Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842 – 1911)
American chemist

Ellen Swallow Richards was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and was a daughter of Peter and Fanny Swallow, who were school-teachers and part-time farmers. Ellen Swallow obtained a Baccalaureate (the equivalent of an undergraduate degree) from Vassar Female College, and in 1870 she became the first woman to be accepted as a student by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). Founded in Boston in 1865, MIT had rapidly become a highly regarded school of engineering and applied science. In 1873, she graduated as a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and in the same year received a Master of Arts degree from Vassar, based on a thesis involving examination of the vanadium content of an iron ore.

Ellen Swallow then spent several years studying towards a doctorate at MIT, but did not graduate, apparently because the faculty members of the department in which she was studying, all of whom were men, were unwilling to allow a woman to be the first-ever Doctor of Science graduate from their program. Ellen Swallow was undaunted by this and other forms of gender bias that were pervasive at the time. She went on to become a pioneer in the development of the new engineering field of public sanitation , and was a strong advocate of domestic science and home economics.

In 1875 Ellen Swallow married Robert Hallowell Richards, a professor of metallurgy and mining engineering at M.I.T. The couple shared a devotion to science and to each other, but had no children. Ellen Richards collaborated with her husband in his metallurgical and mining work, and her contributions in those fields were recognized later on, when she became the first woman to be elected to the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.

Ellen Richards understood that one of her major responsibilities was to foster the scientific education of American women. She was central in the establishment of a Women's Laboratory at M.I.T., as well as other facilities and programs that made important contributions towards allowing women to pursue careers in science. Some of her early research involved investigations of household and food chemistry and food additives . In 1882, she published The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning, and in 1885 Food Materials and Their Adulterations.

In 1884, Ellen Richards was appointed to a position in a new chemical laboratory at M.I.T. that specialized in the study of public sanitation. She held this position for 27 years until her death in 1911. One of her initial accomplishments was running the chemical laboratory responsible for the first survey of lakes and rivers in Massachusetts, an extensive study that became a classic in its field.

In 1890, M.I.T. established a ground-breaking program in sanitary engineering in which Ellen Richards taught the chemistry and analyses of water, sewage, and atmosphere . In collaboration with A. G. Woodman, in 1900 she published Air, Water, and Food Chemistry for Colleges, a textbook in support of the teaching of public sanitation. Her most important scientific contributions were in the field of water sanitation. She was, for example, an influential advocate of the chlorination of drinking water to kill pathogenic bacteria. This practice was critical in lowering the high death rates that were being caused by drinking unsanitary water in most towns and cities of the time.

After about 1890, Ellen Richard's interests increasingly focused on what was to become known as the "home economics movement." This involved the study and teaching of nutrition, food preparation, household sanitation and hygiene, and related subjects, mostly in the public school system. The home economics movement can be likened to a domestic-science literacy program for the masses, and it became an important means by which urban women learned how to run economical and healthy households. Ellen Richards wrote numerous papers and several books in this subject area, including Home Sanitation: A Manual for Housekeepers in 1887, Domestic Economy as a Factor in Public Education in 1889, and Euthenics: The Science of Controllable Environments in 1912. Today Ellen Richards is considered a parent of home economics in the United States. For this contribution, she is indirectly responsible for many pervasive improvements in living conditions throughout America and in other countries where home economics has become a popular subject in school curricula.

[Bill Freedman Ph.D. ]

RESOURCES

BOOKS

James, E. T., J. W. James, and P. S. Boyer, eds. Notable American Women. 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971.

Stern, M. B. "The First Woman Graduate of M.I.T.—Ellen H. Richards, Chemist." In We the Women: Career Firsts of Nineteenth Century America. New York: Schulte Pub. Co., 1962.