CityReads | 28 Women Who Changed Science and the World

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28 Women Who Changed Science and the World 

How these female scientists broke boundaries and made important discoveries.

Catherine Whitlock and Evans Rhodri, 2019. 10 women who changed science and the world, Diversion Books

Lily Xiao Hong Lee and A. D. Stefanowska, 2002. Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women The Twentieth Century 1912–2000, Routledge, 1 edition.

In 10 women who changed science and the world, this book celebrates the lives and hard-earned accomplishments of ten women from around the world who forever changed astronomy, physics, chemistry, medicine, and biology, from two-time Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie to physicist Chien-Shiung Wu and obstetrical anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar, M.D.,

It has been more than a century since the Nobel Prize in science was first awarded to a woman. And after Marie Curie’s 1911 accolade, seventeen other women―including two in 2018―have been so honored (Curie won the award a second time). This book explores the lives of Curie, three other female Nobel Prize winners, and six other women who broke through gender discrimination in a variety of fields to help shape our world with their extraordinary discoveries and inventions.

Among these 10 women, there is one woman originally coming from China. Out of curiosity, I searched for Chinese female scientists and came across with this book, Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women The Twentieth Century 1912–2000, compiled and edited by Lily Xiao Hong Lee and A. D. Stefanowska. It contains some 250 biographies of women active from 1912 until 1990, although many of the biographies contain information current to the year 2000. While the volume includes biographies of such internationally famous Chinese women as the Soong sisters, Lu Gwei-Djen, Jiang Qing, Han Suyin, Anna Chennault, Deng Yingchao, and Ding Ling, because of the enormous amount of historical material and scholarly research that has become available in the last few decades the editor was also able to include a greater range of women than would have been previously possible. These are Chinese women who have forged careers as scientists, businesswomen, sportswomen, and military officers appearing alongside writers, academics, revolutionary heroines, politicians, musicians, opera stars, film stars, artists, educators, nuns and traditional good wives. Also included are women from minority nationalities.

This volume includes biographies of 19 female scientists, including 2 astronomists, Ye Shuhua and Zou Yixin; 1 biochemist, Lu Gwei-Djen; 3 chemists, Huang Liang, Jiang Lijin and Zhong Yuzheng; 2 computer scientists, Xia Peisu and Yang Fuqing; 1 hydrologist, Qian Zhengying, and 1 geologist, Chi Jishang, 2 obstetricians and gynaecologists, Lin Qiaozhi and Yang Chongrui, 1 nursing educator, Nie Yuchan, and 6 physists, He Zehui, Lin Lanying, Lu Shijia, Wang Chengshu, Wu Chien-Shiung and Xie Xide.

These women overcame all the many obstacles their gender placed in their way to produce breath-taking results of profound significance, work whose importance still echoes today. What drove these remarkable women to cure previously incurable diseases, disprove existing theories, or identify new sources of energy? Despite living during periods when the contribution of women was often disregarded, if not ignored, these resilient women persevered with their research. By daring to ask “How?” and “Why?” and laboring against the odds, each of these women, in her own way, made the world a better place.

What follow are biographies of 10 women who changed science and the world in the 20th century.

Virginia Apgar (1909–1974)

Newborn babies the world over owe their lives to Virginia Apgar and her approach to life. Virginia Apgar was born in a warm family in Westfield, New Jersey on June 7, 1909, then graduated from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1933. She was supposed to be an excellent surgeon, but because of her female identity, she couldn’t enter the competitive field of surgical. At the mentor's suggestion, Virginia turned to studying anesthesia. After training, she returned to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Soon after, she was elected as its new leader and became the first woman to head the Division of Anesthesia at the hospital. In the late 1840s to the early 1850s, while hospital deliveries were replacing home births, the low survival rate of newborns became a challenge that doctors had to face. Doctors were missing signs that a baby was, for example, starved of oxygen, a factor in half of newborn deaths. Some doctors assumed that babies that were underweight or struggling to breathe should be left to die.

Virginia was distressed by this, but relying on a lot of clinical experience, she was keenly aware that there was a dire need for a system that checked vital signs, such as heartbeat and breathing rate, from the minute a baby was born. That way, the appropriate special care could be put into place before it was too late. The Apgar score as a predictor of newborn survival, which is given immediately after birth, is based on five signs: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration. The development of the Apgar test was revolutionary because it was the first clinical method to recognize the newborn’s needs as a patient. The method has been developed and improved, saving thousands of lives. In 1959, Virginia decided to take a break from her busy life as a doctor. Still, she focused on newborn care, turning to teratology, focusing on children with birth defects, and putting a lot of effort into it. Virginia worked in medicine until 1974. That year, at the age of 65, Virginia ended his battle with the disease and died of cirrhosis. In 1959, Virginia decided to take a sabbatical. Although she had a break from the busy life of a medic, she was still focused on helping others, particularly as the Apgar test had stimulated research into the diagnosis and treatment of babies who were born with problems. Until 1974, at the age of 65, Virginia ended her battle with the disease and died of cirrhosis.

Virginia 's youthful enthusiasm, integrity, and insatiable curiosity combined with an honesty and humility endeared her to all her colleagues and patients. She’s lifelong love of learning, whether it was making musical instruments, learning a new sport, or pursing her interests in science and medicine, was often commented on. Learning was the focal point of her life. Her curiosity was insatiable and new knowledge held a continuing fascination for her. She never became rigid. This rare quality enabled her to progress through life without becoming walled in by tradition or custom. With the ongoing use of the Apgar test, it has been said that every baby born today is first seen through the eyes of Virginia Apgar.

Rachel Carson (1907–1964)

“Before there was an environmental movement, there was one brave woman and her very brave book.” This woman is Rachel Carson. In the 1950s and '60s, the woman was subjected to tremendous pressure and endless verbal abuse from society. After 4 years of investigation and research, she finally completed the book Silent Spring, which shocked the world. DDT was the first modern man-made insecticide. Credited with controlling malaria and typhus in the Second World War, it was rapidly and universally accepted as the new way to control both insect-borne diseases and prevent the destruction of crops. In pursuit of profits, chemical enterprises produced large quantities of toxic pesticides like DDT, and the Agriculture Department recklessly carried out large-scale spraying of insecticides, resulting in the mass death of creatures. In addition, chemicals entered the body through the food chain, causing irreparable damage. Faced with such a harsh reality, as a scientist, the sense of responsibility and love of nature made it impossible for Rachel to remain silent.

In 1962, the New Yorker published a three-part serialization of Silent Spring. It struck a chord with thousands of readers who wrote in, moved and disturbed by not only her vivid account of the poisoning of the environment with toxic pesticides like DDT, but her theory that government and industry were ignoring the outcome. Rachel’s description of “a spring without voices” was an amalgamation of a series of true-life environmental disasters, attributed to the pesticide use that she detailed in her book. She warned that, without care, “this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.” In August 1962, the book was published, heralding the final chapter in Rachel’s life. Silent Spring became an instant bestseller and the most talked-about book for decades. Under the influence of the book, a large number of environmental organizations and a huge environmental movement has emerged. Despite the ongoing use of pesticides, their use has diminished significantly and is now much more heavily controlled worldwide. For example, in the European Union, all pesticides on the market have been subjected to a thorough assessment to ensure a high level of protection of both human and animal health and the environment. Rachel Carson is a biologist, environmentalist, and writer. Combining research and writing, her love of nature and wildlife shines from her writing, awakening and startling the world.

Marie Curie(1867–1934)

If you were to ask the public to name a female scientist from history, they would probably name Marie Curie. She devoted her life to unravelling the mysteries of radioactivity, discovered two new elements in the process, and paid a heavy price with a long decline into poor health as a result of radiation exposure. Since the introduction of the Nobel Prize in 1901, Marie is the only person, man or woman, to have won it in two different scientific disciplines, physics and chemistry.

Maria Salomea Skłodowska was born into an educated family; both of her parents were teachers in Warsaw, Poland in 1867.At nearly twenty-four years old, Marie boarded a train for Paris with a new first name and began her studies. In 1894, Marie met a Frenchman, Pierre Curie, who had changed her life forever. Pierre was different from any man she had known; intelligent and quiet, he loved science as much as she did. Soon after, the pair married in Paris and worked together in research. In July 1898, after a joint effort, the couple obtained a substance which is 400 times as active as uranium. They had given their hypothetical element a name— “Po”, the name the Curies chose in honor of Marie’s home country. At the end of November, they separated another new element that is 900 times that of uranium, known as “radium”. In 1903, Pierre found a letter from the Swedish Academy informing the Curies that they, together with Henri Becquerel, had won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. Unfortunately, three years after winning the Nobel Prize, Pierre died in an accident. This undoubtedly had a great impact on Marie 's life and research. But the work slowly helped Marie put aside her grief and she continued to fight on the road of scientific research. In 1911, Marie won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for extracting the pure metal radium. In addition, she is a promoter of X-ray therapy. During WWI, she drove around the front lines day and night to direct field medical services, and set up a school to train about 150 women skilled in X-ray technology. From prolonged exposure to radiation, Marie’s health was rapidly deteriorating and eventually developed malignant leukemia. At dawn on July 4, 1934, in the peaceful sanatorium in the clear Savoie mountain air, Marie Curie died.

As a female scientist Marie Curie was a pioneer: the first woman to win a Nobel Prize; the first to become a professor at the Sorbonne; the first to direct a major science research institute; and the first to be buried in the Pantheon. She was also a pioneer in combining motherhood with a full-time career in science, paving the way for countless women who came after her.

Gertrude Elion (1918–1999)

Gertrude Elion is not a household name, but her discoveries have affected all our lives. Gertrude Elion was born on January 23, 1918, in New York. Since her grandfather died of cancer when she was 15, Gertrude was driven by a desire to help save others from going through what her grandfather had to endure and single-minded to become a research chemist. In 1950s, Gertrude and George Hitchings had revolutionized the process of drug discovery, and the drugs they developed were instrumental in saving and improving millions of people’s lives. Her revolutionary medicines led to a cure for childhood leukemia, prevented organ-transplant rejection, and gave the world its first effective treatment for gout and first safe antiviral medicine. Gertrude’s successes in drug development opened new avenues of scientific research and benefited millions of patients around the world. Gertrude received the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the role in making a number of “designer drugs.” Although she was the fifth woman to receive this Nobel Prize, she was the first who didn’t have a PhD or a medical degree.

Gertrude was often asked to give advice to women going into science. Her reply sums up her pursuit of science: “I have no mysterious secret to impart. The most important advice is to choose the field that makes you happiest. There is nothing better than loving your work. Second, set a goal for yourself. Even if it is an ‘impossible dream,’ each step towards it gives a feeling of accomplishment. Finally, be persistent. Don’t let yourself be discouraged by others, and believe in yourself.”

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910–1994)

The Daily Telegraph announced “British woman wins Nobel Prize— £18,750 prize to mother of three.” The Daily Mail was even briefer in its headline “Oxford housewife wins Nobel.” The Observer commented in its write-up “affable-looking housewife Mrs. Hodgkin” had won the prize “for a thoroughly unhousewifely skill: the structure of crystals of great chemical interest.” The Oxford housewife is the first and only British woman to win a Nobel Prize in science—Dorothy Hodgkin. In the 1930s, very little was known about the structure of many molecules. Dorothy’s ability to do all these things was to yield significant results in the field of X-ray crystallography, succeeding in solving the structures of some of the most complex biological molecules, such as penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin, and helping biologists to understand how proteins function and guiding therapeutic medicine. It is worth mentioning that Dorothy was full of enthusiasm and concern for scientific research in many third world countries. She has visited China eight times to exchange ideas with scientists and offer help. Despite her achievements, she was modest and realistic, once saying to a journalist, “You ought to realize that for 90 percent of my life, I’m dealing with failure, and occasionally I have a success.” Dorothy Hodgkin is remembered as a great chemist, a saintly, gentle and tolerant lover of people and a devoted protagonist of peace.

Henrietta Leavitt(1868–1921)

Edward Pickering had been appointed as director of Harvard College Observatory in 1877 when he was just thirty-one years old. As part of the enormous work necessary to catalog so many stars, Professor Pickering employed a number of women who became known as the “Harvard Computers,” or “Pickering’s Harem.” The word “computer” was used for anyone whose job entailed a lot of calculation, and it was quite common for scientific research establishments to employ women as computers as they were cheaper to employ than men. In 1893, Henrietta Leavitt joined them. The brightness of most stars is stable, but some stars do undergo changes, such stars are called variables. One spring day in 1904, she was comparing photographic plates of the SMC which had been taken at different times. She noticed several variable stars what people haven’t discovered before. Later, she found more and more variable stars, “an extraordinary number,” she would say. 

In 1908, four years’ worth of Henrietta’s work were written up by her in a paper entitled “1777 variables in the Magellanic Clouds”. Henrietta noted, “It is worthy of notice that in Table VI the brighter variables have the longer periods.” This was just the beginning. She began to focus on the particular variable star, which became known as Cepheid variable. In 1912, another paper has created a great sensation in astronomy. She plotted twenty-five of the variable stars on a graph with the apparent brightness on the vertical axis and the period of variation on the horizontal axis. This plot showed her important discovery: the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheid variables (stars that have a regular cycle of brightness). The results were published, but this time under Edward Pickering’s name and not hers. How did Henrietta know that the Cepheids that appeared to be brighter were, indeed, intrinsically brighter? When we look at the stars in the sky, the stars that appear brightest may not necessarily be the brightest; how far away they are will also affect how bright they appear. So, in order to compare the "Intrinsic Brightness" of these stars, we also need to know the distance. Had Henrietta been studying Cepheid variables scattered throughout the sky, she would not have been able to make her assertion that the intrinsically brighter stars took longer to vary their brightness as she would have had no idea how the different distances of the stars should be factored in.

All the stars she was studying were in the LMC, however, so she was correctly able to assume that they were all at roughly the same distance. This was crucial. It meant that any Cepheid that appeared to be brighter than another one was also intrinsically brighter, and this was key to her discovery.Thus, Henrietta concluded that the period luminosity relation–the brighter variables have the longer periods–is also known as Levitt's law. It was the discovery that has provided astronomers with dream tool-- a ruler that can be used to measure the universe. As long as we record the period of a Cepheid variable, we can get its brightness, which means it is not difficult for us to calculate its distance from the earth. Henrietta Leavitt’s findings have immeasurably enhanced our understanding of the true scale of the universe and its origins. Sadly, Henrietta didn't get flowers and applause she deserved. She was assigned to other tasks by Pickering and was still a poor and serious “Harvard Computer”.

Rita Levi-Montalcini(1909–2012)

Rita Levi-Montalcini was born of Jewish parents, on April 22, 1909, in Turin, northern Italy. In 1938, due to the discrimination and persecution of Jews by Mussolini's government, Rita lost her job in the laboratory and led a vagrant life. The conditions were challenging but Rita was undaunted. She set up her own home laboratory in her bedroom, then moved to a small table in the corner of the living room. There, she conducted the experiments of chick embryo that laid the foundations for her discovery of the first growth factor. In 1952, at Washington University in St. Louis, Rita isolated the substance that stimulate nerve growth with Stanley Cohen. In 1954, Rita and Stanley named this substance nerve growth factor (NGF). Rita and Stanley’s discovery and characterization of NGF earned her a Nobel Prize, led the way to a multitude of other growth factors, and revolutionized the field of embryology. Her work helped to explain how a complex organism can grow and develop from a single cell through a sequence of chemical communications, and has contributed to the understanding of pain control, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson's disease and cancer.

As she got older, Rita increasingly recognized the challenges faced by young people, particularly women in society, and applied her still considerable energies to charitable work. She set up a charitable foundation to funded hundreds of African girls through their studies. Rita also helped women in other ways, she set up the Women’s International Network, Emergency, and Solidarity (WIN) that focus on aiding for women affected by poverty, prostitution, drug abuse, and a whole range of current issues. By the time she was in her nineties, Rita’s failing eyesight prevented her doing research at the bench, but she still juggled her various scientific and other commitments. As the oldest member of the Italian Senate, Rita attended meetings there into her late nineties, when she was the eldest present. Her long-standing involvement in and contribution to Italian science meant that she was frequently called upon to give speeches. In 2009, aged 100, Rita proposed her own agenda and suggestions for NGF-related research. Work and keeping her brain active were highest on her agenda. She said in an interview, “At 100, I have a mind that is superior—thanks to experience—than when I was 20.” Rising at 5 a.m., she would pass on that knowledge, spending the mornings in the laboratory directing her all-female team and the afternoons at her African foundation. Rita Levi-Montalcini’s long life ended on three years later, at home in Rome. But people will always remember that living until she was 103, she combined charm and an elegant, manicured appearance with a fierce desire to make a difference in the world.

Lise Meitner(1878–1968)

In September 1907, a 28-year-old doctor of physics, Lise Meitner, went to Berlin to further studies in admiration of Max Planck. Shortly after Lise arrived in Berlin, she met Otto Hahn, an expert in the chemistry of radioactive elements. The two scientists’ complementary skills led to a thirty-year collaboration. Initially, women weren’t permitted to enter the laboratories. Lise was given a room in the basement but forbidden to come upstairs even to talk to Otto, and had to pay a visit to a hotel down the street if she wanted to use the bathroom. But her determination and sharp mind soon earned her a reputation and the respect of her colleagues. When Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, Lise lost the protection that she had enjoyed as an Austrian citizen. She was forced to come to Sweden. In one experiment, Otto and Fritz were amazed to find that a tiny neutron moving at low speed would destabilize and shatter something as robust as an atom. But they couldn’t explain their finding, so Otto wrote to Lise in Stockholm: “Perhaps you can suggest some fantastic explanation.” In the face of prevailing wisdom, Lise realized what Otto Hahn had not: the uranium nuclei really were splitting in half. When overloaded by the extra neutron, the nucleus split in two, raising the prospect of an enormous release of nuclear energy, and coining the term nuclear fission. At the time of her discovery of fission, Lise was still a stranger in a foreign country, an outsider in a male-dominated profession, living hand-to-mouth and devastated to see her thirty years of work in Berlin being expunged from the record by Otto Hahn. 

In 1944, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Lise’s collaborator Otto Hahn for this discovery. Lise was nominated a number of times for the Nobel Prize but remained in scientific exile and never received it. She’s omission from the award arose from a mixture of disciplinary bias, political obtuseness, ignorance, and haste. Much to her dismay, it was Lise’s insight that began the nuclear age. She was deeply shocked when she heard the news of the atomic bombs. As a supporter of peace, although Lise had refused to play any part in the Manhattan Project in the United States, rather to her dismay, she found herself celebrated in post-war America as the “Jewish mother of the bomb,” She felt that making nuclear weapons was an aberration and that there were more vital and beneficial applications of the technology in medicine and energy production. Lise didn’t predict what her science would lead to and certainly didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She was ultimately concerned about the pursuit of scientific truth, and not international recognition or prizes. She died peacefully in her sleep on October 27, 1968. Most fittingly, her gravestone in Hampshire bears an epitaph: “A physicist who never lost her humanity.”

Elsie Widdowson(1906–2000)

Elsie Widdowson was one of the leading British nutritionists of the twentieth century. A pioneer of the science of nutrition, she relished human experimentation, including on herself. Working with Robert McCance, she was involved in designing and implementing the Second World War ration diet, acknowledged as the healthiest diet the British population has ever had. Their work on the science behind the fortification of food earned them the title “creators of the modern loaf.” Elsie’s practical, probing, yet warm and empathic nature was instrumental to the success of her and Robert’s sixty-year working partnership. They’s Composition of Foods remains the seminal work in nutrition and their results, linking the chemical composition of food with human health. The new field of “developmental origins of health and disease” has refocused scientists, and doctors’ interest on the relevance of Elsie and Robert’s work and their evidence-based approach to the study of nutrition has guided nutritional advice since the 1930s.

Chien-Shiung Wu(1912–97)

Chien-Shiung Wu was born in a literary family on May 31, 1912, in the town of Liuhe in the Jiangsu province of China. One could say that she was destined for great things from birth as her name means “courageous hero.” Thanks to her father's support and encouragement, she grew up in an environment surrounded by books, magazines, and newspapers and was able to receive formal education in school. Chien-Shiung entered the National Central University in Nanjing in 1929. Her passion for physics made her look forward to further study. In 1936, she went to the University of California, Berkeley to study under some famous physicists such as Ernest Lawrence and Emilio Segrè.Chien-Shiung never adopted an “English” name, unlike so many Chinese who move to the West. She held on to both her Chinese name and many Chinese traditions for the rest of her life, and never adopted Western dress. In 1933, Fermi, who later became the first person to achieve a sustained nuclear chain reaction, had developed a theory of beta decay. Since the publication of his theory, physicists had been trying to experimentally verify or disprove his theory, with varying results. After sophisticated experiments, she had finally solved the problem of beta decay, and she gained worldwide praise from the nuclear physics community. Chien-Shiung wrote up her methods in the research literature, and soon laboratories around the world were copying her methods and were able to verify Chien-Shiung’s results. Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, for their work on parity non-conservation of weak interaction. They pointed out the direction worth studying and suggested several possible sets of experiments. But Chien-Shiung Wu was the first one to actually put all of this into practice, demonstrating the law with subtle experiments. Then, many physicists joined the work. Yet the rules of the Nobel Prize stated that it should only be awarded for a discovery. Chien-Shiung had not discovered anything new, so strictly speaking her work, important as it was, was not eligible. At the time many felt that the Nobel Prize was being awarded more for politics than for scientific merit, and took up the cudgel for Chien-Shiung. She herself never complained and worked hard in science. Chien-Shiung Wu was referred to as “the Madame Curie of China.” She showed that it was possible, as a woman, to have a successful career in science.

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