The Remarkable Life and Career of Ellen Swallow Richards - Pioneer in Science and Technology (Electronic book text, 1st edition)

This biography highlights the achievements of America's first professional degreed female scientist, Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911). The book takes the reader from Richards's childhood on a Massachusetts farm where she was schooled at home, to her internationally renowned successes in multiple branches of science. Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) was a member of Vassar College's first graduating class (1870), completing her degree in two years. She was the first woman to enter M.I.T. and was initially considered "an experiment." Her capabilities quickly became clear, as she pioneered in multiple areas of science. Her research in the field of water studies led to the country's first pure water quality standards and first modern sewage treatment plant. She is also responsible for developing the Normal Chlorine Map, the first map of water pollution in the UnitedStates. Ellen was the first woman elected into the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical and later established the first women's science laboratory and taught MIT's first biology classes. While teaching marine biology on Cape Cod, she co-founded what was later to become the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. Ellen's food testing resulted in the discovery of countless adulterations and contaminations and led to the first food and drug acts. She opened the first health food restaurants. Following that, she began the first public school lunch program through which all the high school students in Boston were fed. MIT would not allow Ellen to earn a doctoral degree; the common belief is that the school did not want its first doctorate to be awarded to a woman, who would then outrank the majority of the male faculty. Though disappointed, Ellen continued to teach at MIT, and she remained there until her death. With one of her former students, Ellen co-founded The American Association of University Women. Ellen introduced the public to the terms "ecology" and "euthenics," both fields of science stressing the necessity for learning to live in harmony with the environments in which we live and work.Ellen wrote a dozen books and co-authored several others. Although she was the only woman to teach at MIT during her lifetime, she opened doors for many other women. MIT reports that today women make up nearly half its student body and more than 200 faculty members are female.