Women in Chemistry

Women in Chemistry Her Lab in Your Life: Women in Chemistry is a new this message, the exhibit team concentrated on three exhibition that takes a fresh look at everyday life, related themes: women chemists have improved our revealing how chemical science and engineering help understanding of the physical world, they have shape it. Designed by the Chemical Heritage helped shape the material circumstances and popular Foundation (CHF)—a U.S.-based foundation—this culture of our everyday lives, and they have broken exhibition showcases women chemists who have new ground in the chemical professions and served as helped create our modern world and their historic role models for young women. contributions to science and technology. From the action of atoms to the substance of stars, these Choosing the Women and Their women have given us new visions of the material Story world and our place in it. The exhibition—traveling or online—was created especially for high school and Faced with the difficult task of choosing which impor- college students but designed to engage general tant and interesting women chemists to include, the audiences. exhibit team eventually selected 68 and created research files for each one. Such a large number is clear proof that the achievements of women chemists Her Lab in Your Life* are not isolated blips on a professional map. Many by Josh McIlvain who did not make it into the panel of the traveling exhibit have been included on the exhibit’s compan- HF’s newest traveling exhibit, Her Lab in Your ion Web site. Life: Women in Chemistry, focuses on the rich Some of the women highlighted in Her Lab in Your Chistory of women chemists by highlighting Life are still alive and active chemists. Also included some of their accomplishments from the Renaissance are some famous women in the history of chemistry, to the present. The exhibit’s purpose is to interest such as Marie Curie, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, and teenage women in the history of women chemists so Ellen Richards; their inclusion helps “ground” the rest that they will view a career in chemistry as a possi- of the experience, for theirs are among the few names bility. visitors will likely recognize. The exhibit discusses many professions, representing the prominence of We must show to the girls who are women chemists in several chemical fields and show- studying science in our schools that it has a very close relation to our everyday life.—Ellen H. Richards (1879) Why was this audience chosen? The words of Stephanie Burns (president and chief operating offi- cer of Dow Corning) in Chemical and Engineering News answer that question: “We know that young girls are interested in science during their early years in school, but by the time they get into high school, they lose interest. We have to put more emphasis into making science fun at the high-school level.” Thanks to the generous support of the Hach Scientific Foundation, Her Lab in Your Life was created to meet this challenge. The central message of Her Lab in Your Life is that women’s important contributions to chemistry have helped create the world we live in today. To promote *This article first appeared in Chemical Heritage, spring 2004 issue; reproduced with permission from the CHF. 8 CHEMISTRY International November-December 2004 ing visitors the variety of careers to which chemistry can lead. Her Lab in Your Life also points out that women chemists from many backgrounds have made important contributions to chemistry. Creating an exhibit on the history of women chemists that would engage a teenage audience pre- sented an exciting challenge. The exhibit would also need to travel, be durable, and yet have enough pres- ence to intrigue visitors to stop and spend time with it. How would the exhibit present the stories of Shannon Lucid, the NASA biochemist who set the American record (since broken) for most days in space; Susan Solomon, who helped determine the chemistry behind the ozone hole; Allene Rosalind Jeanes, who helped develop intravenous fluids and invent xanthan gum; and over 60 other chemists to a technologically sophisticated, media-savvy, and noto- riously fickle audience used to high-speed Internet The exhibit’s design took cues from today’s youth connections, iPods, factoids, and MTV? culture—the genres teenage women favor and the In an interview I conducted with Melissa Sherman, places they find familiar. Borrowing from graphic nov- global new business manager at DuPont, she els, the Medicine station uses comic-book art to tell explained how a college internship at 3M was her first the stories of Gertrude Elion creating drugs for exposure to “real world” applications of chemistry: “I leukemia, herpes, and meningitis; Dorothy Hodgkin became aware that chemistry was involved in the determining penicillin structure; and Chen Zhao help- plastic on your computer keyboard, the fibers in your ing develop protease inhibitors to fight AIDS. The carpet, the fibers in your clothing, the cosmetics you Style station features a mock cover of a fashion mag- wear on your face, the perfumes you use, the hair care azine showing a model wearing fashion accessories products you use, as well as the plastic on automo- and clothing that are then deconstructed to relate biles or the rubber on your tires.” The ubiquity of them to various women chemists who created them— chemistry and how it has shaped and continues to such as Hazel Bishop and her no-smear lipstick, and shape our everyday lives is what makes its history so Edith M. Flanigen and the synthetic emeralds she interesting. The exhibit team uses this ubiquity as the made (originally for masers). The Sanitation station is setting for the stories of women chemists. set in a restroom (the sinks side) and features Ellen Swallow Richards’ survey of Massachusetts’s water Shaping and Designing the Exhibit quality in the 1870s—work that led to the water-quality standards we take for granted today. First came the physical form of the exhibit. Displays In the Challenges station, set in a dorm room, Her would be captured on all four sides of freestanding, L- Lab in Your Life addresses the barriers that women shaped structures, six-and-a-half-feet tall. These Ls, of faced in education and the chemical professions, par- which there are four, can be configured in a variety of ticularly throughout the 20th century. These chal- ways to fit a variety of rooms. Since visitors could lenges—from outright discrimination to subtler forms approach the exhibit from any direction, the design of cultural discouragement—and the strides made in had to avoid making viewers follow a mandatory path breaking them down are placed in the context of the to grasp the exhibit’s ideas. Twelve different thematic broader story of the women’s rights movement. That stations were created to frame the stories of the context is relevant because despite all the prior women chemists: Life (biochemistry), Medicine (phar- accomplishments of women chemists, they did not maceuticals), Stuff (materials), Environment, have a legal basis for fighting discrimination until the Discovery, Style (Cosmetics and fashion), Food, Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The most telling Sanitation, Work (variety of careers), Knowledge artifacts of cultural sexism are two chemistry sets (education), Challenges, and Chips (semiconductors). from the early 1960s. “Chemistry Set for Boys,” CHEMISTRY International November-December 2004 9 Her Lab in Your Life The Exhibit Online he companion Web site to Her Lab in Your Life allows virtual Tvisitors from across the globe to “visit” the exhibition and to learn more about the ways women chemists have helped change the modern world. The site will eventually include teaching materials, expanded biographies, and links to additional Web resources. Online, the 12 themes are pre- sented independently, and from each of these sections, one can meet women who pioneered the disci- pline: standards in sanitation and public step. Here Elsa Reichmanis and Body Life is a chemical process, health. Go from here to test the Jennie Hwang will show you that and the human body a fascinating waters with Kathryn Hach-Darrow. small is powerful. Women chemists and complex chemical system. Here, Environment Protecting the like them have helped develop and you can take a breath of fresh air environment requires knowledge- advance the world of semiconduc- with Ruth Erica Benesch, walk in the especially knowledge of chemistry. tors. park with Judith P. Klinman, or feel While certain chemicals can damage Stuff Creating and/or improving the electricity with Jacqueline the environment, chemistry is everyday products is another thing Barton. required to identify the problems, that chemists do well. Check out the Medicines Chemistry is used to detect the pollutants, clean up the work of these women chemists who track down new treatments and mess, and prevent future problems. made high-tech fibers, wrinkle-free, manufacture cures. Meet here Go clean up the air with Kathleen C. stain- or flame-resistant fabrics, or women chemists who helped Taylor, and see how Diane Gates- even synthetic bones. develop and mass-produce life-sav- Anderson found chemical solutions Finally there is more in Universe ing drugs from penicillin to protease to chemical problems in managing Here, discovery is portrayed as a inhibitors. safe disposal of harmful pollutants. thrill that drives many women Health & Safety Sanitation Clean Food From the chemical analysis chemists in pursuit of their science; water, wholesome groceries, and needed to structure nutritional diets in Challenges where you can meet safe workplaces are often taken for for low-income families to the inven- the first women chemists who faced granted nowadays, but women tion of xanthan gum, women daunting professional and social chemists established many of the chemists have continually put food challenges, but whose desire and on the table.

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