Today is International Women’s Day, and to celebrate here’s another edition in the Women in Chemistry History series. This graphic highlights another twelve women whose achievements in chemistry range from the discovery of the greenhouse effect and the production of wrinkle-free cotton fabrics to the invention of non-reflective glass.
The text of this graphic is reproduced below for screen readers.
Tappūtī-bēlat-ekalle (c. 1200 BCE)
Assyrian woman and perfume maker and one of the world’s first recorded chemists. Her name and her recipe for a perfume were found on a clay tablet in modern Iraq.
Claudine Picardet (1735-1820)
A French chemist and translator, she translated important works on chemistry and mineralogy from five different languages, often adding annotations.
Eunice Newton Foote (1819-1888)
The first scientist to describe the link between increased carbon dioxide levels and the warming of the atmosphere – the so-called greenhouse effect.
Chika Kuroda (1884-1968)
Japanese chemist who researched the structures of a range of natural pigments. She was the first woman in Japan to receive a Bachelor of Science degree.
Marjory Stephenson (1885-1948)
British biochemist who researched bacteria and their metabolism, later writing a key textbook on the subject. The first person to isolate an enzyme from a bacterial cell.
Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898-1979)
The first woman to earn a doctoral degree in Physics at Cambridge University, she invented non-reflective glass by covering glass with a soapy film of barium stearate.
Kamala Sohonie (1911-1998)
Battled prejudice to become the first Indian woman to receive a PhD in the sciences. Discovered cytochrome C, a key enzyme in plant, human and animal cells.
Frances Oldham Kelsey (1914-2015)
A pharmacologist who, as a reviewer for the US Food & Drug Administration, blocked approval for thalidomide in the US – a drug later found to cause birth defects.
Ruth R. Benerito (1916-2013)
Chemist who invented wrinkle-free cotton fabric while working in the textile industry. She later added other properties to cotton including stain and fire resistance.
Margaret Melhase Fuchs (1919-2006)
Co-discoverer of the isotope caesium-137 in 1941. She was refused entry to graduate studies at Berkeley due to being a woman and later left her science career.
Mildred Rebstock (1919-2011)
Pharmaceutical chemist who synthesised chloromycetin, an antibiotic used to treat Rocky Mountain fever and Typhoid fever. She also researched fertility drugs.
Gladys W. Royal (1926-2002)
Black biochemist who carried out research with her husband on bone marrow transplants to treat radiation overdoses. Later worked on flavour chemistry.
See the previous editions in this series below:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
To see some examples of contemporary women in chemistry, take a look at the series of over 150 women in chemistry cards I made a few years ago.
