Interwar period chemists

We give an overview of the different employment avenues for women chemists in the interwar period and choose exemplars for each. The chapter concludes with examples of women chemists who used the opportunities of the Second World War to develop career directions, though the effect of that war on women chemists seems to have been less momentous than that of the 1914-1918 conflict. The late 1940s seem to be an appropriate place to end the book, for as Evelyn Fox Keller has observed, the mid-20th century represented the nadir of the history of women in science. 11... 

Analytical chemistry was an area favoured by some women chemists during the interwar period. In fact, a remarkable number of women chemists who graduated from UL chose this direction. We have chosen three individuals to exemplify this Dorothy Baylis, Muriel Roberts, and Gertrude Andrew. 

In earlier chapters, we identified particular niches in which a select few women chemists could find employment academic appointments in women s colleges (see Chaps. 4 and 6), domestic chemistry (see Chap. 3), biochemistry (see Chap. 8), crystallography (see Chap. 9), and pharmacy (see Chap. 10). But what of the many hundreds of women chemists who graduated during the interwar period Obviously, we cannot cover each individual nevertheless, there were some specific career directions, and we will discuss them in this chapter together with biographies of women chemists who followed each of these paths. 

Nevertheless, despite the gloomy forecasts, Horrocks has shown that during the interwar period many women chemists did find employment in industry, particularly the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, textiles, and photographic industries.37 We will conclude this section with one case study, the life of Kathleen Culhane. For so many of the forgotten women chemists, scanty information remains on their life and work but for Culhane, we have a rich narrative that epitomises the struggle of women seeking an industrial chemistry career during the interwar period. 

Cited from Forbes and O Beirne, op. cit. (25), p. 456. Royal Dutch/Shell, in common with ICI and Standard Oil of New Jersey, also became closely involved with I.G. Farben in negotiations over high pressure processes for coal to oil conversion. This and other aspects of high pressure industrial chemistry during the interwar period are reviewed in Anthony S. Travis, The High Pressure Chemists (Wembley Brent Schools Industry Project, 1984). 

In the early 20th century, Finland had some potential to develop a thriving chemical industry. However, various other industries competed for the same resources, such as waterpower, funding, and qualified experts and managers. The lack of higher education and relevant research facilities were weaknesses in the Finnish chemical industry. Theoretical education was not supported by experimental work in well-equipped laboratories, and, with the exception of two institutes directed by A. I. Virtanen, there were very few research facilities. In the interwar period, industrial companies seldom had their own research staff and laboratories, and R D was, consequently, neglected and the number of professional chemists remained small. Intellectual resources were, therefore, insufficient for basic research and innovative development. 

For more than half a century, significant numbers of chemists have worked in industrial research. Between 1920 and 1950, there were dramatic increases in the number of research laboratories within the chemical process industries. During the same period, the number of chemists employed in industrial research rose from about 3800 to more than 23000 persons. A growing proportion of all industrial chemists was engaged in research and development activity during the interwar years. 

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