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.

This survey of female scientists in recent American history “offers compelling data alongside the multiple stories of individual women” (Science). The third volume of Margaret W. Rossiter’s landmark survey of the history of American women scientists focuses on their pioneering efforts and contributions from 1972 to the present. Central to this story are the struggles and successes of women scientists in the era of affirmative action. Scores of previously isolated women scientists were suddenly energized to do things they had rarely, if ever, done before—form organizations and recruit new members, start rosters and projects, put out newsletters, confront authorities, and even fight (and win) lawsuits. Rossiter follows the major activities of these groups in several fields—from engineering to the physical, biological, and social sciences—and their campaigns to raise consciousness, see legislation enforced, lobby for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and serve as watchdogs of the media. This comprehensive volume also covers the changing employment circumstances in the federal government, academia, industry, and the nonprofit sector and discusses contemporary battles to increase the number of women members of the National Academy of Science and women presidents of scientific societies. In writing this book, Rossiter mined nearly one hundred previously unexamined archival collections and more than fifty oral histories. With the thoroughness and resourcefulness that characterize the earlier volumes, she recounts the rich history of the courageous and resolute women determined to realize their scientific ambitions.

Biographical information includes women in the fields of anatomy, astronautics and space science, anthropology, biochemistry, biology, botany, chemistry, geology, marine biology, mathematics, medicine, nutrition, pharmacology, psychology, physics, and zoology.

The third volume of Margaret W. Rossiter’s landmark survey of the history of American women scientists focuses on their pioneering efforts and contributions from 1972 to the present. Central to this story are the struggles and successes of women scientists in the era of affirmative action. Scores of previously isolated women scientists were suddenly energized to do things they had rarely, if ever, done before—form organizations and recruit new members, start rosters and projects, put out newsletters, confront authorities, and even fight (and win) lawsuits. Rossiter follows the major activities of these groups in several fields—from engineering to the physical, biological, and social sciences—and their campaigns to raise consciousness, see legislation enforced, lobby for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and serve as watchdogs of the media. This comprehensive volume also covers the changing employment circumstances in the federal government, academia, industry, and the nonprofit sector and discusses contemporary battles to increase the number of women members of the National Academy of Science and women presidents of scientific societies. In writing this book, Rossiter mined nearly one hundred previously unexamined archival collections and more than fifty oral histories. With the thoroughness and resourcefulness that characterize the earlier volumes, she recounts the rich history of the courageous and resolute women determined to realize their scientific ambitions.

Author Diann Jordan took a journey to find out what inspired and daunted black women in their desire to become scientists in America. Letting 18 prominent black women scientists talk for themselves, Sisters in Science becomes an oral history stretching across decades and disciplines and desires. From Yvonne Clark, the first black woman to be awarded a B.S. in mechanical engineering to Georgia Dunston, a microbiologist who is researching the genetic code for her race, to Shirley Jackson, whose aspiration led to the presidency of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jordan has created a significant record of women who persevered to become firsts in many of their fields. It all began for Jordan when she was asked to give a presentation on black women scientists. She found little information and little help. After almost nine years of work, the stories of black women scientists can finally be told.

Women of Science is a collection of essays dealing with contributions women have made to various scientific disciplines, written by women scientists in those disciplines. The areas covered are: astronomy, archaeology, biology, chemistry, crystallography, engineering, geology, mathematics, medicine, and physics. The women who have written these essays are, for the most part, not professional historians, but rather scientific professionals who felt the necessity of researching the contributions women have made to the devlopment of their fields. The essays are unique, not only because they recover lost women who made significant contributions to their disciplines, but also because they are written with a depth of understanding that only a scientist working in a specific area can have. The essays will be of interest not only to students (especially women students) of science who may be unaware of the many contributions women have made, but also to readers of the history of science whoses texts more often than not fail to include the work of most women scientists.

In 2007, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Promise of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, an influential study suggesting that women face a hostile environment in the laboratory. The NAS report dismissed the possibi...