Happy Women’s History Month! This month I want to shed a light on some extraordinary women who did not receive the praise and recognition they deserved for their accomplishments.
For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.
Virginia Woolf
Mileva Marić (1875-1948)
Mileva Marić-Einstein was the wife and partner of scientist Albert Einstein. While Einstein has received decades of praise and admiration, her success and contributions have gone unattributed.
Marić was an extremely gifted scientist and mathematician. She was the fifth woman to be admitted into the Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich (now ETH Zürich) where she met Einstein. They received similar grades, and she even outperformed him in physics.
Letters discovered by historians reveal that Einstein referred to many of his works as “ours,” suggesting they were co-authored by Marić. Despite this, Einstein’s publications were only credited to him.
Historians still argue over the extent of Marić’s contributions. Some suggest her collaboration was purposefully concealed to avoid the stigma associated with female scholars.
While Marić’s true involvement may never be known, it is clear she was more than merely the wife of Einstein. However, her legacy will forever be in the shadow of her husband.
Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
Lise Meitner was an Austrian physicist who worked on several integral projects throughout her career.
Her and her partner Otto Hahn were among the first scientists to isolate the isotope protactinium–231, which was named by them. Alongside her nephew, Otto Frisch, Meitner defined the physical characteristics of nuclear fission and proposed the term in 1939. For this discovery, Frisch was awarded a Nobel Prize, and Meitner, despite being Frisch’s partner, was left awardless.
It wasn’t until after Lise Meitner died that she finally received some much overdue recognition when the chemical elementmeitnerium was named in her honour. This, however, does not make up for the fact that she was snubbed of praise throughout her life.
zelda fitzgerald (1900-1948)
Zelda Fitzgerald was an American writer and artist, most famously known as the wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda was a significant contributor to practically all of F. Scott’s work, though she went uncredited.
One of the most famous lines from The Great Gatsby, “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” was not F. Scott’s own words, but Zelda’s, after the birth of their daughter.
In an interview with The New York Tribune, Zelda suggested F. Scott had directly plagiarized her diary in his book The Beautiful and the Damned.
“It seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and, also, scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald […] seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.”
Zelda finally published a book under her name in 1932, entitled Save Me Walz. However, F. Scott was enraged and harshly criticized her, leading to the commercial failure of her work.
Zelda lived out the rest of her days writing and painting while battling serious mental health issues, and achieving very little success. She died before she could finish her second novel, Caesar’s Things.
DR. Grace Hopper (1906-1992)
Dr. Grace Murray Hopper was an American mathematician and U.S. Naval Officer, most known for her work on computer programming.
She created the very first computer language compiler tools, which were used to program the Harvard Mark I computer.
It is acknowledged in history that male mathematician John von Neumann was the first to initiate a computer program. However, Dr. Hopper herself is the one who invented the codes to program, and deserves an equal share of praise.
In 2016, nearly 24 years after her death, Dr. Hopper was finally recognized for her accomplishments and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
Rosalind Franklin was an English scientist, most renowned for her work with DNA.
In 1951 while working in the Biophysical Laboratory at King’s College, she applied X-ray diffraction methods to the study of DNA, discovering the density of DNA and the helical conformation of the DNA molecule.
In 1953, using Franklin’s research and clear images of DNA, scientists James Watson and Francis Crick were able to determine that DNA is a double-helix polymer.
Watson and Crick went on to be awarded a Nobel Prize for their discovery. Despite the fact that Watson and Crick could not have made this discovery without Franklin’s images, she was left out of the award completely.