What do you think?
Rate this book
A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War
Patricia Fara unearths the forgotten suffragists of World War I who bravely changed women's roles in the war and paved the way for today's female scientists.
Many extraordinary female scientists, doctors, and engineers tasted independence and responsibility for the first time during the First World War. How did this happen? Patricia Fara reveals how suffragists including Virginia Woolf's sister, Ray Strachey, had already aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress, and that during the dark years of war they mobilized women to enter conventionally male domains such as science and medicine. Fara tells the stories of women including mental health pioneer Isabel Emslie, chemist Martha Whiteley, a co-inventor of tear gas, and botanist Helen Gwynne Vaughan. Women were carrying out vital research in many aspects of science, but could it last?
Though suffragist Millicent Fawcett declared triumphantly that "the war revolutionized the industrial position of women. It found them serfs, and left them free," the truth was very different. Although women had helped the country to victory and won the vote for those over thirty, they had lost the battle for equality. Men returning from the Front reclaimed their jobs, and conventional hierarchies were re-established.
Fara examines how the bravery of these pioneers, temporarily allowed into a closed world before the door slammed shut again, paved the way for today's women scientists.
Many extraordinary female scientists, doctors, and engineers tasted independence and responsibility for the first time during the First World War. How did this happen? Patricia Fara reveals how suffragists including Virginia Woolf's sister, Ray Strachey, had already aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress, and that during the dark years of war they mobilized women to enter conventionally male domains such as science and medicine. Fara tells the stories of women including mental health pioneer Isabel Emslie, chemist Martha Whiteley, a co-inventor of tear gas, and botanist Helen Gwynne Vaughan. Women were carrying out vital research in many aspects of science, but could it last?
Though suffragist Millicent Fawcett declared triumphantly that "the war revolutionized the industrial position of women. It found them serfs, and left them free," the truth was very different. Although women had helped the country to victory and won the vote for those over thirty, they had lost the battle for equality. Men returning from the Front reclaimed their jobs, and conventional hierarchies were re-established.
Fara examines how the bravery of these pioneers, temporarily allowed into a closed world before the door slammed shut again, paved the way for today's women scientists.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published March 1, 2018
41 people are currently reading
1652 people want to read
About the author
Patricia Fara
24 books74 followersPatricia Fara is a historian of science at the University of Cambridge. She is a graduate of the University of Oxford and did her PhD at the University of London. She is a former Fellow of Darwin College and is currently a Fellow of Clare College where she is Senior Tutor and Tutor for graduate students. Fara is also a research associate and lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. Fara is author of numerous popular books on the history of science and has been a guest on BBC Radio 4's science and history discussion series, In Our Time. She began her academic career as a physicist but returned to graduate studies as a mature student to specialise in History and Philosophy of Science, completing her PhD thesis at Imperial College, London in 1993.
Her areas of particular academic interest include the role of portraiture and art in the history of science, science in the 18th century England during the Enlightenment and the role of women in science. She has written and co-authored a number of books for children on science. Fara is also a reviewer of books on history of science.
Her areas of particular academic interest include the role of portraiture and art in the history of science, science in the 18th century England during the Enlightenment and the role of women in science. She has written and co-authored a number of books for children on science. Fara is also a reviewer of books on history of science.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
March 28, 2018
A clash between expectations and reality.
I thought this was a really good and timely book. Women in science working through the World War I, overcoming prejudice and standing up for their rights. Yet, I was expecting it to dig more into science and less in suffrage. I wanted more 'lab' and less 'I want to vote and work' kind of thing (not because I don't care; I was just excited for a British version of The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Hence the 3*.
I thought this was a really good and timely book. Women in science working through the World War I, overcoming prejudice and standing up for their rights. Yet, I was expecting it to dig more into science and less in suffrage. I wanted more 'lab' and less 'I want to vote and work' kind of thing (not because I don't care; I was just excited for a British version of The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Hence the 3*.
January 31, 2018
This book shows to great depth how the status before, during and after the Great War of British women, particularly in science, differed. I enjoyed most of the read and applaud the effort involved.
The title hearks to Virginia Woolf's novel 'A Room Of One's Own' but this really just seems to give the author an excuse to insert details about the well-off fashionable set in Bloomsbury, Woolf complaining that it was impossible to get servants. Actually in the bibliography I found 'A Lab of One's Own' written by Marsha Richmond.
Meanwhile women had been working in domestic service or clothing factories, getting trained as teachers (the only job they could gain if they had been educated) and asking to be granted the vote. A third of Britons could vote, prior to 1918; well off men over age. When women were granted the vote due to their sterling service, they had to be over 30, until in 1928 over 21 was accepted.
Looking at Girton and Newnham, the colleges at Cambridge which accepted women, we see that they were single sex (like all other colleges, just a different sex) and when a female student took highest score in mathematics, she was not eligible to be awarded a degree or attend the conferral ceremony. A certificate was sent to her in the post.
However, well off men of science tended to marry bright educated women who would make good lab assistants. Their accurate note taking and attention to detail saved many experiments, suggested others, and in some cases the women were equal partners in every way except for the credit. During WW1 with men away fighting, women were working on chemicals, explosives, nautical engines and the like. Separately, women worked in the Land Army or munitions factories getting poisoned and blown up - still considered better than being in service.
The author seems to have read 'More Work For Mother' as she mentions a couple of times that new household equipment gave middle class women more rather than less work (with fewer servants) but doesn't give any examples of her own finding, such as letters or diary entries. I thought this weakened her argument, as though she wasn't bothered to go investigate domestic drudgery. I recommend that book but it is entirely set in America.
In 1894, Scottish Anna Gordon became the first woman in Britain to gain a science doctorate. She was a geologist who became President of the National Council for Women. Anna Conway, author, nurse and appointed to the Imperial War Museum, collected and curated a large body of evidence about women's efforts to win the war. I was very interested in such largely unknown women - the men returning of course wanted their jobs back, and women had always been underpaid so industry could not afford to keep them on if required to rehire men.
Ida Smedley and Martha Whiteley are two women from chemistry, Smedley studying in Newnham then working in Manchester alongside paeleobotanist Marie Stopes. Whitely gained a University of London degree but had to take up teaching. Women were not allowed to join the Royal Society or other male preserves. Mabel Elliott was not university educated but her sharp wits helped her discover coded wartime messages in post she was censoring, and she established an intelligence section, being awarded the MBE. Women also developed and tested mustard gas and aeroplane equipment. Typing, wireless messages and cryptography were further taken over by women. (Who were dismissed with a week's pay in 1919.) Meanwhile, ordinary women in the West Country were making hemp into endless miles of cloth for uniforms and equipment, never mentioned in the newspapers.
Women also did endless voluntary work, largely those women who could afford to do so, and still had their homes to run. Several examples are given of women referred to by the author as 'tip of the iceberg' who were Ministry inspectors of munitions, or organised Red Cross canteens, or gave welding demonstrations. Parents didn't always approve. While Elizabeth Macdonald who gained first class in early exams was not awarded a scholarship, because she was female; she graduated by working in a chemists' shop but emigrated to New Zealand. Scottish women, I note, enjoyed more freedom and were very practical. Some of the ladies later put their new experience to very good use in the medical field, whether in Serbia or Scotland. For a start, they felt women should be treated by women doctors and midwives.
Photos are scattered through the book, including a painting by Orpen of Helen Gwynne-Vaughan in uniform. She was to become Dame Helen. Helena Gleichen went to Italy with an X-ray machine to locate bullets in the wounded, and her sketchbook is shown. Perhaps the nicest photo is the earliest, a ladies' college cricket team. Wartime photos, from Britain to Serbia, tend to show the women looking haggard, hard-worked, as no doubt everyone was at the time.
Notes in my e-ARC are on P285 - 306. I counted 79 names which I could be sure were female. Bibliography P307 - 319. I counted 197 names I could be sure were female, including some fictional ones. I did not see 'More Work For Mother' by Ruth Schwartz Cowan.
I recommend this read to anyone researching medical and science history in the early 20th century, or the status of women at that time. The casual reader may find it a little too dry with no excerpts from letters or newspapers, but in general the author tries to reflect how war mixed the social classes and opened new opportunities, which were then cruelly removed from almost all women.
I downloaded this ARC from Edelweiss and the publishers. This is an unbiased review.
The title hearks to Virginia Woolf's novel 'A Room Of One's Own' but this really just seems to give the author an excuse to insert details about the well-off fashionable set in Bloomsbury, Woolf complaining that it was impossible to get servants. Actually in the bibliography I found 'A Lab of One's Own' written by Marsha Richmond.
Meanwhile women had been working in domestic service or clothing factories, getting trained as teachers (the only job they could gain if they had been educated) and asking to be granted the vote. A third of Britons could vote, prior to 1918; well off men over age. When women were granted the vote due to their sterling service, they had to be over 30, until in 1928 over 21 was accepted.
Looking at Girton and Newnham, the colleges at Cambridge which accepted women, we see that they were single sex (like all other colleges, just a different sex) and when a female student took highest score in mathematics, she was not eligible to be awarded a degree or attend the conferral ceremony. A certificate was sent to her in the post.
However, well off men of science tended to marry bright educated women who would make good lab assistants. Their accurate note taking and attention to detail saved many experiments, suggested others, and in some cases the women were equal partners in every way except for the credit. During WW1 with men away fighting, women were working on chemicals, explosives, nautical engines and the like. Separately, women worked in the Land Army or munitions factories getting poisoned and blown up - still considered better than being in service.
The author seems to have read 'More Work For Mother' as she mentions a couple of times that new household equipment gave middle class women more rather than less work (with fewer servants) but doesn't give any examples of her own finding, such as letters or diary entries. I thought this weakened her argument, as though she wasn't bothered to go investigate domestic drudgery. I recommend that book but it is entirely set in America.
In 1894, Scottish Anna Gordon became the first woman in Britain to gain a science doctorate. She was a geologist who became President of the National Council for Women. Anna Conway, author, nurse and appointed to the Imperial War Museum, collected and curated a large body of evidence about women's efforts to win the war. I was very interested in such largely unknown women - the men returning of course wanted their jobs back, and women had always been underpaid so industry could not afford to keep them on if required to rehire men.
Ida Smedley and Martha Whiteley are two women from chemistry, Smedley studying in Newnham then working in Manchester alongside paeleobotanist Marie Stopes. Whitely gained a University of London degree but had to take up teaching. Women were not allowed to join the Royal Society or other male preserves. Mabel Elliott was not university educated but her sharp wits helped her discover coded wartime messages in post she was censoring, and she established an intelligence section, being awarded the MBE. Women also developed and tested mustard gas and aeroplane equipment. Typing, wireless messages and cryptography were further taken over by women. (Who were dismissed with a week's pay in 1919.) Meanwhile, ordinary women in the West Country were making hemp into endless miles of cloth for uniforms and equipment, never mentioned in the newspapers.
Women also did endless voluntary work, largely those women who could afford to do so, and still had their homes to run. Several examples are given of women referred to by the author as 'tip of the iceberg' who were Ministry inspectors of munitions, or organised Red Cross canteens, or gave welding demonstrations. Parents didn't always approve. While Elizabeth Macdonald who gained first class in early exams was not awarded a scholarship, because she was female; she graduated by working in a chemists' shop but emigrated to New Zealand. Scottish women, I note, enjoyed more freedom and were very practical. Some of the ladies later put their new experience to very good use in the medical field, whether in Serbia or Scotland. For a start, they felt women should be treated by women doctors and midwives.
Photos are scattered through the book, including a painting by Orpen of Helen Gwynne-Vaughan in uniform. She was to become Dame Helen. Helena Gleichen went to Italy with an X-ray machine to locate bullets in the wounded, and her sketchbook is shown. Perhaps the nicest photo is the earliest, a ladies' college cricket team. Wartime photos, from Britain to Serbia, tend to show the women looking haggard, hard-worked, as no doubt everyone was at the time.
Notes in my e-ARC are on P285 - 306. I counted 79 names which I could be sure were female. Bibliography P307 - 319. I counted 197 names I could be sure were female, including some fictional ones. I did not see 'More Work For Mother' by Ruth Schwartz Cowan.
I recommend this read to anyone researching medical and science history in the early 20th century, or the status of women at that time. The casual reader may find it a little too dry with no excerpts from letters or newspapers, but in general the author tries to reflect how war mixed the social classes and opened new opportunities, which were then cruelly removed from almost all women.
I downloaded this ARC from Edelweiss and the publishers. This is an unbiased review.
February 29, 2020
Fill with the stories of complex, smart, groundbreaking, problematic, and real women. They were stories I'd never before heard about women doing work I'd never considered.
January 6, 2018
To defeat Germany in 1918 was the focus of all English citizens. Women argued for voting rights before the war, but the effort took a backseat when puffs of smoke from mortar fire filled the sky in pursuit of English planes. After the war, women scientists, doctors and engineers returned to their role of domesticity. Financial equality and educational opportunity were years from fulfillment.
In 1935, the journalist Cicely Hamilton lamented that "the battle we had thought won is going badly against us--we are retreating where once we advanced: in the eyes of certain modern statesmen women are not personalities--they are reproductive faculty personified. Which means that they are back at secondary existence, counting only as 'normal' as wives and mothers of sons."
For almost four years, employers and ministers had repeatedly praised the women running factories, hospitals, and transport systems. At his silver wedding anniversary of June 1918, the king told a procession of 2,500 uniformed women that "when the history of our Country's share in the war is written, no chapter will be more remarkable that that relating to the range and extent of women's participation...Some even have fallen under the fire of the enemy. Of all these we thank today with reverent pride."
Patricia Fara tells the story of the mobilization of particular pioneers including Isabel Emslie, a mental health provider, the chemist Martha Whiteley who co-founded tear gas, and Helen Gwynne Vaughan, a botanist researcher.
This is the history of the opening curtain for women's voting rights and scientific exploration in the Twentieth Century. The epilogue has not yet been written.
Highly Recommended
Thank you Oxford University Press for providing an Advanced Reader's Copy for my reading and review. A Lab of One's Own will be available in March, 2018.
In 1935, the journalist Cicely Hamilton lamented that "the battle we had thought won is going badly against us--we are retreating where once we advanced: in the eyes of certain modern statesmen women are not personalities--they are reproductive faculty personified. Which means that they are back at secondary existence, counting only as 'normal' as wives and mothers of sons."
For almost four years, employers and ministers had repeatedly praised the women running factories, hospitals, and transport systems. At his silver wedding anniversary of June 1918, the king told a procession of 2,500 uniformed women that "when the history of our Country's share in the war is written, no chapter will be more remarkable that that relating to the range and extent of women's participation...Some even have fallen under the fire of the enemy. Of all these we thank today with reverent pride."
Patricia Fara tells the story of the mobilization of particular pioneers including Isabel Emslie, a mental health provider, the chemist Martha Whiteley who co-founded tear gas, and Helen Gwynne Vaughan, a botanist researcher.
This is the history of the opening curtain for women's voting rights and scientific exploration in the Twentieth Century. The epilogue has not yet been written.
Highly Recommended
Thank you Oxford University Press for providing an Advanced Reader's Copy for my reading and review. A Lab of One's Own will be available in March, 2018.
December 14, 2018
A really fascinating, but slightly disorganised, book about the most incredible women, who deserve to be much better known than they are. The scope of this book is huge, covering the impact of the first world war on both science and suffrage, as well as looking at the areas of overlap; in some instances devoting an entire chapter to a particular woman, and in others simply listing the areas of science in which women played a part. As a result, the book is slightly disorganised, but, occasional repetitions aside, still highly readable. A Lab of One's Own feels like the first step. Fara reveals the lives and achievements of numerous women, as well giving a general feel for the huge impact of women on science, and of science on suffrage, during the first world war, but there is still much work to be done on discovering the scientific achievements of women and on making them as well known as those of their male counterparts. I hope that this book inspires others to continue this journey.
March 13, 2018
This is a beautiful book, exploring the stories of the many forgotten women fighting for recognition in both science and in the voting booth in the period around the First World War. This book highlights their contribution to science, and their victories and the set-backs.
At times I found it overwhelming the number of different names and brief stories, but no book could recount all women’s contributions in depth, and to overlook some in favor of exploring others in more depth is a difficult balance to achieve. I found so many women’s stories compelling and wanting to know more about their life, but so little exists about these women.
This is a wonderful book, at times it did seem a little repetitive or dry, but it tells incredible histories of women fighting for independence, education and recognition. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in women’s suffrage and to anyone working in science.
At times I found it overwhelming the number of different names and brief stories, but no book could recount all women’s contributions in depth, and to overlook some in favor of exploring others in more depth is a difficult balance to achieve. I found so many women’s stories compelling and wanting to know more about their life, but so little exists about these women.
This is a wonderful book, at times it did seem a little repetitive or dry, but it tells incredible histories of women fighting for independence, education and recognition. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in women’s suffrage and to anyone working in science.
January 4, 2021
As a science teacher, I am constantly pushing my female students to select STEM careers. This book was an eye opener. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough women majoring in science, the problem is that they are not given equal access to funding, lab space and selection committee positions. The author started science in the mid century and the beginning of her career is filled with female science heroes such as Rosalind Franklin, Eugene Clark and Barbara McClintock. It also has a recurring villain, James Watson. The author details the difficulties of women with science Ph.Ds from the 1950s through today. The chapters about her studies in cholera were fascinating. She also worked on the government bioterrorism task force when anthrax was sent through the mail in 2001. I love science history, microbiology and feminism so this book was a perfect fit for my interests. It might not be as interesting for a male reader or someone not interested in microbiology.
August 30, 2018
Incredibly thorough and well-written. I enjoyed parts of this quite a bit, but with the subtitle “Science and Suffrage in the First World War,” I expected more science than suffrage, which was not the case.
March 12, 2018
This is an important, even ground-breaking, review of women's achievement in the years before, during, and after WWI. It was the convergence of three events: the suffragette movement, the women who pioneered -- against great resistance -- in the science, medical and engineering professions, and the Great War and the sudden need for women in professional and factory work. This book mainly focuses on the UK, but is important in showing how women had entered the STEM professions, as we would call them now, and how the activism of the prewar suffragettes shifted into (mostly) supporting the war effort.
The author has done considerable research, and has recovered the stories and names of heroic women in factories and in war research, and in theaters of war (the story of Dr. Isabel Emslie Hutton, at the front in Serbia, is particularly compelling). These women can serve as inspirations to readers today, a century on, and the author does show what they confronted. Post-war, it's not a spoiler to say the book shows the aftermath: women did win the vote on the strength of their contributions to the nation, but the returning men expected women to retreat from the professional and factory jobs they held, and it would take another world war to renew the debate. It's still timely today. "Before the First World War, suffragists could see what they were fighting against, but modern discrimination is elusive, insidious, and stubbornly hard to eradicate."
Highest recommendation, especially to those interested in these inspirational women, to those interested in women's history and progress generally, and those seeking analogies to our present day controversies.
The author has done considerable research, and has recovered the stories and names of heroic women in factories and in war research, and in theaters of war (the story of Dr. Isabel Emslie Hutton, at the front in Serbia, is particularly compelling). These women can serve as inspirations to readers today, a century on, and the author does show what they confronted. Post-war, it's not a spoiler to say the book shows the aftermath: women did win the vote on the strength of their contributions to the nation, but the returning men expected women to retreat from the professional and factory jobs they held, and it would take another world war to renew the debate. It's still timely today. "Before the First World War, suffragists could see what they were fighting against, but modern discrimination is elusive, insidious, and stubbornly hard to eradicate."
Highest recommendation, especially to those interested in these inspirational women, to those interested in women's history and progress generally, and those seeking analogies to our present day controversies.
March 20, 2020
You hear about it today in calls around the new areas of “big data” and “data analytics”- the need to get women and minorities to spend more time studying the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics-add medicine if you like). Foundations have spent funds to promote this and lots of study has gone into why young women do not study these subjects. Add to that the recent emphases over coding and programming and the limited number of women in computing/tech field and you have a veritable sub discipline of educational policy concerns.
Well it turns out that this is nothing new and I can hear Shirley Bassey and the Propellerhead on YouTube singing “History Repeating”. Asa long as there has been big science, there have been issues of women gaining access to technical education and women’s employment in STEM fields violating longstanding societal norms about the proper place of each gender.
Patricia Fara is an historian of science who has written a history of women and their work in Britain in the First World War. Her focus is on women training in STEM related fields at British universities (Oxford and Cambridge as well as newer regional universities). The story of Rosie the Riveter, but with college graduates in technical fields. The story includes women medical staffs in varied examples of WW1 service at multiple fronts. The book develops with a general narrative, enlivened by several detailed bios of particular standouts. The title made me think of “A league of their own” - the movie about women’s baseball during WW2, but both we really related to Virginia Woolf’s book, “A room of one’s own”.
The story itself is really good. Start with a hidebound male dominated social structure that turns women away at the start. At the most destructive war ever up until that time, and mix in a fabulous set of individualistic and sometimes strange characters and you get the general story up until 1918, when the soldiers came home and most of the women workers were let go. But you cannot go home, and wartime gains changed things for later experiences during WW2 (sort of).
The book is enriched by drawing out the different conflicts apparent among women during their struggles for the vote and for economic independence. Some demanded complete equality. Others thought having independent tracks would be best, including separate women’s colleges at Oxbridge. Once the war was one, the disagreements greatly increased.
This is an excellent book, whose chapters get more engaging and informative as the story progresses. If one is interested at all in current struggles for gender equality and economic equality, this is a valuable addition that is well worth reading.
Well it turns out that this is nothing new and I can hear Shirley Bassey and the Propellerhead on YouTube singing “History Repeating”. Asa long as there has been big science, there have been issues of women gaining access to technical education and women’s employment in STEM fields violating longstanding societal norms about the proper place of each gender.
Patricia Fara is an historian of science who has written a history of women and their work in Britain in the First World War. Her focus is on women training in STEM related fields at British universities (Oxford and Cambridge as well as newer regional universities). The story of Rosie the Riveter, but with college graduates in technical fields. The story includes women medical staffs in varied examples of WW1 service at multiple fronts. The book develops with a general narrative, enlivened by several detailed bios of particular standouts. The title made me think of “A league of their own” - the movie about women’s baseball during WW2, but both we really related to Virginia Woolf’s book, “A room of one’s own”.
The story itself is really good. Start with a hidebound male dominated social structure that turns women away at the start. At the most destructive war ever up until that time, and mix in a fabulous set of individualistic and sometimes strange characters and you get the general story up until 1918, when the soldiers came home and most of the women workers were let go. But you cannot go home, and wartime gains changed things for later experiences during WW2 (sort of).
The book is enriched by drawing out the different conflicts apparent among women during their struggles for the vote and for economic independence. Some demanded complete equality. Others thought having independent tracks would be best, including separate women’s colleges at Oxbridge. Once the war was one, the disagreements greatly increased.
This is an excellent book, whose chapters get more engaging and informative as the story progresses. If one is interested at all in current struggles for gender equality and economic equality, this is a valuable addition that is well worth reading.
May 16, 2023
An important work that will undoubtedly provide a basis for scholars looking into women scientists of history, but a frustrating layout and not answering the next obvious questions raised by the text stymie the work. The last chapter lapses into conjecture to a certain degree. Uses endnotes rather than footnotes. (I hate endnotes). Endnotes only provide source references, not more context for the attributions.
Mentions things like a museum getting a question about how to remove a leech from a person's nose without the obvious follow-up a lay reader would want, which is how DO you remove a leech from a person's nose? Who asked? What happened to the patient? How did that go? This is the most memorable example but not the only one.
Mentions things like a museum getting a question about how to remove a leech from a person's nose without the obvious follow-up a lay reader would want, which is how DO you remove a leech from a person's nose? Who asked? What happened to the patient? How did that go? This is the most memorable example but not the only one.
March 21, 2022
On women in science in England, pre WWI. Progress they were able to make during the war and some on societal backsliding after the war. Well written. Very informative. It jumps back and forth a bit, but mostly because that is an easier way to follow information on individuals.
March 28, 2018
This book deserves to be a three star book and I even want it to be a three star book, but, as I didn't read it all, there's obviously flaws here that make it a two star book.
The subject matter is wonderful: how female scientists were educated, how they worked and published (or didn't), and how they were treated prior to WWI and then how suffrage and the war changed all that (or didn't). This is a heavy, academic-style text so it is impossible to fault the amount of research that went into creating it. Even with all those facts and figures, it remains readable.
I read 100% of the first half, but then started to skip to those chapters that were entitled after a scientist's name in order to get her story. All of those stories were interesting and heartbreaking in their own ways. But here's why I started skipping: I didn't feel like this book was well-organized. It's not told in linear or chronological fashion, which in itself it not a problem, but here it results in the author repeating the same facts and/or antidotes in every section (really, if I read about Virginia Woolf complaining about the inability to get a parlor maid one more time, I was going to throw this book across the room). At the beginning of each section, we'd jump back to about 1875, rehash how woman scientists worked then, how the suffrage moment grew and then fractured (Mud March in even section!), how women rose the challenge of new jobs during the war but weren't paid for it, etc., etc., etc. Perhaps the author thought this was a good way to reinforce her points about inequality, which is certainly a problem worthy of reinforcement, but it became too repetitive and boring.
The subject matter is wonderful: how female scientists were educated, how they worked and published (or didn't), and how they were treated prior to WWI and then how suffrage and the war changed all that (or didn't). This is a heavy, academic-style text so it is impossible to fault the amount of research that went into creating it. Even with all those facts and figures, it remains readable.
I read 100% of the first half, but then started to skip to those chapters that were entitled after a scientist's name in order to get her story. All of those stories were interesting and heartbreaking in their own ways. But here's why I started skipping: I didn't feel like this book was well-organized. It's not told in linear or chronological fashion, which in itself it not a problem, but here it results in the author repeating the same facts and/or antidotes in every section (really, if I read about Virginia Woolf complaining about the inability to get a parlor maid one more time, I was going to throw this book across the room). At the beginning of each section, we'd jump back to about 1875, rehash how woman scientists worked then, how the suffrage moment grew and then fractured (Mud March in even section!), how women rose the challenge of new jobs during the war but weren't paid for it, etc., etc., etc. Perhaps the author thought this was a good way to reinforce her points about inequality, which is certainly a problem worthy of reinforcement, but it became too repetitive and boring.
September 7, 2021
Fascinating and infuriating - the amazing achievements of the women featured in this book should make them household names! This is an erudite book and Fara's tone is pretty formal and academic, but it's very readable and nicely structured. Each chapter is about 20 pages long, with some chapters devoted entirely to the lives of particular women, such as Dr Isabel Emslie Hutton. Don't be put off by the reference to 'science' in the title - the book focuses much more on the women themselves, history and social aspects rather than the technicalities of the science. As a science muggle, I liked this emphasis, but readers looking for an in-depth analysis of the scientific work as well as the history may find it lacking.
October 1, 2019
A Lab of One’s Own is a fascinating introduction to the pioneering women and critical events that gave momentum to the pursuit of equality before, during and after the First World War, from a scientific perspective. Huge in scope, it steps away from the most commonly associated characters and events of this time, namely the militant suffragettes and attainment of women’s right to vote. It challenges the assumption that the war had an overwhelmingly positive effect on women, briefly assessing the helps and hindrances in all area of British women’s lives, and the extent to which this varied with class and geography.
We know that the story of women’s fight for equality is still being written, and what I find so interesting about this book is that it shows just how backwards our society was even when women had ‘won’ the vote. Did you know that, despite this apparent achievement in 1918, only certain women over thirty could vote (until ten years later when this change to women over 21, yippee), women could be sacked from their teaching jobs for being married, and women studying at Cambridge could not fully graduate until 1948?
Patricia Fara delivers the story of these developments in a very accessible way, and a reader need not be a budding scientist to understand and enjoy the writing, which is interspersed with mini biographies of countless women whose heroics continue to inspire. Some may find the structure of the book a bit dizzy, but an attempt to portray all that is contained in the book in a linear timeline would be unpalatable. There is humour to be found often with Fara’s writing, and she is not afraid to highlight the contradictions in the scientists’ views and actions, unwilling to present them as goddess-like, as historians are perhaps at times guilty of. Refreshingly I think it is therefore a great read for modern day women. This one, at least.
We know that the story of women’s fight for equality is still being written, and what I find so interesting about this book is that it shows just how backwards our society was even when women had ‘won’ the vote. Did you know that, despite this apparent achievement in 1918, only certain women over thirty could vote (until ten years later when this change to women over 21, yippee), women could be sacked from their teaching jobs for being married, and women studying at Cambridge could not fully graduate until 1948?
Patricia Fara delivers the story of these developments in a very accessible way, and a reader need not be a budding scientist to understand and enjoy the writing, which is interspersed with mini biographies of countless women whose heroics continue to inspire. Some may find the structure of the book a bit dizzy, but an attempt to portray all that is contained in the book in a linear timeline would be unpalatable. There is humour to be found often with Fara’s writing, and she is not afraid to highlight the contradictions in the scientists’ views and actions, unwilling to present them as goddess-like, as historians are perhaps at times guilty of. Refreshingly I think it is therefore a great read for modern day women. This one, at least.
November 13, 2018
Social upheaval brought on by World War I brought destruction for many and opportunity for some. “A Lab of One’s Own” is author Patricia Fara’s narrative of women’s advance in fields of science and suffrage in Britain during the First World War. She draws on the background of the status of women in the era leading up to the War and changes brought on during the War. The War created demands for industrial and scientific workers due to the termination of imports for Germany. The absence of men necessitated their replacement by women. The contributions of women to the war effort were recognized by Prime Minister Lloyd “Who works, fights’ and referring to women “(W)e have found that we could not carry on the war without them.” Faced with such evidence women were added to the voters’ rolls.
The title is drawn from “A Room of One’s Own” that the author identifies as the seminal feminist text of the early twentieth century. The author obviously regards this work as a feminist text of the scientific realm. She tells her tales through the lives of many scientific British women of the era who took their places during World War I.
I enjoyed the sections about the social world of Great Britain leading up to and during World War I and especially the supplemental including the cartoons, such as the one depicting the three classes excluded from voting, “Convicts, Lunatics and (in academic garb) Women. For me the greatest drawback is that the story line seems to lack consistency and I was unable to really follow the biographical details of the women included in the text. Perhaps as an American I am less familiar with them than would be a Briton. I think those are the reasons why I was disappointed in this book.
The title is drawn from “A Room of One’s Own” that the author identifies as the seminal feminist text of the early twentieth century. The author obviously regards this work as a feminist text of the scientific realm. She tells her tales through the lives of many scientific British women of the era who took their places during World War I.
I enjoyed the sections about the social world of Great Britain leading up to and during World War I and especially the supplemental including the cartoons, such as the one depicting the three classes excluded from voting, “Convicts, Lunatics and (in academic garb) Women. For me the greatest drawback is that the story line seems to lack consistency and I was unable to really follow the biographical details of the women included in the text. Perhaps as an American I am less familiar with them than would be a Briton. I think those are the reasons why I was disappointed in this book.
January 5, 2020
Wow for a book that started so strong this became a quick disappointment for me. It was a disjointed narrative that never really focused on female scientists and their contributions to WWI. While I know "Suffrage" is in the title the focus was more on the Women's Suffrage movement and random references to Virginia Woolf? This all built up to the disjointed paragraph that quickly mentioned women it felt more like this [name] was a chemist and then [name] was also a chemist who got married. It went on like that without delving into actual scientific contributions or progress during this period of time.
Fara also lists James Barry in a long list of female doctors, which really was the point that made me mad. Not once does Fara really discuss the fluidity of gender. Yes, change in societal views and she took so long to establish while these viewpoints may exist then it goes nowhere. Then she casually lists how James Barry was a doctor before another individual using his deadname and says "male scientist," but it doesn't sit well with me at all that Fara wanted to talk about science before the war, only speaks about cis women then includes him?
Anyhow, I'm bummed that this did not turn out to be the read I thought it would be, but I do really like the bibliography. I'm hoping to find some other things to read from there.
Fara also lists James Barry in a long list of female doctors, which really was the point that made me mad. Not once does Fara really discuss the fluidity of gender. Yes, change in societal views and she took so long to establish while these viewpoints may exist then it goes nowhere. Then she casually lists how James Barry was a doctor before another individual using his deadname and says "male scientist," but it doesn't sit well with me at all that Fara wanted to talk about science before the war, only speaks about cis women then includes him?
Anyhow, I'm bummed that this did not turn out to be the read I thought it would be, but I do really like the bibliography. I'm hoping to find some other things to read from there.
March 16, 2018
The era of the Great War, later referred to as World War I, particularly in Britain, has become of interest to me lately, no doubt somewhat due to Downton Abbey. This book, thoroughly researched, annotated, and well-written, gives a clear picture of what led to women's service during the war, and the suffrage movement. Suffrage does not only apply to votes for women but also equality in education and professional careers. We often think of WWI as the watershed that led to the change in women's lifestyles and their independence, but as Fara explains, "For one thing,social structures had been changing for many decades, and they continued to do so after the War. Rather than reversing entrenched attitudes overnight, the War made earlier shifts apparent and enabled change to continue--it revealed and accelerated processes of transformation that had begun previously." (page 27)
One thing that makes this book more readable is the biographies of several women that illustrate the author's point. Photographs are also included.
I recommend this to any enthusiasts for British history of the period and for the history of women scientists.
I received a free copy of this book from Amazon Vine in exchange for my honest review.
One thing that makes this book more readable is the biographies of several women that illustrate the author's point. Photographs are also included.
I recommend this to any enthusiasts for British history of the period and for the history of women scientists.
I received a free copy of this book from Amazon Vine in exchange for my honest review.
June 30, 2018
I found this book really interesting and quite enjoyed it, which surprised me a bit as history books aren't generally my thing. I found the chapters were well organised sequentially but the content within them did tend to jump around a bit. Much of the book is the stories of real people and there can be some chronological jumps as other relevant people are introduced. On some topics the author goes into a little too much detail, and at other times not quite as much as I'd have liked but for the most part it is a good level of information. Much of the first half of the book is more about the suffrage movement and while I would have liked to see a bit more of the science side of things in this book, the history of suffrage provides important context and it is explained why there is not much known about female scientists of the time. The attitudes of the time are for the most part enraging but not surprising, however a few events in there had me a bit taken aback. I enjoyed the last chapter where the author reflects on the past and the present situation of women in science, but I think a bit more of this would have been great.
November 4, 2019
I picked up this book from the library with hopes that I would learn a bit about women's suffrage and some more about women scientists in the laboratory, thinking I would recognize some of the names. However, this book turned how to be less than I had hoped, and I don't think I recognized more than a handful of names. First of all, it is focused on Britain and British places and scientists during World War 1, and I knew almost none of the women mentioned in the book. I do wish the book jacket had mentioned that this was about British women during suffrage, rather than American or other scientists. Also, the book was somewhat repetitive, with similar sentences and descriptions in various chapters, stating that women did not have the support of men, and that the status of women after the war was poor again, just as it was before the war. This got very tiring. I think this book pretty much lost me when I read that one of the women was recruited to work as a doctor at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York. Clearly the author didn't check this major fact that Mayo Clinic is located in Minnesota.
December 30, 2019
"Resilience rivalled brilliance as an essential qualification for earning a scientific living."
A Lab of One's Own, by Patricia Fara, is an in-depth exploration of the intersection of women's suffrage and scientific ambition in England up to and during WWI. As I finished the book, I reflected on the immense obstacles that the women of history overcame in order to hold their own in academia, the research laboratory, and the operating room. It reminded me of The Woman Who Smashed Codes, by Jason Fagone, how the women worked tirelessly and often without credit. Despite progress in voting rights and earning doctorate degrees, I was struck by how much has persisted in the challenges of being a professional woman: accusations of being masculine, pressure to maintain family and household, and lower pay for equal work. Indeed, when women went to work in munitions factories, the work was immediately downgraded as "unskilled" in order to justify the lower pay! Guh. Here's to keeping on keeping on. 💪
A Lab of One's Own, by Patricia Fara, is an in-depth exploration of the intersection of women's suffrage and scientific ambition in England up to and during WWI. As I finished the book, I reflected on the immense obstacles that the women of history overcame in order to hold their own in academia, the research laboratory, and the operating room. It reminded me of The Woman Who Smashed Codes, by Jason Fagone, how the women worked tirelessly and often without credit. Despite progress in voting rights and earning doctorate degrees, I was struck by how much has persisted in the challenges of being a professional woman: accusations of being masculine, pressure to maintain family and household, and lower pay for equal work. Indeed, when women went to work in munitions factories, the work was immediately downgraded as "unskilled" in order to justify the lower pay! Guh. Here's to keeping on keeping on. 💪
November 18, 2018
Glad I read this - an important record of scientific and medical work carried out by women in and around WWI in the UK, often stories that are surprising because we haven't heard them told before. It can be a bit of a relentless read because of the density of the information and records of constant, blatant misogyny that was part of the norm. But I'm glad I got to the end, there are some nice reflections on the present day too. Fara writes: "For my first historical projects, I strongly resisted invitations to research into gender. Determined to avoid being branded as an ardent feminist incapable of handling the masculine hard stuff, I picked topics such as magnetism and electricity, Isaac Newton and Joseph Banks. Gradually, I came to realise that for me personally, the main reason for studying the past is to understand the present - and the whole point of doing that is to improve the future. And that is why I have written this book."
July 23, 2019
A few surprising omissions, and an occasional niggling if not majorly important inaccuracy (medicine was the one profession in which the men were fiercely pro equal pay, for fear of undercutting), but recovers a lot of genuinely forgotten and neglected and overlooked women (rather than women the writer in question had just happened not to hear of before yesterday...). Though it became a bit depressing with all the ways in which women were being discouraged and sidelined and forced to work in unsuitable conditions (though some of that also applied to men in the same work) and their contributions erased or not commemorated. Then after the War after they had proved how much they were capable of they were expected to go home and have babies to replenish the nation. Or go back to being schoolteachers. Any inspiringness is somewhat overwritten by this outcome. Also interesting whose stories do and do not get remembered/mythologised.
June 21, 2018
I came across this through the BBC History magazine reviews. The book is a survey which does well at diving into British women's sufftage and slightly less well at presenting the female scientists who worked in WWI.
The stories are all interesting, and the last chapter in particular thought provoking. As an undergrad who studied history of science from a woman who had planned to make her career in physics but switched to history through male pressure, her admission that she studied but did not pursue physics has a connection with me.
The problem is likely available sources. As the author notes, the women who took part rarely left a record and most of those are the doctors working in France, Italy and Serbia. Still, it would have been nice to read more about the scientists and less about the munitionettes.
The stories are all interesting, and the last chapter in particular thought provoking. As an undergrad who studied history of science from a woman who had planned to make her career in physics but switched to history through male pressure, her admission that she studied but did not pursue physics has a connection with me.
The problem is likely available sources. As the author notes, the women who took part rarely left a record and most of those are the doctors working in France, Italy and Serbia. Still, it would have been nice to read more about the scientists and less about the munitionettes.
May 9, 2020
An exploration of how British women scientists in the early years of the 20th Century struggled to be taken seriously in their chosen professions, fought for suffrage and equal rights, and stepped in – many voluntarily – to do vital scientific work during the First World War. Many of these early pioneers have been overlooked and it’s great to see some of their names recovered from obscurity and given recognition. While it mainly looks at the work of better educated women who were already attempting to work as scientists, it also highlights the highly technical and dangerous roles of working-class women in munitions and other war-related industries whose names are often lost to us. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of women in science and technology, and a very good read too.
March 21, 2020
This was a fascinating and vividly told historical journey into the interconnections between women, suffrage and science. As my PhD is focusing on a similar topic (suffrage and the legal profession), I found this infinitely interesting. It took me a little while to get into the book, mainly because this is an under-researched topic area and as such the Patricia had a wide breadth of information to cover. Because of this, it sometimes read as a bit dense. HOWEVER, once I'd got into the structure of A LAB OF ONE'S OWN, I devoured it. I find popular history books like this SO inspiring--bringing a less well known aspect of our history to light is such an important calling, and Patricia's offering was spectacular. I'm definitely going to have to pick up her backlist.
June 19, 2018
I guess I was expecting this to be a cross of Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space and Lab Girl, which probably wasn't fair. Instead it's a rather dull and fragmented history of female scientists from WW1, started because of the war's anniversary. Maybe it picked up after the first third of the book?
February 14, 2019
This is an excellent text to enlighten the modern reader to the stories of women throughout the time period during the first World War. In many textbooks and histories of this period, there is a complete absence of women, while even the most mediocre of accomplishments by various men fill chapters and pages of popular histories. This text really fills in all of that missing history, especially nice now that much of it has been recently declassified. Anyone interested in the contributions of women to science and engineering in this period, as well as the intersections between those fields and women's suffrage movements, would definitely need to read this book in order to get the full story.
June 22, 2020
*I've received this free ARC from Netgalley*
I haven't not yet finished this but felt like it needed an "in progress" mini review. I've really enjoyed her writing style, it's conversational without being overly simplistic and her subject matter is fascinating. That being said, I've had to pause reading it before bed just so I don't get too worked up. The obstacles she and other women have faced are so pervasiveand infuriating that I had to put it down. The experiences she described facing are so full of such blatent and unrepentant sexism that it makes me grateful for the moments that she talks about people who have helped her in along the way.
I haven't not yet finished this but felt like it needed an "in progress" mini review. I've really enjoyed her writing style, it's conversational without being overly simplistic and her subject matter is fascinating. That being said, I've had to pause reading it before bed just so I don't get too worked up. The obstacles she and other women have faced are so pervasiveand infuriating that I had to put it down. The experiences she described facing are so full of such blatent and unrepentant sexism that it makes me grateful for the moments that she talks about people who have helped her in along the way.
May 10, 2018
After reading so many great scholarly books on women's history in Medieval and Tudor times reading a popular history on recent women's history was a bit disappointing. I was hoping this was looking at women working in and researching in science, but the first third was just another generic history of the suffrage movement, by the time she got around to actually discussing women working in science I found I no longer cared. I would say it's a fair introduction if you don't know anything. But could have used more specialisation to match it's title and blurb properly.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews