Ellen Swallow Richards

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Ellen Swallow Richards bigraphy, stories - Chemists

Ellen Swallow Richards : biography

December 3, 1842 – March 30, 1911

Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (December 3, 1842 – March 30, 1911) was the foremost female industrial and environmental chemist in the United States in the 19th century, pioneering the field of home economics. Richards graduated from Westford Academy (2nd oldest secondary school in Massachusetts). She was the first woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its first female instructor, the first woman in America accepted to any school of science and technology, and the first American woman to earn a degree in chemistry.

Richards was a pragmatic feminist, as well as a founding ecofeminist who believed that women’s work within the home was a vital aspect of the economy.

Publications

  • Richards, Ellen. First lessons in food and diet. Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows, 1904.
  • Richards, Ellen. The Cost of shelter. New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1905. ISBN 1-4142-3012-5
  • Richards, Ellen. Meat and drink. Boston: Health-Education League, [1906?].
  • Richards, Ellen. The Efficient worker. Boston: Health-Education League, c1908.
  • Richards, Ellen. Health in labor camps. Boston: Health-Education League, c1908.
  • Richards, Ellen. Tonics and stimulants. Boston: Health-Education League, [1908 or 1909].
  • Richards, Ellen. Air, water, and food: from a sanitary standpoint. 4th ed., rev. and rewritten. New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1914.
  • Richards, Ellen Euthenics: The Science of Controllable Environment : A Plea for Better Conditions As a First Step Toward Higher Human Efficiency (Public health in America) ISBN 0-405-09827-8
  • Collected Works of Ellen H. Swallow Richards in 5 vols., edited by Kazuko Sumida. Tokyo: Edition Synapse, 2007 ISBN 978-4-86166-048-1

Life and work

Born as Ellen Henrietta Swallow in Dunstable, Massachusetts, to Fanny Taylor and Peter Swalow (who were members of old families of modest means that prized education) she was the first woman admitted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ellen Swallow taught, tutored, and cleaned for years, finally saving to enter Vassar College in 1868, earning her bachelor’s degree two years later. After failing to find suitable employment as an industrial chemist after graduation, she entered MIT to continue her studies, "it being understood that her admission did not establish a precedent for the general admission of females" according to the records of the meeting of the MIT Corporation on December 14, 1870. Three years later she received a bachelor of science degree from MIT for her thesis, "Notes on Some Sulpharsenites and Sulphantimonites from Colorado," and a master of arts degree from Vassar for a thesis on the chemical analysis of iron ore. She continued her studies at MIT and would have been awarded its first doctoral degree, but MIT balked at granting this distinction to a woman and did not award its first doctorate until 1886.

In 1875 Ellen Swallow married Robert H. Richards, chairman of the Mine Engineering Department at MIT. With his support she remained associated with MIT, volunteering her services and contributing $1,000 annually to create programs for female students. In January 1876, she began a long association as an instructor with the first American correspondence school, the Society to Encourage Studies at Home.Hunt, Caroline Louisa (1912). The Life of Ellen H. Richards: Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows : p. 155 Also in 1876, at the urging of the Women’s Education Association of Boston, the MIT Women’s Laboratory was created, where Richards became an assistant instructor (without pay) in 1879 in chemical analysis, industrial chemistry, mineralogy, and applied biology under Professor John M. Ordway. In 1883, MIT began to accept women and award them degrees as regular students and the Laboratory was closed.

From 1884 until her death, Ellen Richards was an instructor in the newly founded laboratory of sanitary chemistry at the Lawrence Experiment Station, the first in the United States and headed by her former professor, William R. Nichols. In 1887, the laboratory, directed by Thomas Messinger Drown, conducted a study under Richards of water quality in Massachusetts for the Massachusetts State Board of Health involving over 20,000 samples, the first such study in America. Her data was used to find causes of pollution and improper sewage disposal. As a result, Massachusetts established the first water-quality standards in America and its first modern sewage treatment plant at Lowell, Massachusetts. Richards was a consulting chemist for the Massachusetts State Board of Health from 1872 to 1875 and the Commonwealth’s official water analyst from 1887 until 1897. She also served as a consultant to the Manufacturers Mutual Fire Insurance Co and in 1900 wrote the textbook Air, Water, and Food from a Sanitary Standpoint, with A. G. Woodman. Her interest in the environment led her in 1892 to introduce the word ecology into English, which had been coined in German to describe the "household of nature".