{"id":6253,"date":"2023-05-22T19:27:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T17:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sci4gi.mediassociations.fr\/heroine\/women-scientists-during-world-war-i\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T15:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T13:27:14","slug":"women-scientists-during-world-war-i","status":"publish","type":"heroine","link":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/heroin\/women-scientists-during-world-war-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Scientists During World War I"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In his book “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex” published in 1871, the British Charles Darwin studied human evolution and specified the theory of sexual selection. As Patricia Fara, president of the British Society for the History of Science, points out in her interview with National Geographic, Darwin’s theory of evolution argues that women are intellectually inferior to men. In an already complicated context for women, access to scientific studies for women becomes even more difficult, as their parents prefer to educate them to be good housewives, orderly and traditional. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The arrival of World War I (1914-1918) will change everything. With most men gone to the battlefield, several women seize this opportunity to mobilize and actively participate in the war effort, thus accomplishing tasks previously reserved for men. Courageous, determined, and passionate, these women have marked history. Whether unknown or famous, let’s discover the portraits of some exceptional women during World War I. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Martha WHITELEY: the Origin of Mustard Gas Used During World War I<\/h3>\n
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Nicknamed “The Woman Who Made the Germans Cry”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Martha Annie Whiteley was born on November 11, 1866, in Chelsea, London (England). She is the youngest daughter of William Sedgewick Whiteley and Hannah. Not coming from a wealthy family, her studies are mostly funded by scholarships. She begins her education at the Kensington Girls’ School and in 1887 joins Royal Holloway University in London where she studies science. She obtains a degree in chemistry in 1890. In 1890, Martha Whiteley earns a Mathematics degree from Oxford University. Faced with financial difficulties, Martha Whiteley dedicates most of her career to teaching chemistry. Simultaneously, she continues her research work on the organic study of barbituric compounds and obtains a doctorate in chemistry from Imperial College London in 1902. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1914, the year of World War I, Martha Whiteley is forced to interrupt her research and redirect it towards work that could benefit the British army. During the war, the laboratories of Imperial College are used to analyze samples collected from battlefields. Martha Whiteley and her colleagues mainly focus on the study of irritant and tear gases that force troops to evacuate the battlefield. Martha Whiteley and her team initiate an experimental trench at Imperial College to test gases and explosives. To test the effect of gas on humans, Martha Whiteley and her team also test this gas on themselves; unfortunately, Martha Whiteley is injured during an experiment with mustard gas. Her work led to the development of explosives, one of which will be named “DW” for “Dr Whiteley”. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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During this period, she also develops synthetic anesthetics. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1920, she receives the \u201cOrder of the British Empire<\/u><\/a> (OBE) medal of honor for her scientific contributions during the war. She is a fervent activist for\u201d gender equality in chemistry and becomes the first woman elected to the council of the Royal Society of Chemistry<\/u><\/a> where she serves from 1928 to 1931. Martha Whiteley retires in 1934 and dies in 1956 from heart disease. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Louisa GARRETT ANDERSON: Pioneering Military Hospitals Led by Women<\/h3>\n
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“We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves”<\/strong><\/a>– Marie Curie<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Louisa Garrett Anderson was born in 1873. She is the daughter of James Skelton and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Her brother and sister die of meningitis in 1875. She obtains her Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1897 and becomes a surgeon at the Women’s Hospital. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Louisa Garrett Anderson is a pioneer of British suffragette medicine (activist for British women’s voting rights). A fervent activist, she is imprisoned for 6 months in 1912 for damaging public property to protest against an anti-suffrage speech. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Louisa Garrett Anderson and her friend Flora Murray founded military hospitals in France and London. Louisa Garrett Anderson directed a Parisian military hospital that employed only women in London and Paris, where thousands of soldiers were treated. She also worked on the causes of war injuries to better prevent them. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Louisa Garrett Anderson died in 1943. In recognition of her achievements, a commemorative plaque is located in London where the military hospital was situated. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Marie CURIE: Creator of Mobile Radiological Vehicles \u201cthe Little Curies\u201d to save Soldiers.<\/h3>\n

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Marie Curie was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw (Poland). She was the youngest \u201cof five children born to Bronislawa and Wladyslaw Skoldowski. Marie Curie came from\u201d a family that valued \u201ceducation for both girls and boys. She received an education in public and private schools where she learned several languages, literature,\u201d history, mathematics, and science. Marie Curie was a brilliant student with an exceptional memory and a facility for languages. Due to financial constraints and the prohibition of women attending university, Marie Curie was forced to work as a tutor. In 1891, she moved to Paris and studied at the Sorbonne, obtaining a Master’s in Science in 1893 and in Mathematics in 1894. In 1903, she obtained her doctorate in Physical Sciences for her work on radioactivity. She also received the Nobel Prize in Physics in collaboration with Henri Becquerel and her husband Pierre Curie. In 1911, she received a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the radioactive elements polonium and radium. In 1914, at the\u201d outbreak of World War I, Marie Curie interrupted her research to help soldiers on the battlefield. To address the lack of medical devices, Marie Curie decided to transform vehicles into \u201cradiological cars\u201d, equipped with \u201cX-ray machines and photographic darkrooms, which could be driven to\u201d the battlefield where army surgeons could use X-rays to guide their operations. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Mobile radiology vehicle nicknamed the \u201cLittle Curies\u201d used during World War I<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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She also launched an \u201ceducation program to train doctors and technicians in the use of these vehicles. She thus initiated the construction of radiology rooms in field hospitals. Marie Curie gave lectures to promote the use of X-rays in science and medicine while indicating the harmful effects of overexposure to X-rays on humans. Marie Curie died in 1935, at\u201d the age of 66, from aplastic anemia caused by radiation-induced leukemia. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Helena GLEICHEN (1873-1947)<\/h3>\n
\u201cYour country needs you\u201d Millicent Fawcett<\/div>\n
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Originally a flower painter, Lady Gleichen was a wealthy aristocrat and a distant cousin of Queen Victoria. During World War I, Lady Gleichen wished to participate in the war effort. She learned to perform X-rays following the suggestion of a surgeon friend. She then offered her services to French and British offices, which refused them. She subsequently decided to go to the Italian front with her friend Nina Hollings. Aboard a mobile radiology unit, they performed X-rays on thousands of Italian soldiers who had bullets in their brains or other parts of their bodies. Lady Gleichen later obtained the rank of major in the Italian army. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Written by Monika.T and Akila.R and edited by Aliz\u00e9e.M<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sources:<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Martha Annie Whiteley<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/fr.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Martha_Annie_Whiteley<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Whiteley, Martha Annie (1866\u20131956), chemist | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com).<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.oxforddnb.com\/display\/10.1093\/ref:odnb\/9780198614128.001.0001\/odnb-9780198614128-e-46421<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How World War I changed British universities forever (theconversation.com)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-world-war-i-changed-british-universities-forever-106104<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Comment – A<\/u><\/a> temporary liberation |2014<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/511025a.pdf<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The women we erased from history – UnHerd<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/unherd.com\/2018\/11\/women-erased-history\/<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How World War I Allowed Women Scientists to Prove Themselves<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.fr\/histoire\/comment-la-premiere-guerre-mondiale-a-permis-aux-femmes-scientifiques-de-faire-leurs-preuves<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Louisa Garrett Anderson<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/wikimonde.com\/article\/Louisa_Garrett_Anderson<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rebels, groundbreakers and trailblazers: the first ladies of surgery<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/publishing.rcseng.ac.uk\/doi\/full\/10.1308\/rcsbull.2020.202<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Record: Papers of Louisa Garrett Anderson<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/twl-calm.library.lse.ac.uk\/CalmView\/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=7LGA<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Marie Curie <\/u>and her X-ray vehicles’ contribution to World War I battlefield medicine (theconversation.com)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/theconversation.com\/marie-curie-and-her-x-ray-vehicles-contribution-to-world-war-i-battlefield-medicine-83941<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sara Rockwell, The Life and Legacy of Marie Curie, Yale Journal of Medicine https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2582731\/pdf\/yjbm00205-0023.pdf<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lady Helena Gleichen<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lady_Helena_Gleichen<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Helena Gleichen: Pioneer Radiographer, Suffragist and Forgotten Hero of World War I (theconversation.com)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/theconversation.com\/helena-gleichen-pioneer-radiographer-suffragist-and-forgotten-hero-of-world-war-i-124367<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his book “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex” published in 1871, the British Charles Darwin studied human evolution and specified the theory of sexual selection. As Patricia Fara, president of the British Society for the History of Science, points out in her interview with National Geographic, Darwin’s theory of evolution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6852,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","categories":[1082,1102,1100,1108],"class_list":["post-6253","heroine","type-heroine","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heroes","category-medicine-heroes","category-military-heroes","category-research-heroes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/heroine\/6253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/heroine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/heroine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/heroine\/6253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesforgirls.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}