880, p. 22 , 88 , p. 24 . n A r . 8. rd f nt p r , br r Apr l 8 2, Un v r t f br r h v . l d b f ll pr f r the following r. . Ol n E. ll , Genealogy of the Holloway Families, ACK OW E GME S [n.p.], Kn ht t n, I , 2 , p. 2 2 6 W ll W d h r pp rt d n p rt b th t n l S n h , Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, p l d b . W. M r h ll, Ann Arb r, M h n, n nd t n, W h n t n, .C., Gr nt . 6—, v l. 4, p. . I 8 0 8, nd b th Un v r t f K n G n r l
Bull. Hist. Chem. 17/180 995)
10. Richard Louis Lloyd, "A Record of the Descendants of would also have been estimated (by reduction of Fehling's the Immigrant Robert Lloyd of Merion," [n.p.), ca. 1947 solution) as well as the percentage of sugar in the total (excerpts provided by the Friends Historical Library of solids, or coefficient of purity, the factor which indicated Swarthmore College). the overall ease with which white sugar could be pro- 11. This school was founded in 1850 by Mary L. Bonney duced (see R. A. McGinnis, ed., Beet Sugar Technology, and Harriet L. Dillaye, themselves graduates of Emma Reinhold Publishing Corp., New York, 1951, p. 95-98). Willard's Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York. By 20. Reference 17, p. I02, The Grand Island, Nebraska, fac- 1882 it was one of the oldest girls' finishing schools in tory was the third successful beet sugar factory in the America and was attended by girls from all over the coun- U.S. try. After relocation in the Ogontz mansion in I883, it 21. Soil and climatic conditions in the Norfolk district proved became the Ogontz School for Young Ladies (informa- unfavorable for the production of beets with a high sugar tion from Terrie Smith, University Relations, Ogontz content, and in 1905 this factory was closed and the equip- Campus, Pennsylvania State University, Abington, PA). ment moved to Lamar, Colorado (reference 19, p. 16). 12. Reference 7, student lists for 1875-77, '79, '81, and '83. 22. Reference 17, p. 102-103. 13. R. Lloyd and C. F. Mabery, "On the diiodobromacrylic 23. Anon., quoted by Crawford, reference 17, p I01. In 1988, and chlorbromacrylic acids," Am. Chem. J., 1881.82, 3, 100 years after Lloyd carried out her preliminary ana- 124-129; "Dibromiodacrylic and chlorbromiodacrylic lytical work, the Nebraska sugar beet crop was valued at acids," ibid., 1882-83, 4, 92-100; "On ?- and ?- almost $57 million (U.S. Department of Agriculture, chlordibromacrylic acids, ibid., 1884-85, 6, 157-165. Agricultural Statistics, 1990, U.S. Government Printing 14. Catalogue, 1883-84, Louisville School of Pharmacy for Office, Washington, D.C., 1990). Women (Filson Club: Historical Society, Louisville, 24. Rachel Lloyd, "Experiments in the Culture of Sugar Beet Kentucky); 1885 Louisville City Directory (Caron's). in Nebraska," 1890 (I April), 1891 (15 April), 1892 (1 Hampton College was founded by Lydia D. Hampton, a March) (University of Nebraska archives). graduate of the New Jersey State Normal School, Tren- 25. She also offered direction in research projects, as did ton, New Jersey, who was a fellow student of Lloyd's at Nicholson. Harvard in the summer of 1880 (see John William 26. For example, in Nicholson's Department Report for the Leonard, Ed., Woman's Who's Who of America, 1914- year ending 7 June 1893, Lloyd is listed as teaching 1915, The American Commonwealth Co., New York, eighty-eight students in Chemistry I and III during the 1914, p. 210, entry for Lydia Hampton Cowling). first semester, and seventy-nine in Chemistry II and IV 15. Lloyd's dissertation research on the conversion of phenols during the second. The only classes larger than hers were to amines appeared in Ber. Dtsch. Chem. Ges., 1887, 20, those in the preparatory division (Board of Regents Pa- 1254-1265 ("Ueber die Umwandlung höherer pers, 1893, University of Nebraska archives). Homologen des Benzolphenols in primäre and secundäre 27. Sombrero [University of Nebraska Year Book], 1892, p. Amine"). 165,169. The Scientific Club, organized in 1890, had no 16. See Ann T. Tarbell and D. Stanley Tarbell, "Dr. Rachel fewer than ninety-seven members by 1892. Lloyd (1839-1900): American Chemist," J. Chem. Educ., 28. See the membership lists in the Journal of the American 1982, 59, 743-744; reference 2, p. 140; Glenda Peterson, Chemical Society, Proceedings, for 1891 to 1910. As well "Rachel Lloyd made Beet Crop Success," Sunday Jour- as Lloyd and Bouton, Nebraska women chemists active nal and Star, Lincoln, 1982,24 October. in the local section included Mary Louise Fossler (B.S., 17. Robert Platt Crawford, "These Fifty Years" (Circular 26 1894, A.M., 1898), Mariel Gere (B.S., 1895,A.M., 1899), of the Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Ne- Mariette Gray (B.S., 1895) and Rachel C rr (B.S., 1898, braska), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1925, p. A.M., 1906); they were followed a few years later by 24-25. Mabel Hartzell, Mildred Parks, and Mamie Short. 18. Harvey W. Wiley, chief chemist at the U.S. Department 29. Reference 2, p. 111-112. of Agriculture from 1874 until 1913, strongly supported 30. Charlotte Roberts (Yale, 1894) and Fanny Hitchcock efforts to introduce the sugar beets into the United States, (University of Pennsylvania, 1894) were the first women making seed available and assisting in analytical work to receive doctorates in chemistry from American uni- as well (see "The Beet Sugar Story," United States Beet versities (see Walter Crosby Eells, "Earned Doctorates Sugar Association, Washington, D.C., 1959, p. 17). for Women in the Nineteenth Century," Bulletin, Ameri- 19. Methods for sugar analysis were already fairly standard- can Association of University Professors, 1956,42, No. ized by the 1880's. The procedure which Lloyd most 33,644-651. likely would have followed was outlined by Tarbell and 31. Lloyd's warm friendship with Nicholson, eleven years Tarbell (reference I6): a sample of finely divided, well- her junior, and his wife Jennie is made clear by the fact mixed beet pulp was digested with aqueous lead acetate that the Nicholsons named their third child Rachel Lloyd. solution, the resulting mixture filtered, and the optical 32. Lloyd's appointment to the Nebraska faculty was prob- activity of the filtrate, a measure of the sucrose content, ably early enough to avoid the full impact of the general determined by polarimetry. Reducing sugar content reaction to the perceived threat of "feminization" of the
r 14 Bull. Hist. Chem. 17/18 (1995)
sciences, a reaction which set in during the 1880s and 34. A number of American women scientists took doctoral 1890s (see Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in degrees in Germany and Switzerland in the 1890's, but America. Struggles and Strategies to 1940, The Johns except for the botanist Émily L. Gregory (later of Barnard Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, I982, Introduction, College), who received a PhD. from the University of p. xvii). Two other women chemists, Rosa Bouton and Zürich in 1886, Lloyd would appear to have been the Mary Fossler, followed Lloyd on the early Nebraska fac- first American woman scientist (excluding physicians) ulty. Bouton, however, after seven years of teaching in to take a European doctorate. the chemistry department (1891-98), was asked to take 35. Richards was instructor of sanitary chemistry at MIT from on the task of establishing the university's School of about 1883 until her death in 1911. Home Economics; Mary Fossler became an instructor in the chemistry department in 1899 and was promoted to assistant professor of chemistry and associate professor ABOUT THE AUTHORS of physiological chemistry nine years later. She held these positions until she moved to the University of Southern M r . S. Cr , h t, n A t t th ll California in 1919. Admittedly, both Bouton and Fossler C nt r f r th n t , nd h M. Cr had A.M. degrees rather than Ph.Ds., and although lack A t r f r f M th t , b th t th Un of a doctorate was not a major barrier for men (Nicholson v r t f K n , r n , KS 6604 . h r r had an A.M.) it probably spelled a greater disadvantage n n j nt pr j t n th h t r f n n th for women. 33. C. F. Mabery, "Professor Rachel Lloyd, Ph.D., Zürich," nt r n . J. Am. Chem. Soc., 0 ,2 ,84.
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