Q&A: Patricia Fara on the British women scientists who broke barriers

In the early 20th century, women who wanted to work in the sciences did not have an easy road. Many of the world’s most prestigious universities admitted only men, and women who did manage to gain high qualifications in the sciences found themselves unwelcome in academic departments and laboratories.

Despite the obstacles of the era, remarkable women made major contributions to the sciences. In A Lab of One’s Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War, Cambridge University historian of science Patricia Fara chronicles the achievements of British women who built careers in the sciences even before women were given the right to vote, in 1918. In the August issue of Physics Today, Kathleen Sheppard calls the book “an engaging and thoroughly researched narrative” that will inspire further thought about women in the sciences today.

PT: You studied physics as an undergraduate at Oxford. What drew you into the history of science?

FARA: When statistics are compiled about women in scientific careers, I’m counted as a failure who leaked out of the pipeline. But I regarded abandoning physics as a positive decision. The problem was not that science was too difficult, but that I found it boring and was looking for a greater challenge.

Modern legislation means that young women no longer confront the overt discrimination the subjects of my book experienced. But my students often complain about subtle ways in which they are made to feel like outsiders: the absence of female portraits on corridor walls, the paucity of women’s works on student reading lists, the near nonexistence of senior women delivering keynote addresses at scientific conferences. Gradually I came to realize that for me personally, the main reason for studying the past is to understand the present—and the whole point of doing that is to improve the future. And that is why I wrote this book.

PT: You’re known for your work about science in the Enlightenment. What inspired you to focus on the 20th century for your latest book?

FARA: I first stumbled across these women almost by accident, when the archivist at Newnham College [a women-only college at Cambridge] proudly showed me a handmade album recording the activities of around 600 Newnham members during World War I. Inscribed in exquisite red and black lettering are the names of doctors who operated at the front, chemists who developed explosives and poison gases, biologists who researched into tropical diseases, and mathematicians recruited for intelligence work. Some of them died in service abroad, and many were rewarded with government or military honors.

I wondered why I recognized none of the names. Why had I heard of wartime nurses like Vera Brittain and Edith Cavell, but not the chemists who were experimenting with explosives, the doctors who ran hospitals, or Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, a botanist who headed a women’s army in France? I resolved to create my own tribute to these scientific pioneers.

PT: What were some of the restrictions and obstacles your subjects faced as they pursued their careers?

FARA: Girls often received a skimpy education, and a high proportion of female science students came from the relatively small number of girls’ schools that had made science a regular part of the curriculum. In 1900, only 3349 women were at Britain’s 22 universities, and over 500 of those were at the two largest, Oxford and Cambridge. Female science students were often mocked, excluded from classes, and provided with inferior accommodation.

For women who did manage to stay the course and win a degree, pursuing a scientific career demanded leaping, or limping, over yet more hurdles. Analyzing graduate destinations can make depressing reading. Before a sudden blip in 1914, the tables show that teaching was by far the most viable career option for women. And any female scientist or doctor who got married was expected to resign automatically.

PT: What was the most surprising fact or story you uncovered while working on this book?

FARA: I often felt angry while I was writing this book, but never more so than when reading about Hertha Ayrton, a militant suffragette and mathematical physicist who was a close friend of Marie Curie. Ayrton won a prestigious prize from the Royal Society for her innovative research into electric street lighting. But her nomination to become a fellow of the Royal Society was rejected because she was a married woman. When her husband became ill, she finished his research project for him and wrote it up under his name. What really made me mad was when an eminent professor blamed her for his death. If only, he said, she had put her husband “into carpet-slippers when he came home, fed him well, and led him not to worry,” then “he would have lived a longer and a happier life and done far more effective work.”

PT: What is your next project?

FARA: I am working on a book that will present a new image of Isaac Newton by focusing on the last 30 years of his life, when he lived in London. Within a few years of arriving there from Cambridge, he was running the Royal Mint, making and losing small fortunes on the stock market, maneuvering for favor at court, and entertaining eminent European visitors. As master of the Mint, he was responsible for the nation’s money at a time of financial crisis. A major investor in the East India Company, Newton monitored the African gold that was melted down for English coins and profited from the revenue generated by selling African captives to wealthy plantation owners in the Americas.

PT: What are you currently reading?

FARA: The first time I read William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, a couple of months ago, I was captivated but also mystified. The book is written from four separate points of view, but until you’ve finished it, you don’t fully understand who the speakers are and what has been happening. I felt that although I’d missed many points, I’d been swept up in the lives of a dysfunctional family in the American South. I’ve now almost finished it for the second time, and I am enjoying it just as much but in a completely different way. The book is cleverly written, wonderful to read, and very poignant.