Ellen Gleditsch

Ellen Gleditsch (29 December 1879 – 5 June 1968) was a Norwegian radiochemist and Norway's second female professor. Starting her career as an assistant to Marie Curie, she became a pioneer in radiochemistry, establishing the half-life of radium and helping demonstrate the existence of isotopes.[1][2]

Ellen Gleditsch, graduation photograph
Ellen Gleditsch

Life

Gleditsch was born in 1879 in Mandal, Norway. Although she graduated from high school at the top of her class, the college entrance exams were not available to women at the time. Therefore, she worked as a pharmacy assistant where she was able to work toward a non-academic degree in chemistry and pharmacology in 1902.[3] In 1905 with the support of her mentor Eyvind Bødtker, she passed the university entrance exam, but chose to study in Paris.[4]

After starting her career in pharmacy, she went on to study radioactivity at the Sorbonne and work in Marie Curie's laboratory from 1907 to 1912.[5] At Curie's lab, Gleditsch performed a technique called fractional crystallisations, which purified radium. The work, which was highly specialized and few could complete, allowed her laboratory fees to be waived. She spent five years of analysis with Curie and returned even after leaving the lab to supervise experiments. In 1911, she received a "Licenciée en sciences degree" from the Sorbonne and was awarded a teaching post at University of Oslo. After working one year, she won the first scholarship ever given to a woman from the American-Scandinavian Association to study in the United States, but was turned down by both of the schools at which she applied.[4]

She went anyway and despite having been rejected[4] was able to work at the laboratory of Bertram Boltwood at Yale University,[5] where she measured the half-life of radium, creating a standard measurement that was used for many years. One of the scientists who had originally turned her away from Yale, co-authored two articles with her and in June 1914, Smith College awarded her an honorary doctorate for her work.[4] In 1913–14, she returned to the University of Oslo[5] and became the second woman to be elected to Oslo‘s Academy of Science in 1917.[4] During the 1920s, Gleditsch made several trips to France to assist Curie, as well as a trip to Cornwall to investigate a mine located there.[6]

In 1919, Gleditsch co-founded the Norwegian Women Academics' Association, to focus on development of science and the conditions under which women scientists worked. She also believed that cooperation of scientists would foster peace. She served as president of the organization from 1924 to 1928.[7] Joining the International Federation of University Women in 1920,[8] she served as its President from 1926 to 1929,[9] working to provide scholarships to enable women to study abroad.[8] In 1929, she made a trip to the United States traveling from New York to California with the intention of promoting scholarships for women.[7]

Though her appointment as professor at Oslo in 1929 caused controversy,[8] she successfully started a radioactivity research group there. Throughout the 1930s, she continued to produce articles in English, French, German and Norwegian. She also hosted a series of radio shows to promote and popularize scientific study.[10] In the 1930s she directed, a laboratory doing radiochemistry in Norway, which was used as an underground laboratory by scientists fleeing from the Nazi regime. In 1939, she was appointed to the International committee on intellectual cooperation, where Marie Curie had also been sitting a few years earlier.[11] When Norway was occupied during the war, she hid scientists and continued using her home for experiments. During a raid on her laboratory in 1943, the women scientists were able to rescue the radioactive minerals, but all of the men were arrested.[4]

She retired from the university in 1946 and began working with UNESCO in their efforts to end illiteracy. In 1949, she was actively involved on the working committee and in 1952 was named to the Norwegian commission working to control use of the atomic bomb. That same year she resigned from UNESCO in protest over the admittance of Spain under Franco's fascist regime as a member.[12] In 1962 at the age of 83, she received an honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne, the first woman to receive such an honor.[13]

Works
  • (with Marie Curie) Curie; Gleditsch (1908). "Action de l'émanation du radium sur les solutions des sels de cuivre". Le Radium. 5 (8): 225. doi:10.1051/radium:0190800508022500.
  • Sur le radium et l'uranium contenus dans les mineraux radioactifs, Comptes Rendus 148:1451 (1909)
  • 'Ratio Between Uranium and Radium in the Radio-active Minerals', Comptes Rendus 149:267 (1909).
  • Sur le rapport entre l'uranium et le radium dans les mineraux actifs, Radium 8:256 (1911).
  • "The Life of Radium". American Journal of Science. 41: 112. 1916.
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References
  1. 'Ellen Gleditsch', Encyclopedia of World Biography. Reprinted online at bookrags.com.
  2. A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Chemical Heritage Foundation. 1997. pp. 51 ff. ISBN 978-0-941901-15-4.
  3. Rayner-Canham, Marelene and Geoffrey (1998). Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to Mid-twentieth Century. American Chemical Society and Chemical Heritage Foundation. pp. 107–110. ISBN 0841235228.
  4. "The gifted crystallographer". Epigenesys. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  5. Lykknes, A.; Kvittingen, L.; Børresen, A. K. (2005). "Ellen Gleditsch: Duty and responsibility in a research and teaching career, 1916-1946". Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences. 36: 131–188. doi:10.1525/hsps.2005.36.1.131.
  6. Rayner-Canham, Marelene F.; Rayner-Canham, Geoffrey W. (1997). A devotion to their science pioneer women of radioactivity. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Chemical Heritage Foundation. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-773-56658-3. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  7. "Rayner-Canham (1997)", p 66
  8. Lykknes, A; Kvittingen, L; Børresen, A. K. (2004). "Appreciated abroad, depreciated at home. The career of a radiochemist in Norway: Ellen Gleditsch (1879-1968)". Isis; an International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences. 95 (4): 576–609. doi:10.1086/430650. PMID 16011295.
  9. Gleditsch, Ellen, Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics, UCLA
  10. "Rayner-Canham (1997)", p 69
  11. Grandjean, Martin (2018). Les réseaux de la coopération intellectuelle. La Société des Nations comme actrice des échanges scientifiques et culturels dans l'entre-deux-guerres [The Networks of Intellectual Cooperation. The League of Nations as an Actor of the Scientific and Cultural Exchanges in the Inter-War Period] (in French). Lausanne: Université de Lausanne. pp. 292.
  12. "Rayner-Canham (1997)", p 72
  13. "Rayner-Canham (1997), p 73"

Further reading
  • Shearer, Benjamin F (1997). Notable women in the physical sciences : a biographical dictionary. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313293031.
  • Rayner-Canham, Marlene F (2014). A Devotion to Their Science : Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 9780773566583. OCLC 951202227.
  • Kubanek, Anna-Marie (2011). Nothing less than an adventure : Ellen Gleditsch and her life in science. Createspace Online. ISBN 9781452842134. OCLC 774210181.
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