Why I Wrote the Series
In the 1980s, I was appalled on reading Daniel Boorstin’s three tomes on science and invention, not one reference was made to Polish scientist Marie Sklodowska Curie whose discovery of radium ultimately led to the unraveling of the puzzle of nuclear energy. I was dismayed at the omission of this renowned and dedicated scientist in the writings of a brilliant scholar and much-honored American historian who had made an apparently studied effort at exclusion of women. Curie has not only suffered at the hands of historians but also during her lifetime, she was neglected and overlooked in favor of her husband and colleague, Pierre.
However, to his credit and honor, French scientist Pierre rose above the expectations of the times and convinced the Nobel committee that it was his wife, Madame, not he, who had made the discovery. He told them she deserved the Nobel Prize. Pierre’s honesty and integrity has not been the traditional response of male colleagues in other times. On the contrary, Boorstin, who won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in history, excluded both Madam Curie and radium from his books, Discoverers, Seekers, and Creators. I thought it odd that he did not consider radium––discovered in 1898––a great discovery.
Madame Curie, as one might guess, was not alone being neglected, for in 1992, the scientific community, which planned the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the discovery of DNA did not even acknowledge Rosalind Franklin, one of DNA’s discoverers. Dr. Rosalind Elsie Franklin, a pioneer molecular biologist, studied the double helix model of DNA at John Randall’s laboratory at King’s College, London. Her study paralleled that of another team of colleagues, Francis Crick and James Watson. Ironically, because they saw her X-ray photograph, a crystallographic portrait of DNA, the competing team immediately realized the solution and quickly published an article in Nature. I
It was disappointing that although Dr. Franklin’s work also appeared in the same issue of the journal, it was considered a supporting commentary written by a “technical assistant.” The opposing team won the Nobel Prize for the double helix model of DNA. Franklin received only a nod from her team partner who had shown her photograph to the competitors. He “misunderstood” her status as his peer and instead treated her as his assistant.[1] Struggling to advance her professional standing in an environment that excluded women, one that even kept her from the all-male university dining room––Franklin did not have a devoted advocate like Pierre Curie. Nor, because of her upbringing, did she complain or sue for her rights of recognition.
An avid reader, I began to take stock of the nature of the references to women leaders, scientists, artists, musicians, and philosophers, and found that most of the references were limited to allusions, parenthetical clauses, or oversights. The exclusion of women’s legitimate achievements looked increasingly like scholarly sleight-of-hand, deliberate or accidental, through ignorance or prejudice. When someone was truly a heroine, scholars dubbed their lives the stuff of legend and myth like the life of Semiramis, Queen of Babylon, or of allegory like the story of the Hebrew Judge Deborah. (A full story of Queen Semiramis and the judge Deborah will be found in Volume IV Portraits.)
For example, the prestigious Cambridge Biographical Dictionary includes only a minute number of women entries stating the topic inclusion criterion is “contribution.” In the 1980s, when I tried to track information about the First Ladies of our land, I found they were not even noted in their biographical dictionary. Subsequently, I researched their husbands, the presidents of the United States, hoping to see the dates of their marriages and perhaps some parenthetical hint about their wives. The marriages were not mentioned. The mates of the powerful world leaders obviously had not made a significant contribution to the American culture, not even Eleanor Roosevelt who became an internationally known figure as well as a wife of a president of the United States of America.
I realized that contribution was a matter of point of view. Happily, in more recent years, authors have closed the gap by writing many volumes focusing on the powerful spouses who stood behind the presidents. My own library now contains several such reference series.
In my own lifetime, I have witnessed first hand the talented change agents who were the running mates of American presidents. Standing out in my memory are Eleanor Roosevelt and Jacqueline Kennedy, who have made their unique marks on history and politics using the informal power structure when the formal structure was not appropriate to their role as First Lady. Roosevelt actively participated in international endeavors and brought about many societal changes in the World War II era while Kennedy, in the Vietnam era, through grace and finesse, enthralled the French with her intimate understanding of their culture and her charming and faultless dinner table conversations in their native language.
With her magnetic personality, Roosevelt led a nation to greater concern for the world’s children while Kennedy had the power to delight people with her sophistication and diplomacy. At state dinners, both sat at the right hand of foreign dignitaries and––like Pharaoh Hatshshepsut and Queen Elizabeth I––both were multilingual and highly educated. Both Kennedy and Roosevelt were compassionate to social problems, and both brought dignity to their nation in times of war.[2] I am pleased to see that at least First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt finally made the biographical columns because of the contributions she made to the world.
Point to Ponder
Well may we ask why a scholarly historian like Boorstin, prolific author and Librarian of the United States Congress from 1975-1987, did not include Madame Curie who was the discoverer of radium in his book, The Discoverers. One also asks why a prestigious institution like Cambridge, founded in the thirteenth century, would not include presidents’ wives in their Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge has traditionally been a college for men; it did not admit women until 1948. Still, after a half century, one would expect their dictionary to include important women, especially Franklin who graduated from Cambridge in 1945 with a PhD in physical chemistry including crystallography and X-ray diffraction. Further, it is odd that molecular biologist Dr. Rosalind Franklin was not allowed to eat in the university dining room. One wonders if she also had to ride in the back of the double-decker bus to go down the street for a lunch of fish and chips.
At the young age of thirty-seven, this accomplished scientist died of ovarian cancer in 1958 denied of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA, the secret of life. What further discoveries might she have contributed had she lived?
Tradition dies hard. Highly educated and accomplished women have been omitted from history. I pledged to change that!
[1] Rosalind Elsie Franklin: PioneerMolecularBiologist.
http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html. 6.4.05 9:05
[2] In addition, unfortunately both had disloyal mates known to have a “wandering eye.” From the earliest of times, it was always thus with powerful men.