As a woman in science, almost nothing both scares and angers me more than Rosalind Franklin’s stolen legacy. Perhaps you’ve heard her name before, mentioned, most likely, in conjunction with the names Watson and Crick. In high school, I learned that the scientists Watson and Crick determined the structure of DNA. My teacher had quickly mentioned Franklin, saying that she had helped and that her work was being recognized more now. I remember that I was left with the distinct impression that Franklin had been simply working with Watson and Crick— as if she were an aide, helping around the laboratory.
In college, I learned that not only was that impression devastatingly wrong, it was also carefully crafted to villainize her and reduce her role. In 1968, James Watson published his book, The Double Helix. In it, he referred to Franklin solely by a nickname that was used to mock her, calling her Rosie, describing her as ill-tempered and uncooperative. Perhaps she was ill-tempered: by the accounts of her friends, the scientists at King’s College London treated her as though she worked under them, rather than as her own, independent researcher (which, in fact, she was).
Her work on the structure of DNA was undermined after her own colleague, Maurice Wilkins, gave Watson one of her photographs, which enabled him to construct his own model of the structure of DNA. When Watson and Crick’s article was published in Nature, Franklin’s photographs of DNA were published at the back, as if they had rather supported, rather than formed the basis of, Watson and Crick’s model.
Despite the injustice of Franklin’s work being stolen from her, another continued injustice to Franklin’s legacy has been the lack of recognition for her work as a pioneer in structural virology. She left King’s College, but she did not leave X-ray diffraction. She studied a number of plant viruses, transitioning later in her life to working on human viruses, including polio. Although she passed away before her findings were published, the scientists who continued her work based off of her preliminary efforts began their paper by both crediting her for her contributions to the investigation and dedicating the paper to her (if you’re curious, the first page of the paper is below). Those scientists later won a Nobel Prize. In fact, between her work on DNA and her work on viruses, Franklin could have been the recipient of two prizes, had her data not been stolen and she not passed away.
Rosalind Franklin contributed to knowledge that’s central to biology, but the stifling of her work is an issue that’s central to the path of women in science. Her vilification at the hands of those who stole her work and her mistreatment in an academic setting can be common experiences for women. Even now, with an effort to give Franklin the credit that she’s due, the impression that she helped Watson and Crick still stubbornly persists. As a female scientist, Franklin’s story concerns me. I’m unsure if, sometime later in my life, someone will steal my work and take the credit for it. I’m unsure if I will be ostracized by my peers in the same way that Franklin was. While the professional climate for women in science is more positive now than it was in Franklin’s time, it’s still notoriously hard for women to gain professorial positions. In 2014, women made up only 36% of assistant professors and 18% of full professors in biology— a field known for attracting greater numbers of female scientists than fields like math or physics.
Regardless of whether or not female scientists will continue to experience the same struggles as those exemplified by Franklin’s story, it’s important to continue to foster a more accurate retelling of her story to give Rosalind Franklin the credit that she’s owed.