Description
Book SynopsisRossiter proves that despite frustrating obstacles created by the patriarchal structure and values of universities, government, and industry, women scientists made genuine contributions to their fields, grew in professional stature, and laid the foundation for the breakthroughs that followed 1972.
Trade ReviewA detailed account of the status of women scientists during an important transition period... Offering valuable information on women scientists and suggesting additional research opportunities, Rossiter's second volume stands as a significant contribution to both women's history and the history of American science. -- George E. Webb American Historical Review Highly readable and exquisitely informative. Rossiter's documentation of this gloomy chapter in the history of women striving to make a place for themselves in science serves as a pungent antidote for questions concerning the fairness of affirmative action. Journal of American History What we have here is a remarkable example of historian as detective... The attention Rossiter gives to identifying individuals and the details she provides about marriage, barriers... underrecognition, disappointments, and-yes-real accomplishments and rewards breathes life into her frequently poignant account. Science Rossiter's resourcefulness and thoroughness yield a cornucopia of information... [Her] formidable achievement is to provide a full, complex picture of the marginalisation of American women scientists in this era... I recommend this book to anyone involved in science: the questions about the sexual politics of science it tackles and provokes are too important to be ignored. New Scientist Rossiter marshals an astounding array of evidence to assess women's work, roles, productivity, and advances as American scientists. Not content to study only those women who held collegiate faculty posts, she also examines female scientists in government, industry, and self-employment, devoting strong chapters to each... Most impressive in its careful, scientific approach to data that others have previously offered, analyzed, and packaged. Harvard Educational Review An engaging and eye-opening book... This is a story not only of science, but of the resolution and courage of women scientists who struggled to continue in their professions even when confronted repeatedly with adversity. Chemical and Engineering News
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
List of Tables
Ackowledgments
Introduction
1. World War II: Opportunity Lost?
2. Postwar "Adjustment": Displacement and Demotion
3. "Scientific Womanpower": Ambivalent Encouragement
4. Graduate School: Record Numbers Despite It All
5. Growth, Segregation, and Statistically "Other"
6. Faculty at Major Universities: The Antinepotism Rules and the Grateful Few
7. Resentful Research Associates: Marriage and Marginality
8. Protecting Home Economics, the Women's Field
9. Surviving in "Siberia"
10. Majors, Money, and Men at the Women's Colleges
11. Nonporfit Institutions and Self-Employment: A Second Chance
12. Corporate Employment: Research and Customer Service
13. Governmental "Showcase"?
14. Invisbility and Underrecognition: Less and Less of More and More
15. Women's Clubs and Prizes: Partial Palliatives
16. The Path to Liberation: Consciousness Raised, Legislation Enacted
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliographical Essay
Index
