Swallow, Ellen

Ellen Swallow Richards First female to study at MIT. She pioneered the study of Home Economics. 

Ellen Swallow Richards was born in Massachusetts in 1842. She was the first woman in America to be accepted to a scientific school, the first woman to attend the Massachusetts institute of Technology (MiT), and the first woman professional chemist in the nation. She spent her professional career in research and teaching at MIT, where she founded the field of home economics. 

The next time you drink a glass of water, make a toast to Ellen Swallow Richards. It is her pioneering work that led to safe drinking water. 

Don t be fooled by the quaint title of Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning (Figure 298), published in 1882. Richards was the first female student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S., 1873), became an instructor at MIT and founded its women s laboratory. She bridged pure and applied chemistry with social science and founded the field of scientific... 

The 1910 MIT convocation address written by Ellen Swallow Richards was cited over 60 years later by Yale University scientist Bill Hutchinson as an early clarion call to conservation and respect for the environment ... 

R. Clarke, Ellen Swallow The Woman Who Founded Ecology, Follett Publishing Co., Chicago, 1973. 

Figure 14.1. Ellen Swallow Richards— Iront row, second from the right— with MIT chemistry faculty. (Courtesy of the MIT Museum.)...

While working as an assistant for professors at MIT, Ellen Swallow married Robert Hallowell Richards, a professor of mining engineering, head of MIT s new metallurgical laboratory. The match worked they had no children but devoted their energies to science. Robert Richards proved to be supportive of his wife s work, promoting it whenever possible. 

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