WOMEN IN CHEMISTRY 



was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This was 

 on May 11, 1876, when the governing board of the institute 

 decided that * ' hereafter special students in chemistry shall 

 he admitted without regard to sex." In less than a year 

 after this event every department of this institution was 

 open to women, and any one who could pass the requisite 

 examination was admitted as a student. 



Five years, however, before women were formally ad- 

 mitted to the courses of chemistry an energetic young grad- 

 uate from Vassar, eager to devote her life to the pursuit of 

 science, had, as an exceptional favor, been allowed to enter 

 the Institute as a special student in chemistry. As she 

 was the first woman in the United States to enter a strictly 

 professional scientific school, her entrance marks the begin- 

 ning of a new epoch in the history of female education. 

 The name of this ardent votary of science was Miss Ellen 

 Swallow, better known to the world as Mrs. Ellen H. 

 Richards. 



Mrs. Richards had not devoted herself long to the study 

 of her favorite science before she resolved to apply the 

 knowledge thus gained to the problems of daily life. She 

 saw, among other things, the necessity of a complete re- 

 form in domestic economy, and resolutely set to work to 

 have her views adopted and put in practice. She was, in 

 consequence, one of the first leaders of the crusade in 

 behalf of pure food, and her lectures and books on this 

 all-important subject contributed greatly toward the dif- 

 fusion of exact knowledge respecting the dangers lurking 

 in unwholesome food. 



She was likewise one of the first to apply the science of 

 chemistry to an exhaustive study of the science of nutri- 

 tion to the study of food and the proper preparation of 

 food materials. In this she was eminently successful, and 

 was able to achieve for home economics what the illustrious 

 Liebig had many years before accomplished for agricul- 

 tural chemistry put it on a firm and lasting basis. To 



