BB2:
Museum of Natural History
234 Berkeley Street at Boylston
(now Louis of Boston)
 At
its founding in 1830, women were not allowed to become members of the
Boston Society of Natural History which was at this site from 1864 to
1951, although they could use its resources. When the society sought to
expand its membership in 1876, a great debate ensued. An opponent believed
that "the presence of charming girls among the young students of
science would be a great hindrance to any cold consideration of abstruse
scientific thought." A proponent countered that women "would
make as good members. . . and as interested an audience, as 9/10ths of
the male members." Another supported the admission of women because
they were "human beings even if they are of one sex."
Although fifteen women were soon admitted, women did not have a major
influence until the society established a Teachers' School of Science
in 1870. When support for the school lagged, Lucretia Crocker (1829-1886)
(see D11), supervisor of science for the Boston Public Schools, and philanthropist
Pauline Agassiz Shaw (1841-1917) (see N9), raised the necessary funds
to continue it. Noting the progress women teachers made in the school,
the Woman's Education Association sponsored summer classes for teachers
at Annisquam, Massachusetts in 1881. This led to the establishment of
the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole on Cape Cod a few years
later. In 1951 the museum, renamed the Museum of Science, moved to Science
Park on the Charles River. |
 Although she was not directly connected with the Rogers Building, known as "Tech on Boylston Street" from 1886 to 1916, Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) holds an important role in the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When she was admitted as a special student in chemistry in 1870, she became the first woman to study at MIT. She was awarded a B.S. degree three years later, but the doctorate for which she was qualified was refused her, it is believed, because the school did not want a woman to receive the first doctorate in chemistry. Richards, who pioneered the field of sanitary engineering and home economics, established a Woman's Laboratory at MIT in 1875 with funding from the Woman's Education Association. When her students were admitted to regular courses at MIT, Richards closed the laboratory and, aided by Ednah Dow Cheney (1824-1904), Lucretia Crocker (1829-1886), and Abby W. May (1829-1888) (see D11), established a parlor and reading room for women students in a new MIT building. It was dedicated to the memory of Cheney's daughter Margaret, a student at MIT who would have been the second woman graduate had she not died of typhoid fever in 1882. In that year, four women received regular degrees. Richards continued to be connected with MIT as an instructor and laboratory scientist in sanitary chemistry and engineering, and in connection with her pioneering studies of air, water and food, is said to have coined the word "ecology."
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