Book
A lab of one's own : science and suffrage in the first World War / Patricia Fara.
Record details
- ISBN: 0198794983
- ISBN: 9780198794981
- Physical Description: xiii, 334 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
- Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2018.
- Copyright: ©2018
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-321) and index. |
| Formatted Contents Note: | Preserving the past, facing the future. Snapshots: suffrage and science at Cambridge -- A divided nation: class, gender, and science in early twentieth-century Britain -- Subjects of science: biological justifications of women's status -- Abandoning domesticity, working for the vote. A new century: voting for science -- Factories of science: women work for war -- Ray Costelloe/Strachey: the life of a mathematical suffragist -- Corridors of science, crucibles of power. Scientists in petticoats: women and science before the war -- A scientific state: technological warfare in the early twentieth century -- Taking over: women, science, and power during the war -- Chemical campaigners: Ida Smedley and Martha Whiteley -- Scientific warfare, wartime welfare. Soldiers of science: scientific women fighting on the home front -- Scientists in Khaki: Mona Geddes and Helen Gwynne-Vaughan -- Medical recruits: scientists care for the nation -- From Scotland to Sebastopol: the wartime work of Dr. Isabel Emslie Hutton -- Citizens of science in a post-war world. Interwar normalities: scientific women and struggles for equality -- Lessons of science: learning from the past to improve the future. |
| Summary, etc.: | Female scientists, doctors, and engineers experienced independence and responsibility during the First World War. Suffragists including Virginia Woolf's sister, Ray Strachey, aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress, and mobilized women to enter conventionally male domains such as engineering and medicine. Profiles include mental health pioneer Isabel Emslie, chemist and co-inventor of tear gas Martha Whiteley, Scottish army doctor Mona Geddes, and botanist Helen Gwynne Vaughan. 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 these pioneers, temporarily allowed into an exclusive world before the door slammed shut again, paved the way for today's women scientists. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Women in science > History > 20th century. World War, 1914-1918 > Science. Women > Suffrage > History. Science > History > 20th century. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at GRPL.
Author Notes
A Lab of One's Own : Science and Suffrage in the First World War
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 (Columbia University Press, 2002), An Entertainment for Angels (Icon Books, 2002), Sex, Botany and Empire (Columbia University Press, 2003), and Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (Pimlico, 2004). An experienced public lecturer, Patricia Fara appears regularly in TV documentaries and radio programmes 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.
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