The girls’ private schools that flourished from the mid-19th century enabled pupils to study sciences for the first time, while the founding of women’s colleges at Oxford and Cambridge opened the doors to further studies in maths, medicine and science. Previously, scientifically-minded women such as astronomer Caroline Herschel and physicist Hertha Ayrton had propped up the work of brothers or husbands without significant recognition for themselves. Although many of their individual stories remain sketchy, the details of their lives and contributions lost or overlooked, their collective history provides a compelling tale.Īccess to education was the key that unlocked potential for many. Patricia Fara’s important book, the first of many being published to commemorate the centenary of women receiving the vote, is written as a paean to these forgotten pioneers. Yet the remarkable story of the extraordinary women who took over men’s jobs in hospitals, laboratories and government research facilities only to be forced to relinquish them once men returned from the front is largely unknown. Grainy images of women driving ambulances and working in munitions factories in the first world war have become familiar to us all. And rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people-men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals.Physicist Hertha Ayrton.
Instead of focussing on esoteric experiments and abstract theories, she explains how science belongs to the practical world of war, politics, and business. We see for instance how Muslim leaders encouraged science by building massive libraries, hospitals, and astronomical observatories and we rediscover the significance of medieval Europe-long overlooked-where, surprisingly, religious institutions ensured science's survival, as the learning preserved in monasteries was subsequently developed in new and unique institutions: universities.
Sweeping through the centuries from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics and particle physics, Fara's book also ranges internationally, challenging notions of European superiority by emphasizing the importance of scientific projects based around the world, including revealing discussions of China and the Islamic Empire alongside the more familiar stories about Copernicus's sun-centered astronomy, Newton's gravity, and Darwin's theory of evolution. In Science, Patricia Fara rewrites science's past to provide new ways of understanding and questioning our modern technological society.
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