Back to Results
Cover image of Women Scientists in America
Cover image of Women Scientists in America
Share this Title:

Women Scientists in America

Struggles and Strategies to 1940

Margaret W. Rossiter

Publication Date
Binding Type

Winner of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Prize

In volume one of this landmark study, focusing on developments up to 1940, Margaret Rossiter describes the activities and personalities of the numerous women scientists—astronomers, chemists, biologists, and psychologists—who overcame extraordinary obstacles to contribute to the growth of American science. This remarkable history recounts women's efforts to establish themselves as members of the scientific community and examines the forces that inhibited their active and visible participation in the sciences.

Reviews

Reviews

A splendid book... Rossiter's tone in recounting [the struggle of women scientists] is never strident. A clear enough case emerges from the sources that she skillfully weaves into a tapestry of social trends and individual experience.

Necessary reading for all who seek to understand the sexual politics of science today. It illuminates how gender has influenced the development of science in this country and how and why our cultural values have followed us into the laboratory.

Margaret Rossiter has given us a gripping, beautifully documented account of the struggles of early women scientists in America. It is a moving tribute to the efforts that paved the way for women scientists today.

A seminal work of rich scholarly detail... It is a splendid and totally satisfying feast, whetting the appetite for the next volume.

Margaret Rossiter is certainly not the first to notice sexism in science, but she has made a convincing case for its blatancy. Faced with her evidence, no one can doubt that sexism was an accepted federal policy and a powerful force in the scientific community.

See All Reviews
About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
464
ISBN
9780801825095
Illustration Description
18 b&w illus.
Author Bio
Featured Contributor

Margaret W. Rossiter

Margaret W. Rossiter is the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of the History of Science at Cornell University and former editor of Isis and Osiris. Her prize-winning books Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 and Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940–1972 are also published by Johns Hopkins. Professor Rossiter was a MacArthur Fellow from 1989 until 1994...