A Wave of Women Chemists: Mary Elvira Weeks and Her University of Kansas Colleagues

Abstract

Between 1911 and 1944, a total of 13 women served, at various times, on the chemistry faculty of the University of Kansas. Yet after the last of these appointments was made, in 1935, no other woman was hired for nearly 40 years. This “wave” offers a case study of a period the Rayner-Canhams call “the dawn and dusk of an era.” It centered on the 1920s, “a zenith for academic women,” including those in science, “a level of attainment that was not to be reached again until well into the second half of the twentieth century.”

The most notable of the early women chemists was Mary Elvira Weeks, author of Discovery of the Elements. In 1927, she and her colleague Selma Gottlieb became the first two women to earn PhDs and be appointed assistant professors of chemistry at the University of Kansas. Soon thereafter, Ethel Ann Jones became the third.

Why did these 13 daughters of farmers, tradesmen and shopkeepers make the unlikely decision to go to college and study chemistry? How did personal choices shape their professional lives? And what became of them along the way? Half had long careers in chemistry, several achieved distinction, and one became famous. They prospered at the University of Kansas, in the Rayner-Canhams’ words, from a “collaborative, supportive” atmosphere and a “woman-friendly” environment.