Inventors and Inventions: Lessons in Chemistry

This post is by Michael Apfeldorf of the Library of Congress.

In the late 19^th century, few roles in science were available to women, so the work of Ellen Swallow Richards stands apart. Richards, a prominent female chemist, was the first woman to be admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a pioneer in the field of sanitary engineering. Richards also played a key role in inventing a new scientific discipline: “domestic science” — or home economics. Analyzing historical primary sources provides insights into what this new discipline involved at the time, as well as what Richards hoped to accomplish by creating it.

Introduce Richards’ work by showing students this page from her 1897 book, The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning. Without revealing the book’s author or subject, invite students to make observations, inferences, and questions.

These questions can facilitate analysis and discussion:

• What do students think the book’s purpose was?
• When do they think it was written?
• What do they infer about the author?
• Who was the intended audience?

If your students are familiar with chemistry, see if they can work out the formulas at the top of the page. What reaction is shown? Do students know what “Muriatic Acid” and “Caustic soda” are? How might these terms provide clues as to what this book is about?

Next, show students this page, from Richards’ 1904 work, First Lessons in Food and Diet, letting them know it was written by the same author. Challenge students to return to the earlier questions and deepen their analysis. Looking at the pages together with the titles of the books in which they were published, again ask students: What is the author’s purpose?

Finally, invite students to read this 1909 speech, delivered by Richards to the National Education Association and published on the front page of a Laramie, Wyoming newspaper under the headline “Lively Sessions of N.E.A. Convention.”

“The new order of things has come, but women, so far, have not been given the means with which to utilize it…To whom shall we turn for experience and knowledge? The man in the Industrial World.”

“The management of American industries, the methods of the American business world stand at the very front, brought there by using the lessons of experience to form a definite science of business methods. The home cannot be maintained without labor – how much labor depends upon the perfection of machinery and then, woman’s greater flexibility of thought and adaptability of manipulation. She must feel the sense of power over things.”

Ask students:

• What is Richards arguing for in the speech?
• What relationship is she making between the industrial world of 1909 and the domestic one?

As you facilitate class discussion, students will likely share a variety of insights and opinions. Some may point out that women were provided limited opportunities to work outside of the home, and Richards’ speech does not focus on expanding such opportunities. But others may observe that Richards attempts to elevate the domestic sphere as a place that requires just as much expertise and scientific rigor as the industrial one. What does this imply about the need to elevate the women who occupied it?

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