Book Review - Writing for Their Lives: America’s Pioneering Female Science Journalists

 

Writing for Their Lives: America's
Pioneering Female Science Journalists
by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette
MIT Press, 2023.

Written from access to archives of memoranda and correspondences among the editors and journalists, this book is a case of special pleading. Every rejection is laid at the feet of the Science Service management, though the author also grants that the founders were egalitarian in their evaluation of writers and the works which they submitted for publication. In fact, Science Service stands out as evidence of a paradigm shift in western culture from tradition and privilege to merit and meritocracy. 

It is certainly true that even into the 21st century, men who hold power discriminate against women who do not. That is the definition of sexism. And it applies to racism, or any other “ism.” The problem is not prejudice but prejudice with power. At Science Service that prejudice never existed though it remained  very real (even rampant) in the wider world. 

Jane Stafford  was granted a special award for medical writing by the American Society for the Control of Cancer and correspondence across December 1937 and January 1938 reveals that she could not accept the award in person because women were not allowed to enter the Harvard Club. And the ASCC and Harvard were among many others that had no intention of changing their by-laws lest a roomful of men feel uncomfortable in the presence of a woman. (page vii-viii) 

“As novelist Josephine Tey’s fictional historian reminds us, ‘Truth isn’t in accounts but in account books.’ Hidden within the Science Service records at the Smithsonian Institution Archives were sufficient examples of ‘account books’ (budgets, financial reports, pay lists, rejection slips to stringers, carbon copies, memos, and handwritten notes in letter margins) to shed light on workplace interactions, the writing process, and reactions to success, rejection or criticism.” (WFTL, page xii)

It is easy for us to accept that such rooms should be more-or-less 50-50. I believe that because most women are smarter than most men, the populations of academic societies will be shifted toward the women, if not within this generation then by the end of this century. A century ago, that hypothesis would have been dismissed on metaphysical grounds: men are essentially different from women—different from each other in their Aristotelean essences. 

The question that Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette does not ask is why does not everyone else in the world see the same obvious truth that she does? In fact, at least one other person does: 

https://www.mpg.de/female-pioneers-of-science/caroline-herschel

'Caroline Herschel's legacy is undoubtedly lasting'

Astronomer Sherry Suyu from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics on comet-hunter Caroline Herschel, the first salaried female astronomer

[Q] Obviously, much has improved for women in science since the 18th Century. In your view and your experience, what do you regard as changes that have happened in terms of women in science?    

[A] The situation of course has improved in contrast to Caroline's time. In many areas, women and men now enjoy equal opportunities and there have been many positive changes. But there are still fewer women in STEM at higher levels – mainly I think because it is difficult to combine a professional career in science with having children. I think that employers should provide more support for women, so they can combine having a family with having a career. Scientists are evaluated by productivity. In that sense, when women start a family, their productivity is seen to decline as women who have families often take a break from their careers, hoping to return after a few years. But in reality, it's not that easy to continue with the same level of work productivity as before while rearing children. This means that in career terms, women still tend to be punished for having a family. Also, ironically, the time in women's lives when they want to have children and the time when they really want to work hard on their careers often coincides, when women are in their 30s. I think this should be reflected by family friendly initiatives in the workplace - women shouldn't have to choose between a family and a career.

https://www.mpg.de/frauen-in-der-forschung/caroline-herschel

https://www.mpg.de/female-pioneers-of-science/caroline-herschel

Das Gespräch führte Tanja Rahneberg Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

That program would allow women to work from home at the highest levels of management while men report to work to carry out the various tasks. Of course such generalizations must also acknowledge the Non-Binary Alphabet of Choices. Reconciling all of them equitably is a complex mathematical problem. However, if we only consider each person to be an individual, then the math is much easier. 

As for broad social change, during the late Middle Ages, English women who were shoemakers were called Shuster, bakers Baxter, brewers Brewster, and weavers Webster. It was a time of changes.

“The 1820s was the last decade in which no college for women existed. The first of its kind, Mount Holyoke, was founded not too far from Amherst in 1836. … Yet the very existence of Mount Holyoke (following a new array of academies providing high-school education for girls, and opening up posts for women teachers) must have shifted ideas for women’s futures.” (page 29) Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds by Lyndall Gordon, Viking, 2010.

Writers and their Beats Today

How much were the writers actually paid for their stories? How much did Science Service charge? We follow Hallie Hershberger in sales and advertising but never learn what the numbers were. There is very little mention of money, except as for example, Emma Reh in Mexico wrote to the home office for advances which were denied. Reh then sold her stories to other news outlets and even to other news reporters. LaFollette’s tone is that Emma Reh was not given everything that the author wants her to have had. I see Emma Reh as a very successful freelancer (“stringer” in journalism) who traveled to archaeological digs in Mexico and sold her reports. Ultimately, Emma Reh failed to deliver the book she promised. The economic problems at that time (the 1920s and 30s) were not hers alone. Failures happen and Reh accomplished much. 

“We were founded as an independent nonprofit in 1921 by newspaper magnate E.W. Scripps and zoologist W.E. Ritter, who wanted to improve the quality and accuracy of science journalism. We remain true to that mission today.” —  https://www.sciencenews.org/about-science-news (Accessed 6-June-2026.)

Science Service writer Gabriele Rabel reported from Germany from 1932 to 1938. LaFollette writes: “[Science Service editor, Frank] Thone expressed hope that ‘the financial sky will clear,’ but informed Rabel on March 6, 1933, that ‘in view of the monetary crisis which has suddenly developed in this country, it would be well if you did not send us any more manuscripts until further notice.” 

LaFollette seemed not to understand the Great Depression of the 1930s. The rolling bank failures began in Detroit on February 14, 1933. Michigan Governor William Comstock  declared a banking holiday. The proclamation had been signed at 1:00 AM, published, and delivered to bankers when they arrived for the start of the business day. Two weeks later, outgoing President  Herbert Hoover hesitated to declare a national bank holiday, so the newly-inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that on March 6, 1933. The flow of money in the United States stopped. 

They resumed eventually with many banks closed permanently and others reorganized and the dollar redefined from 1/20 of an ounce of gold to 1/32. Dollars were 60% smaller and there were more of them to go around. When LaFollette tallies payments made from 1928 though 1954 for 1 or 2 cents per word or $3 to $6 per article (p. 105-106) or editors paid $2600, $3640, $3900, or topped at $10,000 for the publisher 1927-1928 (p. 186) when dollars were much larger, the reader would have been helped with some standards of value against a market basket or comparable wages for clericals and college graduates. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

She’s Such a Geek!   

The Art of Finance 

The Madame Curie Complex 

The Science of Liberty 

The Legacy of Vannevar Bush (Part 3: Conclusion)

The response to Pres. Roosevelt’s request closes with Appendix 5: “Report to the Committee of Publication of Scientific Information.” It is short and to the point: except for considerations of military necessity, all scientific publications must return to their culture of sharing and openness. Appendix 4: “Report of the Committee on Discovery and Development of Scientific Talent” addressed the immediate shortage of scientists and projected that demand into the future. Moreover, science exists within a wider culture  so the committee insisted that nothing recommended here should interfere with the recruitment and development of talented people in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. 

“Table 8 shows that for every four able boys in the upper quarter, there were six able girls. Table 11 shows that the ratio of able boys to able girls in the upper quarter enrolled in college was 6 to 4.5. Thus, it is clear that the greatest social and personal loss of human resources comes in the ranks of able girls in the upper quarter” (Page 198) 

Persons who receive benefits under the plan should be selected solely on the basis of merit, without regard to sex, race, color, or creed. -- Page 170.

“Likewise proposals for recruiting more college students into the physical and biological sciences and enlisting more graduate students for training in research in the physical and biological sciences should be viewed in the light of the over-all needs of the country and of the requirements in other fields of research and in the several professions. If too many of the limited number of high quality students are absorbed by fields of scientific research, research in the social sciences and in the arts and humanities may be jeopardized with probably unfavorable reactions upon scientific research.”  — Page 204

“As said in the general preamble to this report, we think that plans for the discovery and development of scientific talent should have a limit related to the needs of the Nation as a whole for trained talent in all activities that are necessary for the national welfare. We think, also as stated, that while we have no fears that too much top ability can be found and developed there is some danger that too many scientists of less than top ability may be trained, thereby debasing the currency of scientific training to the point where scientific careers may not look attractive either to the best or to the second best.”  — page 168

“The findings of this study, in harmony with the findings of other studies, show that approximately as many of the ablest high school graduates are out of college as are in college. 

“On the basis of the sample (of 1,754 cases), the upper quarter of the State’s 16,000 high school graduates would contain a minimum of 4,000 of the ablest individuals, the type of students who really do well in college. Forty-nine percent of 4,000 is 1,960 individuals with high potential college ability, who for some reason or reasons, did not enroll in college. From the point of view of the colleges, as well as of the individuals and of society, the loss in human resources indicated in these data is highly significant.”  Page 197-198

[Citations above are from —“The Utilization of Potential College Ability Found in June 1940, Graduates of Kentucky High Schools,” by Horace Leonard Davis. Bulletin of the Bureau of School Service, College of Education, University of Kentucky. Vol. XV. No. 1. Sept. 1942. — given on page 198]

Total probable deficit due to war 1941 through 1955. Chemistry, Engineering, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, and Biological Sciences: 16,870.

“… it takes at least 6 years from college entry to achieve a doctor’s degree or its equivalent in science or engineering.”— page 3, and the fact is repeated on 27, 156, 166, 177-9, and 182.

"No matter how capable and gifted boys and girls may be, if they do not have opportunities to complete elementary and high school, they cannot go on to college and thence to graduate school for research training." -- Page 192 

“All economic groups, except the highest salaried group, are represented in the highest one percentile class.” — (Page 198)

“Brightest seniors are not going to college." (Page 199)

An Indiana study published in 1922 showed:

If we compare the records made on our tests by the group of seniors representing the richest and the poorest homes, we find that there are proportionally more children possessing the highest grades of mental ability among the poorest class than among the wealthiest class, and more individuals with high average grades of intelligence among the wealthier than among the poorer group. The wealthiest group ranks high on central tendency. The poorest salaried group ranks low on central tendency and also has a larger percentage of individuals possessing the lower grades of mental ability.

But there are individuals in this class who obtain the highest intelligence rating made by high school seniors. * * * (Page 161) 

"It is still more significant that so many of this most superior group of high-school seniors will not attend college, while those with the most inferior grades of intelligence are planning to attend, in ever increasing numbers. Twenty-five percent of the brightest seniors found in the entire State said they were not planning to attend college at all, while 65 to 70 percent of the dullest seniors had definitely decided to go to college, most of them having already selected the college they expected to attend."

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARYFACTS

The Legacy of Vannevar Bush (Part 1) 

Vannevar Bush’s Legacy Part 2) 

The Scientific Method (2016) 

The Scientific Method (2021) 

Nominating Maria Mitchell

Call for Recommendations: Prominent American Women and the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020

Thank you for your recommendation. If you have questions, please contact the National Women's History Museum here: https://www.womenshistory.org/about-us/contac

Name of the woman you are recommending for consideration: Maria Mitchell

The woman's year of birth, if known: 1818

 

The woman's year of death: 1889

 

Please list the field(s) most commonly associated with the woman you are recommending (sports, science, politics, etc.): science, astronomy, education

 

Briefly state why the woman you're recommending should be considered for inclusion in this project.

Maria Mitchell was the first American women to be internationally recognized as an astronomer. On the night of 1 October 1847, she was the first person to identify a new comet by using a telescope. Mostly self-educated, she later was appointed the first professor of astronomy at Vassar College. She took her students to expeditions to Iowa (1869) and Colorado (1878) to observe and record solar eclipses. Twenty-five of her students were listed in "Who's Who in America." 

 

Optional: Please provide a link to any supporting material about the woman you are recommending (bio, news article, etc.).

The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers by Thomas A Hockey; Virginia Trimble; Katherine Bracher; New York : Springer, ©2007.  

"America’s First Woman Astronomer: Maria Mitchell (1818-1889)" by Jascin N. Leonardo Finger, This Month in Astronomical History (18 September 2020), The American Astronomical Society. https://aas.org/posts/news/2020/09/month-astronomical-history-august-2020. 

Hoffleit, Dorrit. 1983. "Maria Mitchell's Famous Students - In celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Maria Mitchell Observatory." Cambridge, Massachusetts: American Association of Variable Star Observers. 

And, of course, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Mitchell

  

Optional: Your Name - Michael E. Marotta

 

Optional: Your email address (used if we need further information and/or to provide updates about the project from the National Women's History Museum). - mike49mercury@gmail.com

 

<Submit>

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Maria Mitchell Quarter Dollar Circulating Commemorative

Unforgotten Sisters: Early History of Woman Astronomers 

The Madam Curie Complex

Ma Kiley: Railroad Telegrapher 

Females and Women

MARIA MITCHELL QUARTER DOLLAR CIRCULATING COMMEMORATIVE

Maria Mitchell deserves to be honored on the newest series of U.S. circulating commemorative quarter dollars, 2022-2025. She was the first American woman to be a professional astronomer, and one of the first American astronomers acknowledged by both European and American academic communities. An informally educated autodidact, she became the first professor of astronomy at Vassar. The spotlight of fame fell on her when she was the first person in history to discover a comet using a telescope. The year was 1847. She was 29 years old. For her work, she won the gold medal offered by the King of Denmark. 

Her name is pronounced “ma-RYE-ah” (like the wind in Paint Your Wagon). Born on August 1, 1818, she was raised on Nantucket where her father was a naturalist and banker. Her parents, William and Lydia (Coleman) Mitchell, were Quakers and her commitment to social equality was aligned to their faith. Largely self-taught, she attended classes at local schools, one of them run by her father. She studied mathematics (of course) and also learned astronomy, surveying, and navigation. One of her father’s occupations was setting the chronometers of whalers and other ships that harbored at Nantucket, and she did the work when he was away on the mainland, often at Harvard College.[1]

Annie J. Cannon
commemorative 
dollar coin 2019

 When she was 12, she and her father calculated an exact position of their home by measuring the Great Solar Eclipse of February 12, 1831. Two years later, she was setting chronometers for ship captains. When her father won a contract to work for the US Coast Survey, she accompanied him. 

 

Mitchell owned a Dollond-style achromatic ship’s telescope (3-inch aperture; 46-inch focal length).[2] In 1847, the family lived in the Pacific Bank Building on Main Street in Nantucket because her father was the head cashier there. She observed from the roof. On October 1, she saw a faint star that was new to her; and she soon verified that it was not listed in the tables and charts. Tracking it, she determined that it was a comet publishing her calculations of its orbit in Silliman’s Journal of Yale (later known as the American Journal of Science). That helped to secure her claim to primacy of discovery and the winning of the gold medal.[3] 

 

Email to the Board of the American Astronomical Society
recommending the Maria Mitchell Quarter.
(As with several others to astronomy leaderships, no replies have come.)

Later, she moved briefly to Boston and computed the orbit of Venus for the US Nautical Almanac [1]. She served as the librarian of the Boston Athenaeum and then toured Europe on her own, meeting with John Herschel, George Biddle Airy, and other astronomers. She returned to the States, and in 1865 she was appointed professor of astronomy at Vassar College, which, ironically enough paid her less than other professors, though not for her lack a university degree. She took her students to observations of the transit of Venus and solar eclipses (1869, 1878, and others) in Nebraska and Colorado. 

20 Prominent American Women To Be Honored On US 2022-2025 Quarters

Public Law No: 116-330 (01/13/2021 here 

at https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1923/text.

The Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020

“(C) SINGLE PROMINENT AMERICAN WOMAN ON EACH QUARTER DOLLAR.—The design on the reverse side of each quarter dollar issued under this subsection shall be emblematic of the accomplishments and contributions of one prominent woman of the United States, and may include contributions to the United States in a wide spectrum of accomplishments ...

Nominations for women to be honored on the new series of coins are being curated in part by the Smithsonian Women’s History Initiative (https://womenshistory.si.edu and WomensHistory@si.edu).

 

Notes 

[1] The Maria Mitchell Foundation biography here: https://www.mariamitchell.org/about-maria-mitchell

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Mitchell (of course; but follow the footnotes)

[3] “Maria Mitchell at 200: a pioneering astronomer who fought for women in science, “ Richard Holmes, Nature, 26 June 2018, here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05458-6. 

Other Resources
“A Woman in Eclipse: Maria Mitchell and the Great Solar Expedition of 1878,” by David Barron, here: https://undark.org/2017/08/17/wilo-maria-mitchell-astronomer-eclipse/
“This Month in Astronomical History: Maria Mitchell,” History of Astronomy Division, American Astronomical Society, here:
https://aas.org/posts/news/2020/09/month-astronomical-history-august-2020

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

She’s Such a Geek! 

Females and Women 

Bringing Philosophy to Athens: Aspasia of Miletus 

Hypatia of Alexandria 

The Madame Curie Complex 

 

Unforgotten Sisters: Early History of Women Astronomers

Most readers will recognize Hypatia of Alexandria and Hildegard von Bingen. However, En-Hedu-Anna of Babylon, Theano the Pythagorean, and Wang Zhenyi of 18^th century China will likely be among the many newly met. Sophie Brahe and Elizabetha Hevelius will be known for their family names, though in our common histories, they have been eclipsed by the men in their lives. It remains true that their own accomplishments shine apart. That is also true of Caroline Herschel. It depends on who writes the histories and how diligently the reader follows the threads of fact. 

 

A previous version of this article appeared in the April 2020 issue of Sidereal Times of the Austin Astronomical Society. It is available here: http://austinastro.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/ST%20Archive/ST202004.pdf

The Unforgotten Sisters: 
Female Astronomers and Scientists 
Before Caroline Herschel 
by Gabriella Bernardi 
(Springer Praxis, 2016, 179 pages). 

Contrary to the title, Caroline Herschel herself is among the 25 astronomers whose lives are outlined. Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville were both inducted as honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1836. Thus, Somerville (1780-1872), who also is chronicled here, was a younger contemporary rather than living “before” Herschel (1750 to 1848). Even so, here are 25 women who worked in astronomy before the modern era. Each chapter includes a summary of achievements, commentaries about the woman and her work from her own society, and some “curious facts” about them. 

 

The author puts forward Christine Kirch as the first woman to be a professional astronomer. Starting in 1776, she was paid 400 thalers a year by the Berlin Academy of Prussia. Christine Kirch was the daughter of Gottried Kirch and Maria-Margaretha Winkelmann-Kirch. Winkelmann-Kirch has her own entry. She worked and socialized among astronomers, including Christoph Arnold Sommerfeld, before meeting Gottfried Kirch. She was his third wife and 30 years his junior. Their children were raised in the family business. Following the death of her husband, Winkelmann-Kirch was offered a post in Saint Petersburg after showing sunspots and other phenomena to the Tsar, but she refused because her son, Christfried, accepted a post at the Berlin Observatory. She died three years later. 

 

According to the publisher’s website, the title of the book is a turn on a line from a poem by Siv Cedering. The poem is an imaginary letter from Caroline Herschel; and you can find it on the Space Telescope Science Institute website under the tab for “STScI Research” which will take you to their Caroline Herschel Visitor Program. The program brings scientists to “act as mentors to junior scientists at the institute, especially women and other underrepresented groups.” I found the website to have been newly rebuilt. 

The URL http://www.stsci.edu/institute/smo/visitor-programs/caroline-herschel/poem

is more direct. 

The poem begins: 

“William is away, and I am minding
the heavens. I have discovered
eight new comets and three nebulae
never before seen by man…”

 

This book is a good a resource. Knowing for whom to search, the histories can follow more easily. However, it is replete with small problems in grammar, style, and typography. In one subhead the “Curious Facts” are “Curios.” Other subheads appear as “Curiosity” without actually showing this to be an attribute of the astronomer herself. Writing about the sisters Christine Kirch and Margarethe Kirch, Bernardi calls Christine the eldest of the two. Clearly, English was not the author’s first language; and the editors at Springer let a lot go by. 

 

For modern history, probably the best portal is the Astrophysical Data System of the Harvard at https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu. There are archived citations and full text of journal articles and internal reports by Williamina Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon, and many less generally known.

 

PREVIOULSY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

The Scientific Method 

Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins 

Meteorites 

When Old Technologies Were New 

 

When Worlds Collide

Over the course of a couple of weeks, I watched the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn while reading about Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta approaching Earth. 

Good science fiction depends on good science. The narrative starts out strong. By the climax, I was less sanguine about the empirical evidence and theoretical explanations. All of the characters are men, except the daughter of the physicist; and she is named Eve. The hero, Ivy League athlete Tony Drake, came before Ivy League athlete Flash Gordon (1935). Pluto had been discovered in 1930. So, the fact that unknown planets exist beyond our system was common news. What if one entered our solar system? What if we knew that it would destroy the Earth? 

Paperback Library Edition
1962-1970
J. B. Lippincott 1932

The world of 1932 is not unfamiliar, though some of the cultural norms were best left in the past. It was interesting to discover that atomic power and space travel were presented as attainable. The scientists who have formed the League of Last Days hide their activities with phony press releases about making progress smashing the atom. (Ultimately, the scientists do develop a fission engine to power their spaceship.) According to Eve Hendron: “We could send a rocket to the moon to-day if it would do any good, if anyone could possibly live on the moon when he got there.” Whatever its flaws this book may have created the disaster genre. Certainly, it was echoed in Lucifer’s Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven (1977). 

 

Eve Hendron is presented as a computer. She performs calculations, reducing the data from photographic plates for her father, industrial physicist Dr. Cole Hendron. To me, that indicates that the work of the women computers at the Harvard Observatory was known to the common culture. She explains to Tony that with three observations, an orbit can be plotted, adding that they have hundreds of determinations and know much about the planets. After all, she continued, “Tony, you remember how precise the forecast was in the last eclipse that darkened New England. The astronomers not only foretold to a second when it would begin and end, but they described the blocks and even the sides of streets in towns that would be in shadow. And their error was less than twenty feet.” 

 

From that scene the book tracks another theme, the religious implications of the complete destruction of the world by one planet coupled with the chance for rescue (if not salvation) by flying to another planet. The characters, especially Tony Drake, often speak reflectively (though inconclusively) about the theological impact of doomsday. The chances of this event happening were astronomically against it. The planets had to have to passed close enough and at the right velocities to be captured by the Sun and then not merely fall into solar orbits but strike the Earth. Moreover, when Bronson Alpha obliterates our planet, it gains enough velocity to leave the system, which I found difficult to accept because of the energy considerations. But that’s how miracles work: if you could understand them, they would be mundane, not be miracles.

 

Also miraculous was the release from the Earth’s mantle of a metal that could withstand the forces of atomic energy. The want of such a metal destroyed the French spaceship which fell back to Earth when its engines melted. The Americans believe that they alone survived in two ships. Part Two, After Worlds Collide, is an epic conflict against the communists and fascists who also succeeded to Bronson Beta. It is a brave new world on several levels. As in Huxley’s myth (also 1932), the scientists here decide that monogamy is counterproductive. With their small gene pool of 100 to 200 survivors, they decide early on to make serial mating mandatory.  

1951: George Pal Productions

I believe that the collapse of the world and its regeneration along radical lines was a result the Great War that destroyed the 19^th century. Optimism was dead. I have on my shelf a find from a library sale, The Marvelous Record of the Closing Century by Charles Morris, 1899, American Book and Bible House, Philadelphia. I can hear its tone in contemporaneous works on more focused topics by William Graham Sumner, James Ford Rhodes, Charles Beard, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Today, it is derided as “the Whig theory of history” that social evolution is social progress toward liberalism, democracy, and globalism, of trade and commerce replacing war and conquest. For me the hallmark of that is The Romance of Commerce by H. Gordon Selfridge, 1918, John Lane the Bodley Head, London. 

 

The wars of the 20^th century may be ending. We thought they were over when communism fell. In 1990, we underestimated the God that did not fail, the actual religionists, the Muslims, Hindus, and Christians who refuse to enter the brave new world. The return (and eventual exit) of 21^st century new nationalists—Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Viktor Orban, among too many others—was predicted in another science fiction work, Islands in the Net (1988) by Bruce Sterling. 

 

I had a hard time finding this book. My city library no longer shelves it. One ABE Books seller cancelled an order. You can tell from the cover art that this was a late 1960s paperback reprint. I read it pretty hard, making a lot margin notes and tags to longer notes in the front. I found a lot here to enjoy, consider, and reflect on.

 

Paragraphs of narrative have the conspiracy of scientists planning the biology and ecology of their next home. The sociology of science is a continuing thread. It was also telling that in 1932, the wealthy had not been affected by the crash of 1929. What we now call The Great Depression actually had not yet begun—and I have other facts to support that claim. They even mention in passing the relative value of gold versus common stocks during times of panic. Market panics pass. This one did not.

 

Previously on Necessary Facts

Forbidden Planet 

Firefly: Fact and Value Aboard “Serenity” 

Star Trek: Discovery and the Conflict of Values 

Armadillocon 41 

 

The Madame Curie Complex

I relied on this book for facts about the women computers at the Harvard Observatory in the late 19^thto mid-20^th centuries. (That article was for the Sidereal Times newsletter of the Austin Astronomical Society here see p. 6-7. ) Despite the helpful inventories of names and thumbnail biographies about women in astronomy at Harvard and physics at Los Alamos, this book is largely what the author denies that it is: a victimology. And it is true that women have been victims of discrimination. Who has not? 

Not one of the professors who gave me the A grades that resulted in my summa cum laude baccalaureate would write a letter of recommendation for me for graduate school. They did not like my political views. As it was, I slipped in by taking a blended 500/400 class which put me in the graduate school while I was a senior. So, my MA in social science and BS in criminology are from the same alma mater, Eastern Michigan University.

The Madame Curie Complex:
The Hidden History of Women in Science
Feminist Press, 2001.

Des Jardins opens the book by telling of her failure to overcome math anxiety, even though she had been an arithmetic prodigy as a child. She opted out of calculus class in high school and never even considered majoring in biology in college, despite having an obvious passion for science. I understand. I should not have taken calculus and physics, but I did, for C+ grades in high school. In college, I failed Calculus I. I just took it over for a C+. Then, I earned an A in a short course in computer programming for calculus. I took freshman physics three times (at three different schools) until I got an A in it. I liked physics. It was just hard to do. So, I have no sympathy for Julie Des Jardins. I do respect her reporting—most of it.

Des Jardins never identifies the Madame Curie Complex. She does write around it. From that, her definition of the problem is that women are at once required to approach science as men would – cold, dispassionate, detached, working long hours—and yet are forced to accept their cultural roles as wives and mothers, keeping the home running for her husband and their children.  Moreover, women are expected to be passive in social settings, allowing administrators and peers and sometimes subordinates to exploit them. I would never argue against so obvious  a truth. 

I would put it in context. In Nelly Hanna's biography of Isma'il Abu Taqiyya, Making Big Money in 1600 (American University of Cairo Press, 1998) she tells of a Bosnian slave woman, living in Cairo, who sued in court three men who attempted to cut her out of a deal she brokered for her master. Hanna points out that no noble woman in London or Paris of 1600 could be a plaintiff in a court of law. It is not that women today would be better off under Islamic law. The salient fact is that by 1800, in the wake of the Enlightenment, the status of women in the industrialized nations was changing. In fact, everyone’s status was changing. Capitalism brought equality of opportunity.

She cites the opinions of Kant, Rousseau, Newton, Descartes, and Locke who claimed that women naturally lack the rational disinterest required of science. On the other hand, Herbert Spencer argued otherwise. But Spencer is disliked by academics. Some sociologists cite his later opinions after his intellectual prime, but they do so just to underscore the inherent injustice of capitalism. 

 

"... transgess the domestic sphere..."

The book is spiced throughout with the buzzwords of postmodernism. Des Jardins apparently failed to see the humor. Even as I agree about the social problems cited in Thomas Kuhn’s history of science, I would never “transgress the boundaries” of anything, nor "give voice" to "nuance"; and I would not "privilege" [as a verb] a sociological "space." Calling the book a hidden history is another postmodernist strategy. Hidden by whom? Hidden from whom? And how was it so easy to uncover? Of necessity, the book is about some women in some science occupations. Des Jardin chose her narratives.

 

"... transgress the bounderies of female behavior..."

Des Jardins contrasts the stories of women torn between the male roles of physical science (often as underpaid helpers) and their social roles as wives and mothers with the narratives of Jane Goodall, Biruté Galdikas, and Diane Fossey who left traditional family and home life far behind to take on grueling, debilitating, dangerous work in isolation. Moreover, the “Trimates” owed their opportunities to Richard Leakey, a man who loved women. Perhaps he loved them in the collective abstract. He seemed to have loved several of them in the particular concrete. In any case, Leakey receives praise here pointedly not granted to Edward Pickering of the Harvard Observatory. Beginning in 1879, Pickering created jobs for women, some of whom published in peer reviewed journals. 

Explaining the works of the “Trimates” Des Jardin readily accepts the innocence of the apes. She does not identify the fact that they can be duplicitous. Deception may be an inborn strategy. Certainly, some apes give evidence of purposeful misdirection. Des Jardin does not follow that path. 

Des Jardin never states her premise. She never says clearly what she thinks the ideal social situation would be. Des Jardin apparently believes that a woman should not have children. Or if she does, someone else should raise them. She also seems to believe that if a woman chooses to raise her own children, she should be employed for wages and be promoted in salary whether or not she actually shows up in the laboratory or office. 

Des Jardin also does not identify what female traits she considers genetic, cultural, or chosen. Throughout, she calls women's work intuitive and collaborative. Echoing Evelyn Keller's biography of Barbara McClintock, women have a “feeling for the organism” even if the organism is a stellar nebula or an atomic nucleus. For her, it is unfair that women are forced to practice science in a dispassionate, objective, and, she insists, therefore manly mode. 

Des Jardin makes much of McClintock's seeming sexlessness. The same lack of physicality hallmarked Sir Isaac Newton, of course, but also other men. (See The Man Who Loved Only Numbers reviewed here.) Maybe she did not know about those men, or maybe she did not care, or maybe (I believe) those data contradicted her theory.

She does praise Richard Leakey for taking over household duties so that his wife could write and publish. I agree that marriage is the kind of relationship where 50-50 is the failure mode because both partners need to give 100%. I never expected either wife (serially, not in parallel; please) to be the downstairs staff. Through the ‘eighties and into the ‘nineties, I was Mr. Mom. “He washes dishes. He washes clothes. He’s so ambitious, he even sews. But no regrets, folks. That’s what he gets, folks, for making whoopee.”  That song was written in 1928. The times they were a-changin’ …

I heard Isaac Asimov speak at MIT on my spring break from the College of Charleston, March 21, 1968, on “The Coming Disappearance of Women.” He said that he could have called it “The Coming Disappearance of Men” but likely no one would have been interested enough to show up. When he called the typewriter a great liberator, he was  booed. The women who were displeased did not want to be kept down as secretaries. And he agreed. But he pointed out that office work requires few muscles and a lot of brains. Women would seem to have an advantage.

Des Jardin does not appreciate the fact that while the women of the Harvard Observatory worked in their offices and sometimes from their own homes, the men were on frozen mountaintops. Someone had to take those astronomical photographs. Men are just natural born hearty and hale hunters. Send them. No one then cared about the inequality of sex roles when the men’s nuts were freezing. Today, of course, arctic gear comes in all shapes and sizes. So, everyone gets to go. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Sokal Affair

Reflections on the Sokal Affair

The Big Whimper of Modern Philosophy

She’s Such a Geek!

You Only Have to be Better to be Equal