Content area
Full text
Two words important to the salvation of the planet are ecology and susiainability. Many disciplines in the sciences lay claim to them in the attempt to stop the pollution of the world. However, sustainability and ecology are not new. The term ecology and the concept of susta inability were promoted by, among others, a woman scientist more than a century ago: Ellen Henrietta (nee Swallow) Richards (1842-1911). Her contributions made a lasting positive impact on existence and continue to do so, as current progress expands upon her efforts.
Many accomplishments
Born and raised on a farm in Dunstable, Mass., and mainly educated at home by a teacher father and a homemaker mother, she entered Vassar College in 1868 and graduated the then-women's school in two years. Chemistry professor Charles Parrar encouraged her to pursue that field because he agreed with her unique approach to the sciences: that they should help solve practical problems rather than merely be tools for re-creating natural phenomena occurring in various environments.
Partly through Farrar's recommendation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took a chance on Richards, permitting her to enroll in 1870 as a guinea pig, so to speak, to determine if women could pursue degrees in the sciences. Richards became the first female admitted to MIT and received a second bachelor's degree in 1873. Because of her gender, this strong, persistent woman was denied opportunities to pursue an advanced degree in the sciences by MIT and other prestigious universities. Vassar, though, accepted her master's thesis on the chemical analysis of iron ore and conferred on her a master's degree that same year, "and her admiring MIT laboratorymates bestowed upon her a third 'degree,' in the form of an A. O. M: Artium Omnium Magistra (Mistress of All the Arts)."1 The risk MIT took on her paid, otY, for not only did Richards become the first professional female chemist in the nation and a leader in applied science, she also was "the nation's preeminent water scientist"2 through her work in wastewater management and regulation. MlT hired Richards as a lab instructor in 1884 and she became head instructor for women.3 She taught at MlT until retirement.
Richards (who in 1875 married Robert Hallowell Richards, an expert in mining and metallurgy at...