A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War
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.
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A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War
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.
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A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War

A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War

by Patricia Fara
A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War

A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War

by Patricia Fara

Hardcover

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Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780198794981
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 03/01/2018
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.40(d)

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.

Table of Contents

Preserving the Past, Facing the Future1. Snapshots: Suffrage and Science at Cambridge2. A Divided Nation: Class, Gender, and Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain3. Subjects of Science: Biological Justifications of Women's StatusAbandoning Domesticity, Working for the Vote4. A New Century: Voting for Science5. Factories of Science: Women Work for War6. Ray Costelloe / Strachey: The Life of a Mathematical SuffragistCorridors of Science, Crucibles of Power7. Scientists in Petticoats: Women and Science Before the War8. A Scientific State: Technological Warfare in the Early Twentieth Century9. Taking Over: Women, Science and Power During the War10. Chemical Campaigners: Ida Smedley and Martha WhiteleyScientific Warfare, Wartime Welfare11. Soldiers of Science: Scientific Women Fighting on the Home Front12. Scientists in Khaki: Mona Geddes and Helen Gwynne-Vaughan13. Medical Recruits: Scientists Care for the Nation14. From Scotland to Sebastopol: The Wartime Work of Dr Isabel Emslie HuttonCitizens of Science in a Post-War World15. Inter-War Normalities: Scientific Women and Struggles for Equality16. Lessons of Science: Learning from the Past to Improve the FutureBibliography
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