Gertrude B. Elion
Gertrude Elion was a very influential and prominent women in the development of various drugs that aided in fighting diseases such as leukemia and AIDS. She was born in New York City and was the child of immigrants. Before the death of her grandpa, whom she was very close to, she had little to no interest in the medicine and or science. However, after her grandpa died of leukemia, she decided that “no one deserves to suffer that much”. She went on to attend Hunter College and obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the age of 19. At first getting into laboratories to start work was proven fairly difficult, as there was a stigma against women in chemistry field. She started off as a non paid lab assistant
until eventually she was hired by Dr. Hitchings, who had a lab at Burroughs Wellcome. Her and Dr. Hitchings soon became partners and together help develop many fundamental drugs. Elion and Hitchings took a different approach in the creation of new drugs. They steered away from the traditional trial and error and focused their attention of the chemical makeup of the disease cells. This opened the doorway and allowed Elion and Hitchings to develop successful drugs, one of the most notable being Purinethol, which helped aid acute leukemia. Elion went on to lead her own projects which led to the development of azathioprine, which made organ transplants more possible. Her research led to many drugs that were beneficial and stilled used to this day. Elion and her old partner, Hitchings would later receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988. I chose Gertrude B. Elion because first of all her situation is fairly relatable to my own. Similar to Elion, my grandpa also passed away due to leukemia when I was at a young age. I didn’t know at the time, but it was his death that had inspired my passion in pursuing the science and medical field. I view Elion as foremost as a role model. However, her work was crucial in the development and growth of many essential drugs that have saved millions of lives. The drug, Purinethol, was the first treatment for leukemia and allowed for easier organ transplants. My reaction would mostly be sitting in awe of Elion’s achievements. I would ask her about what it was like to be a woman in science during that time period. I would ask her what felt making such a breakthrough in the medical field and how hard was it to earn everything she had.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr. Wharton removed a sample of her cervix tumor and a sample of her healthy cervix tissue and gave this tissue to dr. George Gey, who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for years. In the meantime that Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab. This all happened without the permission and the informing of Henrietta Lacks. The cells started growing in a unbelievable fast way, they doubled every 24 hours, Henrietta’s cells didn’t seem to stop growing. Henrietta’s cancer cell grew twenty times as fast as her normal healthy cells, which eventually also died a couple of days after they started growing. The first immortal human cells were grown, which was a big breakthrough in science. The HeLa cells were spread throughout the scientific world. They were used for major breakthroughs in science, for example the developing of the polio vaccine. The HeLa-cells caused a revolution in the scientific world, while Henrietta Lacks, who died Octob...
Agnes Fay Morgan is known for many things, but most importantly she is honored and praised for her accomplishments within the field of chemistry and biochemistry. Born in 1884, she was the third of four children to an Irish immigrant and was born in Peoria, Illinois. Her family consisted of two boys and two girls, where ironically, both boys didn’t attend college and both females did. Due to Agnes’s exceptional grades and limitless possibilities, she was offered a full college scholarship by a local benefactor and enrolled at Vassar College. She then continued her education by transferring to the University of Chicago where she earned both her BS degree and her MS degree in chemistry. Once obtaining this degree she decided to teach chemistry in Montana and
Rosalind Franklin: Seeing a woman as a scientist during this time is somewhat rare, so the fact that she has taken up this profession show that she is persistent, dedicated, and smart. The only problem is that she is undervalued because of her gender. She is also very quiet and reserved because she’s in a different country.
Long hair, which conforms to the ideal of femininity, perplexes me; hence, my supposedly rebellious bobbed haircut. On any given day, I would choose a formless dress over an overbearing corset. I still cannot understand why my chunky sandals with the Bohemian vibe make people gasp. However, these individuals could also be gasping at the cigarette in my mouth. I am my own person; notice that my maiden name is still my official name because I refuse to take the identity of my husband. To some, I may be perceived as a troublemaker. In actuality, I am a woman who is willing to take action because I am keenly aware of the struggles that women face daily in all aspects of their lives. Furthermore, I am willing to dedicate my life to the feminist movement.
Ida B. Wells was a woman dedicated to a cause, a cause to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from being murdered by lynching. Lynching is defined as to take the law into its own hands and kill someone in punishment for a crime or a presumed crime. Ida B. Wells’ back round made her a logical spokesperson against lynching. She drew on many experiences throughout her life to aid in her crusade. Her position as a black woman, however, affected her credibility both in and out of America in a few different ways.
With all that Ethel Waters has contributed to music and film, it is surprising that she is often forgotten. She was a talented blues singer whose unique style distinguished her from other blues singers and she was a jazz vocalist as well. Her talent extended beyond singing, when she became a dramatic actress who earned award nominations for her performances. What was most remarkable about Waters' performances was how she reconstructed the mammy character into one that challenged stereotypes.
Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was one of the most successful painters of her time. Over the course of her life, spanning from 1755-1842, she painted over 900 works. She enjoyed painting self portraits, completing almost 40 throughout her career, in the style of artists she admired such as Peter Paul Rubens (Montfort). However, the majority of her paintings were beautiful, colorful, idealized likenesses of the aristocrats of her time, the most well known of these being the Queen of France Marie Antoinette, whom she painted from 1779-1789. Not only was Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun the Queen’s portrait painter for ten years, but she also became her close, personal friend. She saw only the luxurious, carefree, colorful, and fabulous lifestyle the aristocracy lived in, rather than the poverty and suffrage much of the rest of the country was going through. Elisabeth kept the ideals of the aristocracy she saw through Marie Antoinette throughout her life, painting a picture of them that she believed to be practically perfect. Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s relationship with Marie Antoinette affected her social standing, politics, painting style, and career.
Even before she spent "four strange summers" of her early teenage years hanging "in the heart of chaos," Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, or Zitkala-Sa, found her Native American world in 1884 at age eight compromised by her mother's tears and the hard, bitter line of her lips. Zitkala-Sa's mother's hatred of white Americans cast dark shadows over the happy days when Zitkala-Sa was clear in her vision of herself as a young Yankton Nakota girl. The biological fact that Zitkala-Sa's father was a white Indian agent, a man named Felker, who deserted Zitkala-Sa and her mother, and the historical turmoil of the cultural degeneration of the American Indians in the late nineteenth century combined to set the stage for chaos and problems of identity. Zitkala-Sa addresses the personal and historical impact of the transition of the American Indian into a white man's world in her American Indian Stories (1921), a collection of essays first published in Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly in 1900 and 1901, many of which are autobiographical. Although she wasted those "four strange summers" grieving that she "was neither a wild Indian or a tame one" (69), her book reveals that Zitkala-Sa chose not to just "hang in the heart of chaos." Zitkala-Sa chose to stand up and take action.
Roscher, Nina M., and Cavanaugh, Margaret A. (1987). "Academic Women Chemists in the 20th Century: Past, Present, Projections." Journal of Chemical Education 64:823-827.
“IF you develop a wonderful protocol, its’s useless if nobody uses it,” Edna B Foa
In the Shakespearean tragedy "Hamlet," Prince Hamlet’s mother Gertrude encounters many misfortunes, which she feels that she is to blame for. Gertrude was brought into the middle of everybody’s dilemmas and thus felt responsible for the occurrences that happened to all of the significant characters throughout the play. She allows her emotions to build up in an unhealthy manner and this leads to her eventual death. The question that surrounds her death is whether she committed suicide or led a natural demise?
She had many struggles trying to receive higher education because of the restrictions women had when it came to furthering ones education. But after many attempts, she was able to study with the great German mathematician Karl Weierstrass. She worked with him for the next four years and then in 1874, received her doctorate. By this time, she had published numerous original papers in the field of higher mathematical analysis and applications to astronomy and physics. But despite all her attempts, and brilliance, she was still a woman in her time period, and therefore unable to find a job in academia. Weierstrass had tried helping her find a job because he was astonished with her abilities and intellectual capacity, but had no luck because after all, she was still a woman.
Ethel Smyth, composer and outspoken suffragist, was born in 1858. Her middle-class English family opposed her ambition to study music in Germany, thinking the goal of becoming a professional musician unladylike. Smyth’s father eventually allowed her to study composition in Leipzig, but only after she waged a campaign of protest that included a hunger strike and self-imposed isolation. Among her seventy-two compositions are six operas, and works for orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensembles. Afflicted with deafness later in life, a malady that afflicted both Beethoven and Smetana, she died in 1944.
Eleanor Marx Eleanor Marx is not remembered as an economist. Her life, though more so her death, has captured the imaginations and curiosities of novelists and biographers and her existence has been cast into the role of the “tragic socialist.” Yet, as the daughter of Karl Marx, she was a prominent writer and activist for socialist reform. She edited Marx’s unpublished texts after his death and contributed several articles of her own on economic topics. Similarly, in her daily interactions, she worked for social reform that was fundamentally economic in nature and associated with a wide range of feminist and socialist activists.
Marie Curie's determination to work with the dangerous elements that destroyed her body can be likened again to the Feminist Movement. She strove to attain understanding of elements until it killed her.