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A Lab of One's Own

Posted By: Underaglassmoon
A Lab of One's Own

A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War
Oxford University | English | 2018 | ISBN-10: 0198794983 | 304 pages | PDF | 65.09 MB

by Patricia Fara (Author)

Patricia Fara unearths the forgotten suffragists of World War I who bravely changed women's roles in the war and paved the way for today's female scientists.

Many extraordinary female scientists, doctors, and engineers tasted independence and responsibility for the first time during the First World War. How did this happen? Patricia Fara reveals how suffragists including Virginia Woolf's sister, Ray Strachey, had already aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress, and that during the dark years of war they mobilized women to enter conventionally male domains such as science and medicine. Fara tells the stories of women including mental health pioneer Isabel Emslie, chemist Martha Whiteley, a co-inventor of tear gas, and botanist Helen Gwynne Vaughan. Women were carrying out vital research in many aspects of science, but could it last?

Though suffragist Millicent Fawcett declared triumphantly that "the war revolutionized the industrial position of women. It found them serfs, and left them free," the truth was very different. Although women had helped the country to victory and won the vote for those over thirty, they had lost the battle for equality. Men returning from the Front reclaimed their jobs, and conventional hierarchies were re-established.

Fara examines how the bravery of these pioneers, temporarily allowed into a closed world before the door slammed shut again, paved the way for today's women scientists.

Review
"An urgent and absorbing tale. Fara's impassioned yet rigorous work never falters or compromises in its search for a history that is both true and continues to matter a very great deal." – Charlotte Sleigh, Professor of Science Humanities, University of Kent and author of The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Art and Science


"Fascinating… [Patricia Fara] has uncovered the hidden, suppressed histories of scientists and clinicians who made great contributions to war and welfare, and she has woven a broader narrative of gain and loss that still resonates today." – Gregory Radick, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds

"The stories in this book made me very happy that I came of age in the middle of the 20th century, when the world of science welcomed a woman's questions and valued her experiments." – Maxine F. Singer

"A book full of fascinating insight and anecdote about women working in or with science around the time of the 1st World War. So many hidden stories and amazing heroines." – Dame Athene Donald

"Fara vividly recounts the experiences of the educated, capable women who stepped into men's jobs as chemists, cryptographers, statisticians, meteorologists, and doctors. She tells this remarkable tale with intelligence and verve." – Publishers Weekly

"A densely written, well-documented history of the British experience that will resonate with American women as well." – KIRKUS

About the Author
Patricia Fara lectures in the history of science at Cambridge University, where she is a Fellow of Clare College. She is the President of the British Society for the History of Science (2016-18) and her prize-winning book, Science: A Four Thousand Year History (OUP, 2009), has been translated into nine languages. In addition to many academic publications, her popular works include Newton: The Making of Genius, An Entertainment for Angels, Sex, Botany and Empire, and more. An experienced public lecturer, Patricia Fara appears regularly in TV documentaries and radio programs such as In Our Time. She also contributes articles and reviews to many journals, including History Today, BBC History, New Scientist, Nature and the Times Literary Supplement.