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1/3. i:223-3
IBRARY
THE OUTLOOK
FOR WOMEN
in/
THE BIOLOGICAL
SCIENCES
Bulletin No. 223-3
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
WOMEN’S BUREAU
ti-
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
L. B. SCHWELLENBACH, SECRETARY
WOMEN’S BUREAU
FRIEDA S. MILLER, DIRECTOR
The Outlook for Women
in the
Biological Sciences
BOTANY
BACTERIOLOGY
ZOOLOGY
GENERAL BIOLOGY
Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau No. 223—3
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1948
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government
Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C.
Price 25 cents
This bulletin is. No. 223-3 in the following series on—
THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE
The Outlook for
The Outlook for
The Outlook for
The Outlook for
The Outlook for
ing
The
Outlook for
No. 223-6
No. 223-7 The Outlook for
Meteorology
The
Outlook for
No. 223-8
Science
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
223-1
223-2
223-3
223-4
223-5
Women
Women
Women
Women
Women
in
in
in
in
in
Science
Chemistry
the Biological Sciences
Mathematics and Statistics
Architecture and Engineer
Women in Physics and Astronomy
Women in Geology, Geography, and
Women in Occupations Related to
Note on Pagination.—Throughout the series, page numbers show both the vol
ume number and the page number in that volume. For example, page 24 in volume
3 is shown as 3-24; in volume 6, as 6-24,
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
United States Department oe Labor,
Women’s Bureau,
Washington, December
191ft.
have the honor of transmitting a description of the outlook
for women in the biological sciences which lias been prepared as a
part of a study on the outlook for women in science. The extraor
dinary demand for women with scientific training during World
War II and the resulting questions which came to the Women’s Bureau
prompted us to undertake this study. The paucity of published infor
mation on women in science and the encouragement of the scientists
and educators who were consulted in the course of this study confirmed
the need for the information here assembled and synthesized. The
study was planned and directed by Marguerite Wykoff Zapoleon and
completed with the assistance of Elsie Katcher Goodman and Mary H.
Brilla of the Employment Opportunities Section of the Bureau’s
Research Division. Other members of the Bureau staff who helped
to broaden the coverage of this study through interviews in the field
were regional representatives Margaret Kay Anderson, Martha J.
Ziegler, Rebecca G. Smaltz, and another member of the research staff,
Jennie Mohr. Corinne LaBarre, Research Assistant, of the Western
Personnel Institute, Pasadena, Calif., furnished the information
obtained from western colleges.
In the part of the study here transmitted, the sections on botany
and bacteriology were written by Mary II. Brilla and the remainder
by Marguerite Wykoff Zapoleon.
Respectfully submitted.
Frieda S. Miller, Director.
Hon. L. B. Sciiwellenbacii,
Secretary of Labor.
.Sir: I
3-111
FOREWORD
Much has been written about science and scientists, but little has
been told about the work women trained in science have done and can
do in the future.
Although these women are few in number when compared to men in
science or to women in such occupations as teaching and nursing, their
contribution to the national welfare, so strikingly demonstrated in
World War II, goes forward daily in the laboratories, classrooms,
offices, and plants in which they work.
The every-day story of where these women work, of what kind of
work they are doing, and of what other young women who join their
ranks in the future may do has been the subject of this report on the
outlook for women in science. Unlike the usual monograph which
describes an occupation in detail at a particular point in time, this
study, like the Women’s Bureau series on occupations in the medical
and health services which preceded it, is concerned primarily with
changes and trends.
Although more than 800 hooks, articles, or pamphlets were culled
for background information, the principal raw material for the entire
study of which this bulletin is a part came from such primary sources
as scientific organizations, employers and trainers of women scientists,
and men and women scientists themselves. Principal sources were as
follows:
Scientific organizations: The National Research Council
supplied useful directories of scientific laboratories and organ
izations. Helpful criticism and direction to other authorities
were obtained from its Office of Scientific Personnel. Sixty
separate organizations of scientists supplied information on
their women members, by interview or correspondence.
Federal agencies: Unpublished information on personnel in scien
tific fields was supplied by:
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics,
The National Roster of Scientific and Specialized
Personnel,
The United States Office of Education,
The United States Civil Service Commission, and
The United States Public Health Service.
In addition, 52 separate bureaus, offices, or other operating
units of the Federal Government known to employ scientists
were solicited for information regarding the number of women
3-V
3-VI
FOREWORD
employed on jobs requiring scientific training and the type of
work they were doing. Detailed statistics over a period of
years were available from some agencies, while only fragmen
tary data were obtained from others. The women’s military
services likewise supplied information on the wartime use of
women trained in science in the WAC, WAVES, and the Marine
Corps.
Private industry: One hundred industrial firms were visited in
1945 and 1946 to obtain information, usually by interview with
the director of research or the personnel director, on the women
employed by any part of the organization in any capacity re
quiring scientific training of college level. Prewar, wartime,
and postwar statistics were obtained where available, as well as
suggestions and comments. In many instances, some of the
women in scientific work were interviewed on the job. The firms
visited included:
Seventy-eight firms listed in the National Research Council’s
1940 directory of 2,443 firms having research laboratories.
The firms visited are listed in the directory as employing
24,816 persons as scientific or technical personnel in their
laboratories. This number represented 28 percent of the.
total personnel of this type estimated as employed in all the
laboratories listed. In addition to this numerical coverage,
an attempt was made to include among the 78 firms visited
small as well a§ large firms, plants in all parts of the United
States, and a variety of industries. However, the intricate
industrial organization, inter-relationships, and variety of
research revealed in the directory, added to the fact that
some firms did not report personnel statistics and none re
ported women separately, made the selection of a true
sample complicated beyond its value for this purpose. The
firms visited were chosen rather as a clue to industrial firms
most likely to be engaged in the type of work in which
women trained in science are used. In all firms, informa
tion was requested for the entire organization rather than
for the research laboratory only.
Eighteen commercial laboratories which offer testing services
to industry and individuals and which employed women
were also visited. Seven others contacted did not employ
women. These 25 laboratories represented 10 percent of the
244 commercial testing laboratories listed in the National
Bureau of Standard’s 1942 Directory of Commercial Test
ing and College Research Laboratories. Since personnel
FOREWORD
3—VII
is not reported in the Directory, there is no clue to the cov
erage of workers.
Three large additional industrial firms which employed
women in laboratory work but were not listed as having
research laboratories were visited, as was one biological
' supply house.
Research institutions: Eight research institutions or centers, some
of them identified with a particular college or university, also
supplied information on women members of the scientific staff.
Colleges and universities: Statistical information on the num
ber of women graduated with degrees in science, mathematics,
and engineering over a period of years from 1939—40 to 1946
was obtained from .30 colleges and universities and from 9 en
gineering schools. Again an attempt was made to obtain wide
geographical coverage and to cover different types of insti
tutions, such as women’s colleges, State universities, and small
liberal arts colleges. The information available from these
sources, too, varied. Placement bureaus and heads of science
departments as well as deans of women at these institutions
and at 6 other colleges contributed reports on the demand for
women trained in the sciences. The Western Personnel Insti
tute made possible the inclusion of data which it collected for
the Bureau from its affiliated colleges and universities in the
far West. Since no recent data were available on the number
of women teaching science in the colleges, a count was made in
1947 of the women identifiable by name who were listed on
science faculties in the catalogs of 330 institutions of higher
learning which were then available in the United States Office
of Education Library. These institutions were selected be
cause they are believed by the United States Office of Educa
tion to be representative in their enrollments of the 1,749
institutions of higher education in the United States and,
therefore, are likely to have faculties equally representative.
Other sources: In addition, 97 individuals not included in the
afore-mentioned sources, most of them women scientists, con
tributed information, suggestions, or helpful criticisms of the
preliminary manuscripts circulated before revision for publi
cation.
While every effort has been made to obtain wide coverage, there re
main some dark corners still unexplored because of the range and
variety of these fields and the difficulty of obtaining information from
widely scattered sources. Perhaps this beginning will result in fur
ther additions to our so-little knowledge.
772327 48
-2
-
-
CONTENTS
Page
Letter of transmittal 3-m
Foreword:,
Introduction
The outlook for women in botany
General botany
Prewar distribution___________
Annual addition to the supply________________________________
Wartime changes_______
Earnings and advancement_______________________ ____________
Organizations 3-10
The outlook 3-11
Plant pathology and plant physiology___
Horticulture, agronomy, soil science
Forestry
Some typical jobs in bacteriology
The outlook for women in bacteriology
Prewar distribution
Annual addition to the supply
Wartime changes_______________________________________ __________
Earnings and advancement 3-37
Organizations_______________ '
The outlook 3-39
The outlook for women in zoology•
General zoology____________________________ ;_______________________
Prewar distribution1____________________________________________
Annual addition to the supply 3-49
Wartime changes________________________________________
Earnings and advancement_______________________
Organizations__________________
The outlook;•___________________
Physiology and pathology
Dairy, poultry, and other animal husbandry science
The outlook for women in general biology,
Prewar distribution________________________________________
Annual addition to the supply 3-66
Wartime changes 3-66
Earnings and advancement:________________________________________
Organizations,.:______________________:
The outlook 3-69
Appendix:
Minimum education and experience requirements for application for
Federal civil service positions beginning as:
Botanist, plant pathologist, plant physiologist, horticulturist, agrono
mist, soil scientist, forester 3-73
3-1X
3-v
3-1
3-5
3-6
3-6
3-7
3-7
3-9
3-17
3-21
3-25
3-30
3-33
3-33
3-35
3-35
3-39
3-47
3-48
3-48
3-50
3-52
3-53
3-53
3-58
3-63
3-64
3-65
3-68
3-68
-
3-X
CONTENTS
Minimum education and experience requirements for application for
beginning Federal civil service positions as—Continued
Bacteriologist (medical), serologist, and agricultural bacteriologist-Zoologist (parasitology), entomologist, biologist (wildlife), aquatic
biologist_•
Sources to which reference is made in the text 3-82
Taides:
1. Distribution by specialization and sex of persons registered in biological
science with the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Per
.
sonnel, December 31, 1946
2. Distribution by specialization and sex of plant scientists registered with
the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel, December
31, 1946______________________________________________________
3. Distribution by type of employer of women members of the Botanical
Society of America, Inc., reporting employment, July 1945_________
4. Percent distribution by field of specialization of additional botanists
(except plant pathologists) needed between fall 1946 and 1950__ ...
5. Percent distribution by type of employment of additional botanists
(except plant pathologists) needed between fall 1946 and 1950______
6. Annual salaries of 118 women bacteriologists in professional positions,
by type of employment and highest academic degree held, 1947____
7. Distribution by specialization and sex of persons registered in zoology
and related sciences with the National Roster of Scientific and Spe
cialized Personnel, December 31, 1946
8. Prewar employment of 110 women graduated with bachelor’s degree
in zoology 1928-41, compared with wartime employment of 120
women graduated with bachelor’s degree in zoology 1942-45______
9. Prewar, wartime, and postwar employment of some women graduated
with bachelor’s degree in biology_____________________
Illustrations:
1. Advanced student working on a research problem in biology__ _____
2. For pioneer research with corn, this botanist received an award______
3. Mycologist at work in the U. S. Department of Agriculture_________
4. Students in training at a school of horticulture 3-21
5. Pomologist examining potted seedlings 3-22
6. A xylotomist identifies wood specimens 3-25
7. One of the few women freshmen receiving instruction in forestry_____
8. Bacteriologist testing penicillin for pyrogens 3-29
9. Conducting bacteriological research in a children’s hospital__________
10. Injecting a chicken egg with typhus rickettsia 3-32
11. A class in bacteriology at Miner Teachers College 3-37
12. Bacteriologists testing the potency of streptomycin 3-42
13. Students in a zoology laboratory 3-46
14. Entomologist testing repellency of cloth against mosquitoes_________
15. Training in zoology prepared this micro-slide technician for her work_
16. Research on the effects of DDT on nervous systems of insects_______
17. An associate professor of biology instructing college students________
18. Technician using microbiological procedure in an industrial laboratory,
Index________________________________________ _ 3-85
Page
3-78
3-79
3-2
3-6
3-9
3-11
3-11
3-38
3-47
3-49
3-65
3-xii
3^1
3-14
3-26
3-31
3-51
3-56
3-60
3-64
3-70
W'V
<* *
ill!!
Courtesy Bryn Mawr College
Figure 1.—An advanced student working on a research
problem in biology.
3—XII
THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN THE
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
INTRODUCTION
Since biology is the science of life, its principal subdivisions are the
sciences of zoology which deals with animals, including man, and of
botany which deals with plants. The term “biologist,” used rather
loosely by others, is by scientists usually applied to one who studies
both animal and plant life. The limnol ogist, for example, is a biologist
who has specialized in the study of animal and plant life in fresh
water, as the oceanographer has concentrated on the study of oceans
and living organisms in them.
In contrast, most biological scientists specialize in animal or plant
life and are accordingly called zoologists or botanists rather than biolo
gists. They in turn may become expert in one of many specializations
which have evolved in these sciences over the years such as: physiology
(concerned with life processes) and genetics (concerned with breed
ing and heredity). These are mentioned in more detail in the separate
discussions of botany and zoology which follow, and which also refer
to their application to agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry.
Bacteriology has evolved more recently as a distinct biological
science which, however, relates to chemistry as well. This, too, is
discussed separately since it ranks relatively high among the sciences
in its employment of women.
Any attempt to arrive at the number of men and women engaged
in the biological sciences is subject not only to the difficulties of ob
taining statistical information from widely scattered sources but also
to those of classification in a group of sciences which are basic to so
many fields. Table 1, therefore, which shows the numbers engaged
in the biological sciences as taken from a voluntary registration in
1946, is presented merely to indicate the minimum number and pro
portion of women in the principal sciences in this group. Those who
have taken degrees in medicine, dentistry, nursing, and human nutri
tion have not been included, except for unavoidable overlapping, be
cause the outlook in most of those fields has been discussed in other
bulletins of the Women’s Bureau. Biochemistry has been included in
the discussion on chemistry rather than under the biological sciences.
The figures presented may well underestimate the total number and
particularly the number of newcomers in the sciences who are not
likely to be on organization and other lists used in obtaining a regis-
3-1
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
3-2
tration by mail. However, the statistics do indicate that bacteriology,
general biology, and general zoology rank highest in the number of
women engaged in them, with general botany and physiology ranking
next. The proportion of women is highest in general biology, bacteri
ology, and general botany, in all of which they form more than onefifth. In such applied agricultural and animal sciences as forestry,
agronomy, and poultry breeding, women are as negligible in number as
they are in engineering, an applied science in the physical field.
Table 1. Distribution by Specialization and Sex of Persons Registered in Biological
Science With the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel,
Dec. 31, 19461
Number registered
Specialization
Total in the biological sciences 2______________________
Plant physiology and pathology__ _____ ________________
Agricultural sciences including forestry......... ...................... .
Zoology and related animal sciences_________________________
General zoology._____
_________________ _____ _______
Dairy, poultry, and other animal sciences
Bacteriology____________ ________ ______ ________ _ _ _____
General biology and natural history, including wildlife and fish.
Percent
women
are of
total
Total
Men
23, 657
21,500
2,157
9.1
9. 964
9, 634
330
3.3
1,663
1.048
7,853
831
979
7, 824
232
69
29
6.6
.4
Women
7,800
7,185
615
7.9
3, 901
1, 514
2,385
3, 469
1,342
2,374
432
172
11
11.1
2, 643
2, 438
375
437
2, 051
1, 886
337
407
592
552
38
30
22.4
22.6
.5
6.9
1 This is by no means a complete listing of all scientists, but is a report of voluntary registrations.
Younger workers especially are likely to be represented inadequately in a roster of this type.
2 Pharmacology and human nutrition have been omitted.
Source: National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (SO)?
772327°—48-
Botany as Defined by Webster’s International Dictionary
Second Edition, Unabridged, 1947
“Botany—the science of plants: the branch of biology dealing with
plant life. Botany, in its broadest sense, comprises many subordinate
sciences, each with a distinctive terminology. The most important of
these are: morphology, treating of form and structure (often only the
external form); anatomy or histology, of internal structure; cytology,
of the cell; physiology, of life processes; paleobotany, of fossil plants;
ecology, of the relationships of plants and their environment; taxon
omy or systematic botany, of plant classification; phytogeography, of
distribution; pathology, of plant diseases; genetics, of plant breeding
and heredity. Applied or economic botany deals with the uses of
plants to mankind, * * * thus forestry, pharmacognosy, horticul
ture,, agriculture, etc., fall in greater or less degree within its province.”
Courtesy American Association of University Women
Figure 2.—Contributions to cytogenetics through pioneer research with
corn won for this botanist the 1947 American Association of Univer
sity Women’s Award for distinguished achievement by a woman
scholar.
3-4
THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN BOTANY
Botanists are concerned with the science of plant life and have many
possibilities of specialization within this science. Although they may
be called by other names, such as taxonomist, cytologist, geneticist, they
are basically botanists, and those who have not specialized so finely are
usually known as botanists.
There are three main branches of botany, each of which is further
broken down into finer areas of specialization. The three large
divisions are:
1. Systematic botany, or taxonomy, which is concerned with the
classification of plants including their identification, description,
and nomenclature.
2. Plant morphology, the study of the form and structure of
plants. Plant morphology is further subdivided into external
morphology and histology, which includes anatomy, the study of
internal structures; and cytology, the study of cell structure.
Included too is morphogenesis, the study of the causes which
determine form and structure.
3. Plant physiology, the study of the functions of plants.
Other phases of botanical study are plant ecology, the relation
between plants and various factors of their environment; plant ge
ography, the geographical distribution of plants; and paleobotany,
which deals with the structure and relationships of fossil plants.
Botanical science is applied to practical problems in such fields as
agronomy, horticulture, soil science, plant pathology, and forestry,
among others.
The various specializations within the botanical field are too numer
ous to be discussed in detail in this bulletin (27). However, the broad
base of fundamental botanical knowledge common to them all makes
possible a considerable amount of transfer within the field. It also
facilitates the teamwork among specialists in this field who attack
together a problem which may involve, for example, physiology, genet
ics, and cytology. The woman who has a degree in botany is not
restricted to a narrow occupational area. Especially if she has some
knowledge of the sciences of chemistry, physics, and bacteriology, she
will find a variety of jobs in which she can apply her training in botany.
In this discussion, the outlook for women in botanical work in general
is discussed, with special mention of a few of the specialties in which
women are employed, on which information was available to the
Women’s Bureau: plant physiology, plant pathology, horticulture,
3-5
3-6
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
agronomy, soil science, and forestry. Except in plant physiology, the
number of women is relatively insignificant in these specializations.
Except for forestry, however, there is nothing in the location or type of
employment that need be considered an unusual deterrent to women.
Among general botanists, women constitute about one-fifth of the total.
(See table 2.)
Table 2. Distribution by Specialization and Sex of Plant Scientists Registered With
the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel, Dec. 31, 19461
Number of registrants
Specialization
Total
Total
General botany .
Plant pathology_____________ ____
Horticulture _ __
........ ........ .........
Men
Women
Percent
women
are of
total
9,964
9, 634
330
3.3
1,063
330
718
1,127
2,281
4, 445
831
292
687
1,114
2, 273
4, 437
232
38
31
13
8
8
21.8
11.5
4.3
1.2
.4
.2
1 This is by,’no means a complete listing of all plant scientists, but is a report of voluntary registrations.
Younger workers especially are likely to be represented inadequately in a roster of this type.
Source: National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (30).
GENERAL BOTANY
Prewar Distribution
In the last prewar year of 1941, there were 1,365 men and women
members of the Botanical Society of America (20). Late in the
following year, 1,188 men and 288 women were registered in botany
with the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel, in
addition to over 7,000 men and about 75 women registered in plant
pathology, plant physiology, agronomy, horticulture, soil science, and
forestry (29). Because the younger graduates are not likely to be
fully represented in professional organizations and are less likely
to be reached by a mailed questionnaire as used for the Roster regis
trations, these statistics are indicative only.
In the prewar period, opportunities for general botanists were lim
ited and were mainly in teaching. Most women with bachelor’s de
grees in botany taught in high school; usually they had studied sev
eral sciences and taught high school biology. Positions in colleges
and universities were open to only the most capable Ph. D.’s. Of the
873 employed persons who had received their Ph. D.’s in botany in the
decade preceding 1940, about 40 percent were teaching, another 12
percent combined teaching with research, and about 40 percent were
in research (12).
Only a very few botanists were absorbed by industry before the
war, although there were some jobs for them as seed specialists. A
BOTANY
3-7
number, whose training included enough bacteriology, did bacterio
logical work, especially in medical laboratories. Because there were
so few outlets in general botany, some women botany majors took
enough bacteriology to qualify themselves for such positions.
The prewar demand for botanists in the Federal Civil Service was
small and came principally from the United States Department of
Agriculture. Although, in the year ended June 30, 1940, 22 women
were among the 60 who were qualified through Civil Service examina
tions as botanists at the Junior Professional Assistant level, only 3
men and no women were appointed to such positions in the same
period (23). Earlier, in 1938, the Federal Government employed 130
women as agronomists, horticulturists, botanists, and bacteriologists
(41) - Only a few of these 130 women were general botanists, since
bacteriologists predominated in this group.
Annual Addition to the Supply
In the 40-year period before the war, about 2,000 Ph. D. degrees
had been awarded in botany, an average of 50 a year (21). But the
number of Ph. D.’s was increasing. From 1935 to 1940 there was only
one year, 1937, in which the number of doctorates in botany was less
than 100 (11). The largest number granted in any one year before
the war was 112, in 1940.
There are no separate statistics on the prewar number of first degrees
in botany, which are included in the 4,629 degrees in the biological
sciences in 1941-42, along with bacteriology and zoology (43). Most
of the 30 schools that reported statistics on women graduates in science
to the Women’s Bureau had fewer than a half dozen women botany
graduates annually, and the largest number of women who received
degrees in botany, both bachelors and advanced degrees combined, in
a single year from any of these schools was 20.
Wartime Changes
For most botany graduates, the number and types of jobs available
during the war continued to be much the same as they had been before
the war, although there were some exceptions. Some botanists worked
as medical adjuncts or as chemists or biologists. A few were on war
research projects such as the study of methods of overcoming the de
structive action of fungi on certain vital materials, such as fabrics,
glass, and paints, which were exposed to the weather and subject to
attack by fungi, especially in the tropics. Some botanists trained in
bacteriology did research on penicillin and other antibiotics. For the
most part, however, the volume of the wartime demand for botanists
did not compare with the size of the expansion in such sciences as
3-8
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
physics and chemistry. However, many botanists contributed to the
war effort by continuing to do much the same type of work that they
had done in peacetime, applying it to special problems arising from
wartime needs.
Although reports from colleges indicated that most of their wartime
graduates who had majored in botany became high school teachers or
graduate assistants in botany departments of universities, a variety
of other jobs were reported. Among the jobs that these women took
were those of: laboratory technician in cytology at a State agricul
tural experiment station; assistant in plant physiology at an institute
for plant research; director of Oxford testing of penicillin for a
commercial company; seed analysts in State seed laboratories; botanist
in a State park; pathology assistant at a State agricultural experi
ment station; assistant gardener in a botanical garden; and research
assistant on a Navy project, working on the effect of fungi on materials.
Women who had some training in chemistry, in addition to their
botanical training, sometimes went into a somewhat different type
of work. For example., one went into a flour mill laboratory, and
another became a research chemist with a medical research institute.
Only a few of these graduates took jobs that they would possibly
not have entered in a normal period. These included positions with
a National Defense Research Committee, as technical assistant at an
aircraft company, as an overseas hospital secretary with the Red Cross,
and a WAC assignment as a physical therapist in an Army hospital.
The Botanical Society of America published a list of its members
and their occupations shortly before the end of the war in 1945. By
far the largest number of both men and women members were em
ployed at that time in colleges and universities. Over three-fourths
of the women were teachers, graduate students, research assistants, or
technical assistants in institutions of higher learning. Although most
of them were primarily botanists, a substantial number gave their
teaching field as biology. Others reported zoology and physiology,
paleobotany, general science, plant physiology, plant ecology, and bac
teriology as the; subjects that they taught. No other type of institution
approached the colleges in importance as employers of these botanical
specialists (5). If information on the employment of all persons
with degrees in botany were available, the distribution might be dif
ferent. For example, it is likely that a much higher proportion would
be listed as high school teachers. (See table 3.)
The largest number of doctorates awarded in botany in any one
year was 120, in the war year of 1942. But by 1944 the abnormal war
situation had caused this number to drop to 52 (11). However, the
number of graduates who received bachelor’s degrees in the biological
sciences was virtually the same in 1943-44 as it had been in 1941-42,
BOTANY
3-9
although the proportion of women increased substantially. Always
a significantly large group in the biological sciences, women composed
about two-fifths of the 4,629 graduates in 1941-42 and slightly more
than half of the 4,622 graduates in 1913-44 (Jfl) (.£.£) ■
Table 3. Distribution by Type of Employer of Women Members of the Botanical
Society of America, Inc., Reporting Employment, July 1945 1
Women members reporting
employment
Type of employer
Number
Percent
215
100.0
177
165
7
5
2 17
12
6
3
82.3
76.7
3.3
2.3
7.9
5.6
2.8
1.4
1 Excludes 54 women who did not report on employment.
2 Includes 10 employed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture.!
Source: Botanical Society of America, Inc. (5).
Earnings and Advancement
Earnings of botanists increased somewhat during the war period,
although college placement bureaus in 1946 reported that the salaries
offered beginners varied considerably. For example, in medical re
search, $1,500 per year was the salary offered for a botanist’s assistant,
a position for which only an undergraduate degree in botany was
necessary. A seed company asked for a botany major to work as a
seed analyst at $2,000 per year.
Earnings in 1946 reported by women botanists already employed also
varied widely. One was employed as a research chemist by a medical
research institute at $2,600 per year; a recent graduate of a woman’s
college was director of penicillin testing in a commercial firm at ap
proximately $2,200 annually. The beginning salary in the Federal
Civil Service for botanists and other plant scientists, at the junior
professional assistant level in 1947, was $2,644 per year. In State
colleges, women teachers with the Ph. D. were starting at about $3,000
per year. In research, starting salaries were from $3,000 to $4,000.
Before the war, in the 1930’s, plant pathologists employed by col
leges and State experiment stations earned from $1,500 to $6,000 per
year. The average was probably about $2,700 (.\3). In the early
postwar period pathologists with advanced degrees were starting at
salaries of $2,320 to $2,980 a year (37).. An average salary for work
ers with 10 to 20 years’ experience was between $3,420 and $5,180 per
year. Salaries in horticulture, agronomy, and soil science were com
3-10
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
parable with those in botany and plant pathology, according to the
National Eoster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel.
According to a study published in the proceedings of the Association
of Official Seed Analysts in 1946, permanent seed analysts employed in
seed laboratories earned from $780 to $3,420 a year. For the heads
of laboratories whose sole responsibility was the work of the seed
laboratory, the range of salaries was from $2,000 to $3,700, and for
those who had other responsibilities salaries ranged up to $6,500.
A graduate degree is almost essential for advancement in any of the
sciences. Very few people with only a bachelor’s degree attain posi
tions in which they can do creative work.
Because of the limited number of opportunities to do distinguished
work, advancement in botany is slow, especially for women. Nonethe
less, women have done notable work in many phases of botanical
science. A number of women botanists have been sent to other coun
tries as consultants; many have contributed to the literature; and a
few have attained full professorial rank on college and university
faculties.
Organizations
In 1906 the Botanical Society of America was organized with 116
members (21). By 1945 there were nearly 1,400 members, and 19 per
cent of these were women (5). One woman has served as president
of this organization. The Mycological Society of America also has a
fairly high proportion of women, about 15 percent, among its more
than 400 members. But in all of the other organizations of plant
scientists, the percentage of women is much smaller. In 1946 less
than 2 percent of the 1,260 members of the American Phytopathological Society and about 3 percent of the 675 in the American Society of
Plant Physiologists were women. The Society of American Foresters
had even fewer women members, only 13 in a total of approximately
5,500 members. Five qualified for active membership, which requires
graduation from a professional school with at least a B. S. in forestry,
and 8 were associate members trained in other phases of botany who
were doing work that applied to forestry. The only requirement for
membership in the other groups mentioned above is interest in the
science.
There is some overlapping of membership among these various soci
eties. This overlapping is evidence of the close relationship that exists
among these fields. Women interested in a career in any of the plant
sciences must have the basic botanical knowledge common to all of
them and then must acquire the special skills and knowledge of their
particular field of interest.
3-11
BOTANY
The Outlook
In the fall of 1946 a survey of the future personnel needs for botan
ists with advanced degrees and for graduate students in botany was
made for the Botanical Society of America. The conclusion, admit
tedly conservative, was that approximately 1,900 would be needed in
1950, exclusive of the more than 1,000 plant pathologists of compara
ble training also needed in 1950. To meet the 1950 need would require
369 more plant pathologists and 828 more botanists than were esti
mated as being available in 1946. The percentage distribution of the
additional botanists needed by 1950 (excluding plant pathologists)
is given in table 4.
Teaching will be the principal outlet for two-thirds of the additional
botanists (except plant pathologists, for whom the demand was great
est in research) needed according to this survey (7). The source of
the estimated demand for additional botanists up to 1950 is shown in
table 5.
Table 4. Percent Distribution by Field of Specialization of Additional Botanists
(Except Plant Pathologists) Needed Between Fall 1946 and 1950
Botanical specialization
Percent
Botanical specialization
1000
General botany; miscellaneous
Plant breeding; genetics
28.5
21.8
11.6
8.3
7.0
Plant morphology___ _
Plant cytology
Economic botany____________________
Taxonomy of lower plants ..
Percent
5.1
4.6
4.3
3.5
2.8
2.5
Source: 1946 survey, made for the Botanical Society of America, of personnel needs for botanists with
advanced degrees and for graduate students in botany (7).
Table 5. Percent Distribution by Type of Employment of Additional Botanists
{Except Plant Pathologists) Needed Between Fall 1946 and 1950
Type of employment
Total
Percent
100.0
65.0
57.0
1 4.7
3.3
Type of employment
Percent
33.7
13.3
13.2
2.8
4.4
1.3
i The figure for the high school teaching group is believed to be disproportionately low due to the method
of sampling.
Source: 1946 survey, made for the Botanical Society of America, of personnel needs for botanists with
advanced degrees and for graduate students in botany (7).
There were many more opportunities in 1947 in college teaching
for women who had the Ph. D. in botany than there were before the
war. A 1947 count of teachers in 330 institutions of higher education,
comprising a United States Office of Education enrollment sample
772327”—48----- 4
3-12
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
of all the 1,749 such institutions in the United States, showed that
there were 151 women listed as teaching botanical subjects in these
schools. Thirty-five of them held the rank of assistant professor or
above, and 25 of these were Ph. D.’s. With only a very few exceptions,
the 151 women taught botanical subjects only. If this sample is as
representative of faculty as it is of enrollment, there were slightly
more than 650 women botany teachers in colleges and universities,
most of them in universities, colleges of arts and sciences, and tech
nical and professional schools. Only a few were in junior colleges
or in Negro institutions.
Outstanding women botanists reported offers of good positions
from colleges and universities, including some offers to head depart
ments. As enrollments in institutions of higher learning have in
creased, some schools have expanded existing botany departments or
organized new ones. As a result of such expansion, women are now on
some faculties formerly composed only of men. For women who had
a bachelor’s degree in botany, and who had training in other sciences
as well, high school teaching continued to be an important outlet.
Ihis group is obviously not included in the survey of botanists with
graduate training, referred to in table 4.
Industry offers few opportunities to women botanists except in the
field of mycology. (See p. 3-13.) There is far less demand in indus
try for botanists than for bacteriologists and chemists. Women bot
anists were found in only 1 of the 78 firms with research laboratories
visited by a representative of the Women’s Bureau in the course of
this study. They worked directly on insecticides in a chemical com
pany. However, women botanists are known to be employed in seed
houses. They also work as plant pathologists or as technicians who
culture fungi and bacteria, or are employed in slide making. Women
also do experimental work in some of the 59 or more botanical gardens
in the United States. Some are on research projects financed by
piivate foundations or institutions. Museums also employ botanists,
but the number of available jobs is small, since, although there is at
least 1 botanical museum in every State, the entire country has less
than 100. Women are also employed at herbaria and arboretums,
among them the Gray Herbarium and the Arnold Arboretum at
Harvard, the New York Botanical Garden, and the California Acad
emy of Sciences. The National Herbarium of the Smithsonian
Institution in 1947 employed some botanists, mostly taxonomists, but
they included only one woman, noted for her work on grasses,
who was formerly employed by the United States Department of
Agriculture.
Government, never an employer of a large number of botanists,
does not promise to become an important outlet for them in the future,
BOTANY
3-13
except in the specialized agricultural fields in which men predominate.
Of the Federal agencies that reported on employment to the Women’s
Bureau, only the Department of Agriculture employed women under
the title of botanists. There were relatively few jobs even with this
agency, which employed only seven women as “botanists” and four as
“seed technicians” in the Washington area in 1946. Reports from a
few field offices further bear out the conclusion that Government botan
ical jobs for women, in general botany, were scarce. At one regional
laboratory, openings for botanists were rare. However, one woman
xylotomist, who had a bachelor’s degree in botany and had specialized
in the study of woody plants in her undergraduate training, was doing
microscopic work identifying wood cuttings at this laboratory. A
woman with a Ph. D. wras in charge of the pathology branch of a
technical laboratory of the Department of Agriculture, and another
outstanding woman botanist, whose major fields are plant physiology,
anatomy, and the study of foreign woods, was also employed. (See
p. 3-73 for minimum requirements for Federal Civil Service posi
tions as. botanists.)
College placement officers verified the evidence from industry and
Government that there was little demand, except in teaching, for
women with general botanical training. However, women interested
in botany can expand their employment opportunities in industry
and Government by taking a substantial number of courses in one or
more related scientific fields, such as bacteriology, chemistry, physics,
or zoology, or perhaps by combining botany with mathematics, statis
tics, or economics.
A recently expanded branch of botany is mycology, the science of
fungi. Mycology is concerned with structure, affinities, classification,
physiology, and growth of fungi, and with all applications of these asr
pects of the subject in industry, agriculture, and medicine. It has
come into greater prominence recently because of the extensive use of
fungi in the manufacture of drugs. In this work, a knowledge of
bacteriology and chemistry is essential. Employment opportunities
in mycology are greatest for those -who have a background in plant
pathology, biochemistry, and bacteriology.
As the whole field of antibiotics has grown, opportunities for my
cologists have developed. A few years ago women were discouraged
from specializing in mycology because of the lack of jobs in this field.
Openings were rare and chiefly in teaching or research. Many my
cologists found that their best opportunities were not in their own
specialized field but in teaching or research in some other biological
science. Consequently, there were few trained mycologists, and the
sudden demand created by the expanding use of penicillin and other
3-14
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
antibiotic drugs far exceeded the supply. The penicillin industry has
hired most of those who were available. Only three women mycolo
gists were located in the course of this study: one worked for a drug
company, and two were employed by the United States Department of
Agriculture in the Washington area in 1946.
-----Hi
£■■■■■■
Courtesy U. S. Department of Agriculture
Figure 3.—A mycologist at work in the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils,
and Agricultural Engineering, U. S. Department of Agriculture.
Most of the members of the Mycological Society of America, which
includes most of the men and women in this country who are con
cerned with mycology, teach in colleges and universities, although
there are a very few in industrial research. Many of the college and
university teachers give courses in biological specializations other than
mycology.
There is an urgent demand for mycologists by the approximately 14
or 15 basic manufacturers of penicillin and other antibiotics, by the
universities where antibiotic research is done, and by Government
agencies that are doing work in this field. The antibiotic industry has
opened many new opportunities to scientists in various fields, and the
mycologist who has a good background in chemistry is especially well
favored.
BOTANY
3-15
There are also a number of jobs in related fields that might attract
women trained in botany (13) (17). For the woman who knows
botany and who has some artistic ability, there is botanical illustra
tion or work in the floral industry. Some botany graduates have
become successful operators of their own businesses, as florists. There
are also possible careers in botanical editing and writing, for the
woman who combines writing ability with a knowledge of botany.
Several women trained in botany have succeeded to positions as editor
or chief editor of technical journals and periodicals in this field.
Botanical librarianship is another type of work available to women
with adequate training. Although botanical librarians are some
times women trained primarily in library work, with only a working
knowledge of botanical subjects, some positions require a high degree
of specialization in botany. In the Department of Agriculture library,
for example, a woman with a Pli. D. in botany has compiled an out
standing new type of bibliography. Publishers of scientific books and
magazines, educational and research institutions, museums, and botan
ical gardens are among those who employ botanical illustrators,
writers and editors, and librarians.
There is nothing in the nature of most botanical work that makes
it an unsuitable field of work for women, and many women botanists
in the United States and other countries have done distinguished
work. One authority says that, “This is definitely a field in which
women may make contributions and achieve distinctions fully equal to
those of men * * * women are adapted to successful work in
the botanical field. In America they must overcome a certain amount
of hide-bound prejudice * * *, but they are steadily doing that
and demonstrating a welcome talent in this field.”
Plant Pathologist as Defined by the National Roster of Scientific:
and Specialized Personnel (37)
“Plant pathologists deal with the nature, cause, and control of dis
eases of plants and of the decay of plant products, and seek to protect
field crops, vegetables, fruits, ornamental plants, and plant products
from damage or destruction by infectious fungi (molds, mildews,
smuts), bacteria, viruses, or by physiological disorders.”
Plant Physiologist as Defined by the National Roster of Scientific
and Specialized Personnel (37)
“The plant physiologist studies the mechanics and the chemistry of
growth, maturity, and reproduction in plants. He studies these func
tions of the plant in relation to structure and development and to the
influence of elements in the plant’s environment such as soil, tempera
ture, moisture, and light.”
3-16
PLANT PATHOLOGY AND PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Plant pathologists study plant diseases and methods of prevention
and control. Because their work may involve the study of bacteria,
fungi, or other agents that may cause plant disease, plant patholo
gists must also be competent in bacteriology and mycology. It is not
uncommon for them to be members not only of the American Phytopathological Society, but, also the Mycological Society of America,
the Society of American Bacteriologists, or the American Society of
Plant Physiologists (33). Although women are more prominent in
these other phases of botany, they comprised only 4 percent of plant
pathologists in 1946.
Plant pathologists teach in colleges and universities; they do re
search with the Federal Government, educational institutions, State
experiment stations, private and commercial agencies; or they may
be engaged in plant quarantine work (Federal or State), or in field
control. They are employed in all land grant colleges and State ex
periment stations, by the United States Department of Agriculture,
and by commercial firms engaged in manufacturing disinfectants and
spray materials. Opportunities are scattered throughout the coun
try, since each State has a definite program of plant disease control,
usually directed by the State experiment station (45). Some plant
pathologists operate a consulting business of their own as “plant doc
tors.” In 1967 there were 265 plant pathologists in the United States
in State colleges and experiment stations, according to a study of the
Georgia National Youth Administration.
The United States Department of Agriculture also has stations in
the Washington area and throughout the country. Before the war,
in 1940, there were 52 qualified applicants, 6 of them women, for
Federal Civil Service positions as junior professional assistants in
plant pathology. Three men were appointed that year (23). (See
p. 3-76 for minimum requirements for Federal Civil Service posi
tions as plant pathologists.)
The Ph. D. is essential for advancement to top posts in this field.
Evidence of its importance is the fact that almost two-thirds of the
265 pathologists in State colleges and experiment stations in 1937 had
their Ph. D.’s. Seventy-five had a master’s degree, and 20 had a
bachelor’s degree (43). The count of women teaching botanical sub
jects showed that there were 8 women teaching plant pathology in
the 330 schools in the sample, or about 33 in all institutions of higher
education.
3-17
3-18
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
In a survey in the fall of 1946 of the need for botanists, the supply
of plant pathologists was short of estimated needs in 1950 by 233
professional plant pathologists and 136 graduate students in this
specialty. More than half of those needed would be required in
research (7).
It is unlikely that the number of women will increase proportionately
in this field in which men have been preferred because of the extension
and field work involved.
Plant physiologists study the physiology of plants and the effects
of various environmental conditions upon them. Although plant
physiologists are fewer in number than plant pathologists, women
form a higher proportion of the plant physiologists, between 11 and
12 percent in 1946. Plant physiologists are employed principally by
colleges and universities, Federal and State agencies, other research
agencies, and industrial firms manufacturing food products and agri
cultural fungicides {39). The majority of the members of the Ameri
can Society of Plant Physiologists, according to that organization,
woi'k in institutions of higher learning; some are employed by the
Federal Government in various capacities.
In 1940, 83 persons, including 16 women, passed the Federal Civil
Service examination for positions in plant physiology at the junior
professional assistant level. Only two appointments, both of men,
were made to such positions in the same year (23). (See p. 3-74 for
minimum requirements for Federal Civil Service positions as plant
physiologists.) However, persons trained in plant physiology are
sometimes employed by the Federal Government under other titles,
such as that of horticulturist or seed technologist.
According to figures published in the Newsletter of the Association
of Official Seed Analysts, there were 30 seed technologists employed
in Federal laboratories in 1946, of whom 14 were women. In addition,
State laboratories employed approximately 232 seed technologists or
seed analysts, of wdiom 155 were women. Other openings for women
trained in this field may be found in commercial seed laboratories, for
according to recent information there were 29 women among the 50
members of the Society of Commercial Seed Technologists, who prob
ably represented about half the number of commercial seed technolo
gists in the United States.
7723UT
Horticulturist as Defined by the National Roster of Scientific and
Specialized Personnel (25)
“A horticulturist applies scientific methods to the production and
breeding of all types of plants except field crops. These include
flowers, greenhouse plants, ornamental shrubs, trees, vegetables, fruits,
berries, and nuts.”
Agronomist as Defined by the National Roster of Scientific and
Specialized Personnel (25)
“The agronomist is concerned with the technical aspects of plant,
soil, and related sciences, and their application to the production, im
provement, and utilization of field crops, and to the management and
improvement of soil.
*
*
*
❖
*
❖
#
“In all his studies, the purpose of the agronomist is to develop
methods for the most efficient production, management, and utilization
of field crops as well as to improve existing varieties with reference
to soil and climatic adaptation, disease and insect pests, and other
characteristics leading toward sustained or increased production of
high quality products.”
Soil Scientist as Defined by the National Roster of Scientific and
Specialized Personnel (38)
“The soil scientist primarily * * * carries out research work to
learn the basic principles of soil origin, distribution, and composition;
its chemical and physical properties; and the application of such
knowledge to soil management practice, crop production, and farming
systems. Some of the specific applications relate to irrigation and
drainage practice, land tillage, and runoff and erosion control.”
3-20
HORTICULTURE, AGRONOMY, SOIL SCIENCE
Horticulturists and agronomists both do research in the breeding,
production, use, processing, storage, and shipment of crops. Horti
culturists work on fruits and nuts, garden vegetable crops, flowers and
ornamental plants, and nursery stock; agronomists, on field crops.
Although agronomists are concerned with variety testing, crop rota
tion, and many other problems, their chief techniques are largely those
of plant breeders. Agronomists are primarily plant geneticists, devot
ing themselves to the application of genetical principles and procedures
to practical ends. Soil scientists concentrate on problems of soil and
their relation to crop production (38)
A
JlaS
I ills
Courrccy School of Horticulture for Women, Ambler, Pa.
Figure 4.—Students in training at a school of horticulture.
Although, with forestry, these specialties include almost 80 percent
of all the plant scientists, as already noted (see table 2) women are very
rare in these fields. The actual farm work involved may be a deterring
factor to some women, although United States census figures, which for
1940 show over 300,000 women as farm laborers, seem to contradict this
impression.
3-21
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
3-22
Teaching and research are the chief occupations of Pli. D.’s in horti
culture. In 1940 almost half of the 119 employed persons who had
received doctorates in this field in the preceding decade were doing
research. About one-sixtli were teachers, and over one-fourth com
bined teaching and research {12). In the 330 institutions of higher
education referred to earlier, there were 7 women teaching horticulture,
1 of them teaching horticulture and forestry. This indicates that
there were about 23 women teachers of horticulture in all colleges and
universities.
A
feilSS
’
j*
"T
mm
/
■f
,:-il i ainHffiifi^' ‘ -
-5-3*
....<
■
.E*
Courtesy U. S. Department of Agriculture
Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and
Agricultural Engineering
Figure 5.—A pomologist examining potted seedlings in connection with
a peach tree breeding program.
Training in horticulture can be obtained at agricultural colleges,
which are usually connected with State universities. Some botanical
gardens, including the Xew York Botanical Garden, offer 2-year
courses in horticulture. In addition, there is a school of horticulture,
BOTANY
3-23
at the junior college level, established especially for women, the School
of Horticulture for Women in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Established in
1910, this school offers 2-year courses in agriculture, horticulture, and
landscape design {22). Alumnae are employed in a variety of jobs
that include, among others, library work, teaching, writing for trade
publications, landscape designing, and farm and garden work. One
graduate is employed as a garden consultant by a seed company;
another is a research assistant at a State agricultural experiment
station; and one is a horticultural therapist at the United States Naval
Hospital {19).
Outlets for women trained in horticulture, however, are limited. In
the Federal Civil Service there are not many appointments in this field,
nor are there many applicants. In 1940 only one man qualified as a
horticulturist; in this same year, only one assistant horticulturist was
appointed {23). In 1946 only one woman horticulturist, with the title
of pomologist (specialist in fruit crops), was employed by the United
States Department of Agriculture in the Washington area. (See
p. 3-75 for minimum requirements for Federal Civil Service positions
as horticulturists.)
A survey of industrial laboratories, made by the Women’s Bureau,
shows that, as in Government, there are few women doing horticul
tural work in industry. Women horticulturists were employed in
only 2 of the 78 industrial research laboratories visited in connec
tion with this study. Both of these were chemical companies; one
employed two women horticulturists, and the other employed one;
all were permanent employees.
There are relatively few openings in the Federal Government for
women agronomists. In 1940, 89 people, only 1 of them a woman,
qualified as agronomists; 31 men were appointed that year. At the
junior professional assistant level in agronomy, there were 228 quali
fied applicants, including 1 woman. Only 55 were appointed, all of
them men {23). (See p. 3-76 for minimum requirements for Federal
Civil Service positions as agronomists.) Only 1 woman agronomy
teacher, a woman Pli. D. with the rank of associate professor, was
listed on the faculties of the 330 institutions of higher education
mentioned earlier.
Like horticulturists and agronomists, soil scientists are employed
primarily by State agricultural experiment stations, the United States
Department of Agriculture, colleges and universities, and manufac
turers of various agricultural products {38). However, no women
soil scientists were employed by any of the Government agencies or by
any of the industrial research laboratories surveyed by the Women’s
Bureau. (See p. 3-76 for minimum requirements for Federal Civil
Service positions as soil scientists.)
Forester as Defined by the National Roster of Scientific and
Specialized Personnel (25)
“The forester is concerned with the operation, management, pro
tection, utilization (recreational and economic), mensuration, logging,
and reforestation of public and privately owned forest lands. The
profession of forestry usually includes the subordinate or related areas
of silviculture, range management (or science), and wood technology
(the properties, anatomy, identification, preservation, and industrial
utilization of wood)
Forester as Defined by the United States Forest Service
“The forester is concerned with the operation and management of
wild land, commonly called forest areas.
“The profession of forestry includes a knowledge of the underlying
natural sciences basic to an understanding of problems involved in
correlating the uses of the five principal resources, namely, timber,
water, forage, wildlife, and recreation.”
3-24
FORESTRY
Forestry, like geology, is usually thought of as a man’s province,
largely because of the attendant field work, much of it in isolated
places. One government official estimated the amount of such work
as 90 percent of the job of the average forester, during the first 10
years of his professional life. The few women in forestry are em
ployed by forestry organizations, although most of the men are
engaged in jobs that include field work with Federal, State, or local
forestry departments. The Federal Government is a major employer
of foresters. Others are employed by lumber companies, manufac
turers of wood products, and other timberland owners. However,
almost half of the 61 persons who received doctorates in forestry in
the decade preceding 1940 were teachers, and more than a third were
doing research (l®). Only 5 of the 151 women botany teachers on
the faculties of the 330 schools in the Office of Education sample were
teaching forestry, and 4 of these taught forestry and wood technology.
If this sample is representative of all college and university faculties,
then there are fewer than 25 women forestry teachers on all faculties.
Coutrcsy U. S. torest Products Laboratory
Figure 6.—Employed in the U. S. Forest Products Laboratory, this
scientist, called a xylotomist, identifies wood specimens by their
microscopic structure.
3-25
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
There are about 9,000 people in forestry and related fields, includin
soil conservation, range management, and similar work, accordin
to the Society of American Foresters. Of the approximately 5,500
members of the Society in 1947, only 13 were women, 5 of them active
and 8 associate members.
Twenty-six men and no women were appointed to forestry jobs
in the Federal Civil Service at the junior professional assistant level
in 1940 (23). (See p. 3-77 for minimum requirements for Federal
Civil Service positions as foresters.)
Courtesy Purdue News Service
Figure 7.—One of the few women freshmen receiving instruction in
forestry at a school of agriculture in 1947.
Even before the war, there were women in forestry. In 1938 the
I ederal Government employed 30 women in forestry and range science
occupations (4.1). The United States Forest Service, in the depres
sion years 1933-36, employed a few professional women foresters who
were assigned to emergency work relief projects. During World War
II a woman forestry aid was employed by the Tennessee Valley
Authority. In 1946, however, there were only 5 women with forestry
or other botanical training doing professional work in the United
States Forest Service. Two were botanists classified as forest ecolo
gists, 2 were wood technologists, and 1 was a forest pathologist. Two
women also occupied subprofessional positions requiring botanical
training a botanical artist and a herbarium clerk. The present sup
crc acj
3-26
BOTANY
3-27
ply of foresters, including those released from the armed forces, plus
the additional graduates each year, about 500 annually before the war,
is believed to be adequate to meet normal postwar needs. (36).
The United States Forest Service does not as a rule employ women
in the field, because conditions are such that it is impractical to do so.
Field work is an important part of a forester’s training, and, as al
ready noted, the largest part of his work for about 10 years consists
of field work. This field experience is essential for advancement to
most desk jobs, and women, who do not usually have the opportunity
to obtain such experience, find advancement difficult.
There are, however, certain types of forestry jobs in which women
are not so handicapped. In the future, there may be a few additional
jobs for women in wood technology and wood chemistry in laboratory
and research programs. These would not necessarily involve the typo
of preparation that now makes forestry training especially difficult
for women. Other sources of employment for women trained in
forestry are club, radio, and education work.
772327°—48-
r.
Bacteriology as Defined in a Revision of the Occupational Sum
mary Prepared by the National Roster of Scientific and
Specialized Personnel (26)
Bacteriology is concerned with the classification, identification,
propagation, sterilization, isolation, and physiology of the various
types of bacteria and other micro-organisms; their effects upon cells,
tissues, organs, food products; their use in industrial fermentation
and related processes; the preparation of immune serums, vaccines,
and other “biologicals.” In a broad sense, the field deals with patho
genic or disease-causing bacteria, and the saprophytic bacteria, which
live upon dead organic matter.
3-28 '
Courtesy U. S. Food and Drug Administration
Figure 8.—A bacteriologist testing penicillin for pyrogens.
3-29
Some Typical Jobs in Bacteriology
A bacteriologist in a university hospital might describe her duties
as follows:
I am responsible for all the routine diagnostic bacteriology including: nose and
throat cultures, blood cultures, spinal fluid examinations, stool cultures for the
isolation of enteric pathogens, studies on sputa from cases of acute and chronic
respiratory infections, etc. I prepare and standardize autogenous vaccines. I
test the sensitivity of recently isolated strains of bacteria to the various
sulfonamides, to penicillin and to streptomycin as well, determine the blood levels
of the specific one with which a patient is being treated.
A junior or assistant bacteriologist in a research laboratory, carry
ing on studies with viruses involved in acute respiratory infections,
might be quoted as saying:
My duties as a member of the research team are to attempt to establish and
then maintain growth of viruses in chick embryo. Isolations of various viruses
are attempted directly from the blood, nasal washings, and the sputum of
patients and indirectly from the tissues of animals previously inoculated with
them.
A research bacteriologist engaged by a group of food manufacturers
might investigate (a) the possible sources of contamination of a food
with enterotoxigenic staphylococci, (b) the conditions under which
the growth of these bacteria might be kept at a minimum, and (c) the
conditions that might contribute to the development of especially
potent toxins.
3-30
Courtesy University of Cincinnati
Figure 9.—Conducting bacteriological research in a children’s hospital.
3-31
Courtesy U. S. Public Health Service
Figure 10.—Injecting a chicken egg with typhus rickettsia for the prep
aration of typhus vaccine.
3-32
THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN BACTERIOLOGY
Bacteriology, a specialty which has developed in the field of biology
within the past 60 years, has attracted a large number of women. The
592 women bacteriologists registered with the National Roster of Sci
entific and Specialized Personnel at the end of 1946 were 22 percent
of the total group (30).
Those who specialize in bacteriology usually approach it from one
of the following avenues: basic courses in chemistry or such biological
sciences as botany or zoology; agricultural science; home economics
and nutrition; or premedical or medical training. A Ph. D. in bac
teriology is sometimes combined with an M. D., and it is not unusual
to find physicians working in the bacteriological field. The fact that
the biological sciences have attracted relatively more women than
have the physical sciences, plus the kinship of bacteriology with home
economics, especially nutrition, may explain the unusually high pro
portion of women.
Prewar Distribution
In 1939 there were about 4,000 bacteriologists in the United States,
according to the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Person
nel. They worked in a variety of places: State, local, and Federal
public health laboratories; hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, and medical
research laboratories; colleges and universities; agricultural research
and experiment stations; plants manufacturing drugs, serums, anti
septics, disinfectants, and fungicides; dairies and other food products
plants; and distilleries, breweries, and other fermentation industries
(35). For the most part, however, they were concentrated in the
larger metropolitan areas throughout the country, primarily where
medical centers and factories are located (16).
The bacteriologist may specialize in a particular field, such as agri
cultural, industrial, veterinary, medical, or public health bacteriology;
or in a particular type of research or analysis, such as immunology
(concerned with responses in man or animals to specific infections or
biological agents), serology (the study of body fluids especially in rela
tion to immunity), virology (deals with ultramicroscopic organisms
known as viruses, which often cause disease), or medical mycology
(the science of pathogenic fungi) (26). Mycology, which is also
considered a branch of botany, is discussed on pages 3-13 and 3-14.
Women bacteriologists, even before the war, were employed in a
variety of jobs in many types of establishments, although medical
laboratories were by far the most common outlet. Many of these
3-33
3-34
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
women did routine laboratory work, preparing cultures and making
analyses. The Ph. D.’s among them were engaged chiefly in research
or teaching, and a few were in charge of research projects and produc
tion units, usually in industries manufacturing biological and chemical
products or preparing food products.
In 1940 almost 45 percent of the 325 employed men and women
who had been granted a Ph. D. in bacteriology in the preceding decade
were engaged in research; nearly 29 percent were teaching; and about
18 percent combined teaching and research {12).
Although some of the women Ph. D.’s in bacteriology obtained good
positions in bacteriological work before the war because of the demand
for trained persons, one university in the Midwest reported that it
was difficult to place all of those with undergraduate degrees in jobs
requiring bacteriological specialization. Usually, however, they found
laboratory jobs of some sort, frequently in chemical analysis, if they
had had enough chemistry.
In industry, women bacteriologists were found primarily in the
laboratories of plants manufacturing foods, food products, or biologi
cal products. Comparatively few were in the dairy industry, where
heavy work is sometimes involved. Nine of the 78 industrial firms
visited by the Women’s Bureau in 1945-46 that had research labora
tories in which technically trained women were employed in some
capacity, had employed women bacteriologists before the war either
on control or research work. In the additional 18 commercial testing
laboratories visited, none of the women employed were bacteriologists.
Approximately 100 women bacteriologists were employed in the
Federal Government just before the war. This is an estimate based
on the fact that only 130 women were employed in the Federal Govern
ment as agronomists, horticulturists, botanists, and bacteriologists, at
the end of 1938, according to a Women’s Bureau study (P), and later
statistics indicate that women agronomists, horticulturists, and bota
nists were relatively few. Apparently the supply was greater than
the demand before the war. Although 220 women and 301 men passed
the 1940 Federal Civil Service examination for Junior Professional
Assistant with option in bacteriology, only one woman and three men
were appointed to probationary or permanent positions from this list
in the year ending June 30, 1940 (23). There were almost no calls
for bacteriologists, according to the Medical Division of the United
States Civil Service Commission, except from the Food and Drug
Administration, which then employed men, principally because they
were used not only in the laboratory but also on field inspection and
surveys which sometimes may involve difficult physical conditions. A
few calls a year were received from the United States Public Health
Service, where women as well as men were placed.
BACTERIOLOGY
3-35
Annual Addition to the Supply
There are no available statistics on the number of persons who re
ceived first degrees in bacteriology before the war, although, accord
ing to the United States Office of Education, 2,632 men and 1,997
women received bachelor’s degrees in all the biological sciences, in
cluding bacteriology, in the academic year 1941—12 (1$). Very few
doctorates have ever been awarded in bacteriology to men or to women.
The largest number granted was 71 in 1941 {11). In the entire pre
war decade they totaled only 355 {12).
Only 10 of the 30 colleges and universities from which the Women’s
Bureau obtained statistics on women majors in science granted degrees
in bacteriology, and the number of men and women graduates who had
majored in bacteriology in any 1 of them was small. Thirty-one was
the largest number of men and women graduated by any 1 of these
schools in any 1 year. Most of them graduated less than 10.
Wartime Changes
There was no marked change in the type of work done by women
bacteriologists during the war, and although there was an increase
in demand, it was not comparable in volume to that which took place
in such fields as chemistry, mathematics, and physics. However, there
was a substantial increase in the demand of State health departments
for bacteriologists, and opportunities for employment in industry were
increased by the development of new drugs like penicillin and strep
tomycin and by the vacancies created by the loss of men bacteriologists
to the armed services.
Seventeen of the firms visited by the Bureau in connection with this
study had women bacteriologists in their laboratories during the war,
8 more than the 9 that had employed them previously. Two of the
17 were commercial testing laboratories. The others, all manufactur
ing firms, represented the same industries—foods and chemicals, es
pecially pharmaceuticals—that had employed women bacteriologists
before the war, with the exception of 1 that manufactured paper prod
ucts. The number of women bacteriologists in a single firm was small;
the range was from 1 to 12. Often, there was only 1, and in only 1
firm were there more than 10.
In these industrial laboratories women were employed at all levels
of responsibility and skill. They were laboratory technicians, de
velopmental bacteriologists, assistant and associate research bac
teriologists, and heads of laboratories. The technicians’ work in
volved standard laboratory analyses and sometimes the use of animals
in testing; a knowledge of routine production methods was also re
quired. At a higher level of skill and responsibility, the develop772327°—48----------- 7
3-36
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
mental bacteriologists were concerned with the improvement of meth
ods of processing, and the research bacteriologists, with new products
and new uses of old ones. Heads of laboratories supervised routine
testing or such projects as virus research or virus production.
In Government, except in military service, job opportunities did
not expand to the same extent that they did in industry. The Fed
eral Civil Service Commission reported no marked change in the de
mand for bacteriologists in Government until late in the war, when
they were needed in greater numbers to test new drugs. Women bac
teriologists were employed only in small numbers in a few Government
agencies. Among these were the Chemical Corps and the Office of the
Quartermaster General of the War Department, the Fish and Wild
life Service in the Department of the Interior, the Department of
Agriculture, the United States Public Health Service, which also sent
bacteriologists to State and territorial laboratories, and the Food and
Drug Administration. Only in the last mentioned was there any ap
preciable expansion caused by the new antibiotic drugs (substances
produced from cultures of micro-organisms and used in the treatment
of bacterial diseases). For example, the wartime controls which re
quired that all penicillin must meet the Food and Drug Administra
tion’s tests and the law, effective in 1945, bringing penicillin under
the inspection and regulation of the Administration increased the need
for bacteriologists in the laboratory.
In fact, most of the women bacteriologists taken on during the war
by the Food and Drug Administration were testing penicillin, strep
tomycin, and other new antibiotic drugs. However, a few tested foods
suspected in connection with food poisoning cases or the sterility of
surgical dressings, ampoule drugs, and other products, the safe use of
which depends on freedom from bacterial contamination.
Both the Women’s Army Corps and the WAVES used the services
of bacteriologists during the war. Thirty women bacteriologists com
missioned as WAC officers and 84 as WAVES officers were assigned to
active duty as bacteriologists. More than 1,500 enlisted women were
trained in these services to work as medical laboratory technicians
who assisted physicians, bacteriologists, and other scientists in the
laboratory by performing routine duties. A report on the outlook
for medical laboratory technicians has already been published by the
Women’s Bureau (J$).
Research foundations and university research projects were an
other source of employment for bacteriologists during the war.
Women bacteriologists worked at the Rockefeller Institute, for ex
ample, on special war research and at various universities on projects
subsidized since 1944 by the United States Public Health Service
through grants-in-aid.
3-37
BACTERIOLOGY
iiwSfi'
.nil*
Courtesy Miner Teachers College
Figure 11.—A class in bacteriology at Miner Teachers College.
In January 1944, nearly three-fifths of the 220 graduate students in
bacteriology and more than four-fifths of the undergraduates in the
United States were women (Ifi). There was almost no change in the
total number of undergraduate degrees in all the biological sciences,
including bacteriology, between 1941-42 and 1943-44. In both aca
demic years there were about 4,600. But the percentage awarded to
women increased slightly from 43 percent to a littl'e more than half
US) c&).
.
At the doctorate level, however, losses were suffered during the
war. The total number of doctor’s degrees awarded in bacteriology
and microbiology fell from a high of 71 in 1941 to 49 in 1944 (11).
No figures are available on the proportion of women among those re
ceiving Ph. D.’s. Fragmentary statistics from a few schools show no
discernible increase in the number of women who took graduate work
during the war, although more assistantships were available to women
because of the scarcity of men.
Earnings and Advancement
Before the war, bacteriologists with a bachelor’s degree usually
started at a salary of $l,200-$2,000 per year; the latter was the begin
ning rate in the Federal service (35). The 1947 starting rate as a bac
teriologist at the beginning professional grade in the Federal Civil
Service was $2,644 per year. In the Middle Atlantic States, the start
ing rate in 1947 in industry for bacteriologists with a bachelor’s degree
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
3-38
was reported by an industry spokesman to be about $2,700, for those
with a master’s, $3,000, and for Ph. D.'s, $4,200. As late as 1945 col
lege placement bureaus reported that starting salaries in public health
laboratories were usually under $2,000 a year and that most beginning
medical laboratory jobs paid about $1,500-$1,600 annually.
In 1947 the annual salaries of 148 women employed in bacteriology
were reported in a questionnaire study, the results of which have been
made available by the Society of American Bacteriologists. Twentyeight of the women were technicians or combined study with their
work. Two had no degree. But 118 were employed entirely in pro
fessional work. The range of their salaries and the median salaries
by type of employment and academic degree are shown in table 6. The
median salary for the entire group was $3,400, although salaries
ranged from $1,800 to $6,000. Both median and top salaries were
higher for the 75 percent having graduate degrees.
Table 6. Annual Salaries of 118 Women Bacteriologists in Professional Positions, by
Type of Employment and Highest Academic Degree Held, 1947
Highest academic degree held
Type of employment
Total
Bachelor’s
Master’s
M.D., D. Sc.,
or Ph. D.
________
118
$1, 800—$6, 000
$3,400
29
$2,000-S4, 620
$3,000
46
$1, 800-$5, 820
$3,360
43
$2,400-$6, 000
$3, 720
Teaching and research:*
Number of women. _____
Range of salaries... _____ ____ __
Median salary_______ . ____
.
47
$2, 000-$5, 500
$3,200
4
$2,000-$3,000
$2, 500
13
$2,500-$5,450
$3,000
30
$2,400-$5, 500
$3, 550
Government and hospital laboratories:
Number of women
Range of salaries__________________
Median salary
42
$1,800-$G, 000
$3, 624
12
$2,760-$4, 620
$3,334
21
$1,800 $5,820
$3,600
9
$3, 000-$C, 000
$4,152
Industry:
Number of women
Range o f salaries........ ................ ...........
Median salary
29
$2,400-$5, 800
$3,360
13
$2,691-$4, 290
$3,000
12
$2,700-$4, 056
$3,450
4
$2, 400-$5, 800
$3, 960
Total:
Number of women
Range of salaries...
Median salary____
i Exclusive of research in industry or in government and hospital laboratories.
Source: Earnings data from a 1947 questionnaire study made available by the Society of American Bac
teriologists. In this study, the proportion of women with higher degrees is considerably higher than that
among all women trained in bacteriology.
There were substantial differences in the average salaries received
by women in different types of work. Although the teaching and re
search group contained by far the largest proportion of the women
with doctorates, this group was the lowest paid. Higher salaries were
paid in industry, in which only a few persons held the doctorate.
Highest salaries were reported by women employed in government
and hospital laboratories.
These 118 women bacteriologists averaged between $3,000 and about
$4,100 per year, except for those few within the teaching and research
group wrho had no more than the bachelor’s degree, who averaged
BACTERIOLOGY
3-39
only $2,500, usually for an academic year of 9 months. These figures
substantiate the Ohio State Employment Service report that a reason
able expectation of earnings for an average experienced bacteriologist
is $3,000-$4,000 a year {16).
In spite of the relatively large number of women in bacteriology,
most of the higher positions are held by men (J/i). Although a num
ber of women are engaged in research, jobs and become group leaders,
only a few are heads of laboratories. Those who serve in this capacity
are more likely to be found in industry than in a medical laboratory,
where a male physician is often in charge, although some State depart
ments of health are headed by women. There are many women in
structors of bacteriology, but few women head bacteriology depart
ments in colleges and universities. Evidently advancement is slow for
women scientists, even in those sciences in which they form a signifi
cantly large proportion. However, the 1947 meeting of the Society
of American Bacteriologists, at which 68 women were among the 430
who presented papers, afforded ample evidence of the professional
achievements or contributions of women bacteriologists.
Organizations
The chief professional organization is the Society of American
Bacteriologists, organized in 1899 with 57 members (If-/). In 1947
there were over 3,000 members, of whom about one-fourth were women.
There are no special' requirements for membership except interest in
bacteriology, although most of the members are engaged in bacterio
logical or related work. Two women have served as presidents.
One, who held office in 1928, worked at the National Institute of
Health and is noted for her work in brucellosis (an animal disease
that occurs in cattle, hogs, and goats and, when transmitted to humans,
is commonly known as undulant fever). The other, who served as
president in 1943, carried on studies that have led to an orderly group
ing of streptococci, so that potentially pathogenic strains may be
readily recognized and their significance in causing epidemics may be
investigated; her immuno-chemical studies have been far reaching.
She is now a member of the staff of the Rockefeller Institute for Medi
cal Research. There are several other professional societies, in which
women form varying proportions of the total membership, such as
the Laboratory Section of the American Public Health Association.
The Outlook
In 1947 there were at least 1,000 women bacteriologists in the
United States, if we assume that the membership of the Society of
American Bacteriologists with about 800 women members represents
about four-fifths of all professional bacteriologists.
3-40
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Almost 600 women bacteriologists were registered with the National
Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel at the end of 1946.
Although incomplete in coverage, Roster figures give some indication
of the proportion of women in bacteriology in the early postwar period
and of the extent of their training. Although women constituted
about 22 percent of the Roster’s bacteriologists, they were only 13
percent of the Ph. D.’s but nearly 30 percent of those with bachelor’s
degrees in bacteriology, as listed at the end of 1946 (30).
It is perhaps because the Ph. D. is so important and because so few
women have it that, according to one prominent bacteriologist, prob
ably no more than 5 percent of those in research and teaching are
women. Here, too, the turn-over is lower and openings fewer than in
more routine work. The same authority estimates that in work done
primarily by women with the bachelor’s degree—such as control work
or testing in biological supply houses and other industries and in
hospital, public health, and other medical laboratories—40 to 50 per
cent of the personnel are women. This estimate is verified in part by
a recent survey of employment in State and local health departments
undertaken by the United States Public Health Service. In 1945, 57
percent of the bacteriologists and serologists employed in State and
local health departments were women. Altogether, 525 women classi
fied as bacteriologists or serologists were employed in the 38 State
health departments or in the 80 percent of the full-time local health
departments reporting in the survey. Because turn-over is rapid in
the bachelor’s degree group, there will be continued opportunity for
new graduates, certainly in hospital and other medical laboratories.
For women with undergraduate training only, hospital, public
health, and other laboratories will continue to be the largest source
of employment. Research in medical schools and other medical re
search centers, as well as in hospitals and public health research labora
tories, was retarded during the war, which diverted to the armed
forces those who normally supervise such work. Furthermore, the
volume of routine work was too great during the war to permit re
search. Research work, therefore, may be expected to offer some
expansion in opportunity to women bacteriologists, especially to those
with graduate training, as long as the shortage of physicians and of
men scientists continues. There are limiting features however. Few
hospitals have special divisions of bacteriological work for which ad
vanced training in bacteriology is necessary. Expansion of services
results primarily in a greater increase in the use of the less highly
trained medical technicians rather than in the employment of bacteri
ologists with graduate training.
Other employment outlets for bacteriologists are such research
projects as those financed by the United States Public Health Service.
BACTERIOLOGY
3-41
Although grants may be made to assist various types of research
groups, or even individuals, in practice they have almost invariably
been given to universities. Somewhat more than four million dollars
has already been distributed under this plan. Much of the postwar
expansion in job opportunities for bacteriologists, according to one
authority, will result from such subsidized medical research. Since
the war period, there has been a renewed interest in research and an
increased number of positions in research projects, subsidized or un
dertaken by the government.
The Women’s Bureau found 45 women bacteriologists employed in
16 establishments among the 78 industrial firms having research labo
ratories and the 18 commercial laboratories which were visited after
the war in the course of this study. Although exact statistics were
not available from one of these companies, this indicates that there
are probably about 400 women bacteriologists in industry. There
may be considerably more. Individual scientists may become special
ized in several fields, so that their classification under a single science
is difficult. For example, in some fields, including the expanding one
of microbiological assays, there are many who are in part bacteriolo
gists, in part chemists, and are likely to be classified as chemists. For
this reason, and because the sample is also subject to considerable error
because the bacteriological group is so small and concentrated indus
trially, the estimate must be taken only as a provisional one until
better statistics are available.
The women in the laboratories visited were doing all types of bac
teriological work, with varying degrees of responsibility. Some were
technicians, doing routine work; but it was not unusual for women
bacteriologists with advanced degrees to be engaged in developmental
work or research. Some were research assistants and associates in
bacteriology; others were working on independent projects. A few
were in charge of research projects or of production units in pharma
ceutical companies.
One woman was supervising work on bacteriological cultures; an
other was a department manager, supervising a virus research labora
tory ; another headed the virus production laboratories. These three
women had doctor’s degrees in bacteriology.
All the 16 employers, except one, intended to retain the women
bacteriologists they were employing at the time of the Women’s Bureau
study, including those hired during the war. Only one employer said
that he employed women only because he could not afford to pay the
salaries necessary to obtain men for laboratory work. Sometimes,
because of the nature of the industry, men are preferred. For instance,
in the dairy business, the ability to do heavier work than that normally
required of a bacteriologist is often necessary in small plants.
3-42
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Most of the wartime expansion in industrial bacteriology is perma
nent, since it was not associated with war production alone but
stemmed from the development of such new products as antibiotic
drugs and such new processes as the dehydrating and freezing of
foods. Microbiological assay of vitamins is another recently devel
oped field that will continue to require the services of bacteriologists.
In addition to opportunities in these newer fields, more jobs are likely
to become available in established industries where normal expansion
was prevented by the war. The routine nature of many of the posi
tions in industry has discouraged men from entering the field, and
there are, consequently, more jobs for women. However, many of
these are so routine that the simple techniques necessary can be taught
on the job and do not require college training. As a result, wages
remain low.
SfiM
■
c
■■--
Courtesy U. S. Food and Drug Administration
Figure 12.—Bacteriologists testing the potency of streptomycin.
In 6 Federal agencies reporting the employment of women bacteriol
ogists, there were 46 women doing bacteriological work a year after
the war’s end. There are probably some additional bacteriologists in
the Federal service, because all agencies employing bacteriologists
were not covered, and statistics were not available on the field ollices
of one department where a number of such workers are known to be
employed. Since returning servicemen will be available, opportunities
for women in the Federal services will be quite limited for a few years.
BACTERIOLOGY
3-43
The Food and Drug Administration may continue to hire a few women
bacteriologists from time to time. Since 1947, the law has required
that streptomycin, like penicillin, be certified by the Administration,
and other new antibiotic drugs requiring such testing may reach com
mercial production soon. There also may be occasional openings for
women in the U. S. Public Health Service, which in 1947 employed 17
women bacteriologists, most of whom were with the National Institute
of Health in Washington. (See p. 3-78 for minimum requirements for
Federal Civil Service positions as bacteriologists.) So important have
these new antibiotic drugs become that in the Federal Security
Agency’s Division of Penicillin Control and Immunology, the new
employment classification “Antibiotics Analyst” has been substituted
for that of “Bacteriologist,”
Women bacteriologists are less handicapped in competition with
men than are women in most other scientific fields. Some employers
say they prefer women for certain types of bacteriological work,
because they believe women have special talents useful in this field.
Very few men have the patience required for tedious repetition in
culture studies, and most of the tiresome, painstaking bacteriological
procedures are carried on by women. Women, as compared with men,
are reported to give closer attention to detail, to be better &t repeti
tious work, and more painstaking on projects requiring extensive datakeeping.
Although women trained at the Ph. D. level in bacteriology can
obtain research and college teaching positions, their advancement is
likely to be less rapid than that of similarly qualified men. But
because fewer people took advanced training in bacteriology during
the war years, women with Ph. D.’s found their opportunities better
in the early postwar period than before the war. Nevertheless, many
colleges specify that they want men for teaching openings. Some
college departments of bacteriology have never hired women and
refuse to do so, and in any one department or research institute there
are usually only one or two women bacteriologists.
In 1947, 127 women bacteriologists were listed as faculty members
in the catalogues of 330 institutions of higher education (comprising
a United States Office of Education enrollment sample of the 1,749
institutions of this type in the United States). If this sample of
schools is as representative of the employment of women bacteriolo
gists in all institutions of higher education in the United States as it
is of enrollment, there were about 315 women on bacteriology facul
ties alone and about 110 additional women who combined academic
employment in bacteriology with that in such other fields as botany
or a medical science. Over four-fifths of the faculty women covered
in the count were in publicly or privately controlled universities. A
little more than one-tenth were on the staffs of medical or other tech
3-44
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
nical and professional schools. The numbers in separata colleges of
arts and science, junior colleges, and other institutions were negli
gible. Obviously, therefore, the woman who wishes a faculty position
in bacteriology will find her opportunities greatest in universities or
professional schools.
Although none of the 127 women was listed as a full professor of
bacteriology in the catalogues examined, 12 women had the title of
assistant or associate professor. Of these, 9 had the doctorate.
An additional 22 women were listed as instructors. The remaining
93 held various titles such as those of research associate, teaching
fellow, or graduate assistant, indicating they were probably combining
research or study with teaching or might be engaged primarily in
research. It appears likely that many women bacteriologists on col
lege faculties, if not most, were combining research with teaching.
The present demand for all types of bacteriologists exceeds the
number of those qualified for the available positions. There is a need
for those able to do diagnostic work in medical bacteriology, as well
as for research associates. State and larger city laboratories need
competent personnel in this field.
In 1947 there were many evidences of the continuing demand for
bacteriologists. The bacteriology department of one university was
receiving at least one request a week for a well-trained bacteriologist.
Advertisements for bacteriologists appeared constantly in issues of
professional journals in this field. The Placement Bureau of the So
ciety of American Bacteriologists also reported more requests for both
men and women bacteriologists than it could fill. The director of
laboratories for a State health department needed competent work
ers so desperately that he said lvis problem of obtaining staff was more
difficult than it had been during the war.
The use of newer and more powerful drugs, requiring laboratory
tests to check their effects on patients, has also created an additional
demand by physicians for laboratory service. Many of the physicians
who served with the Army and Navy became used to laboratory assist
ance, which increased the accuracy of their diagnoses; and on their
return to civilian practice, they have sought service from public and
private laboratories.
The expansion of bacteriological work in the medical and industrial
fields indicates a continuing demand for women with the bachelor’s
degree in bacteriology. But training or experience in related scienti
fic fields, in addition to that in bacteriology, is often helpful. For
example, a combination of enzymology and bacteriology is good in
fhe research field. For medical bacteriologists, practical experience in
serology and in the handling of sanitary problems increases the prob
ability of getting a position as head of a section in a hospital. The
student interested in medical research, in which an M. D. degree is
BACTERIOLOGY
3-45
reported to provide a distinct advantage in obtaining appointment or
advancement, might well consider combining this degree with a Ph. D.
in bacteriology.
Prewar experience and the comments of employers interviewed
shortly after the war strongly suggest that training in chemistry
improves a woman’s chances for employment. Some employers con
sidered a background in chemistry the best foundation for work in
their laboratories. Actually, reports from colleges show that many of
the master’s and doctor’s degrees in bacteriology are awarded to women
-whose first degree was in chemistry and who became interested in
bacteriology through work in a medical laboratory. The woman who
is interested in bacteriology can increase her employability by securing
thorough training in both bacteriology and chemistry, as well as in the
medical sciences.
The young woman who is interested in bacteriology will find that
many colleges have only very limited curricula in this subject. A
study made by a group of bacteriologists at Purdue University in 1941
revealed that 132 of 168 colleges and universities surveyed offered only
one bacteriology course. On the other hand, as many as 29 bacteri
ology courses were given at one school (10). Of the 30 colleges and
universities offering degrees in the sciences, among the institutions
that supplied the Women’s Bureau with statistics for this study, only
10 granted degrees in bacteriology. The difference in the amount
of training available at various schools suggests the importance, to
women interested in becoming bacteriologists, of selecting the proper
college or university. A student whose undergraduate training has
been inadequate may be delayed in obtaining an advanced degree
because of the time lost in making up this deficiency. Thorough
undergraduate training in all of the sciences, including mathematics,
is desirable for the student who plans to do graduate work.
Of 188 institutions of higher learning surveyed by the National
Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel shortly after the war,
only 19 offered the Ph. D. in this field (28). Postgraduate training
is more likely to be available in State universities, medical schools,
and agricultural colleges than in other types of colleges and
universities.
Bacteriology is a field that women have already entered in large
numbers and one in which they have made substantial progress. They
are less likely to encounter discrimination because of their sex than
are women in many other professions and are, on the contrary, pre
ferred by many employers who believe that this is work for which
women are particularly well adapted. The well-trained woman bac
teriologist, especially if she has a good background in related sciences,
will find that there is a continuing demand for her services.
The Zoologist as Described by the National Roster of Scientific
and Specialized Personnel (34)
“The zoologist works in the basic biological science which deals with
animals, especially with their origins, interrelationships, classification,
life histories, habits, behavior, life processes, diseases, relations to en
vironment, growth and development, genetics, and distribution.”
Zoology as Defined in Webster’s New International Dictionary,
Second Edition, Unabridged, 1946
“Zoology—The science which treats of animals; the branch of bi
ology dealing with the animal kingdom and its members (as individ
uals and classes) and with animal life. Zoology, in its broadest sense,
includes animal morphology (together with anatomy, histology, and
cytology), physiology, embryology, genetics, taxonomy, paleontology,
ecology (bionomics, ethology) and various other sciences in whole or in
part. There are also numerous divisions named according to the
particular groups of animals with which they deal, as, entomology,
treating of insects; ichthyology, of fishes; ornithology, of birds;
protozoology, of protozoans, including their economic and pathological
relation to man; * * *.”
Courtesy Bryn Mawr College
Figure 13.—Students in zoology laboratory examining material under a
binocular microscope and dissecting a rat.
3-46
THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN ZOOLOGY
Zoology in its broadest sense includes such applied fields as dairy
and poultry science and the physiology and pathology of human
beings as well as of lower forms of animal life. In its narrowest
sense zoology is confined to the study of the form and structure of ani
mals (morphology), their classification (taxonomy), their develop
ment (embryology), and their functioning (physiology).
In 1946, 7,800 persons were registered by the National Roster of
Scientific and Specialized Personnel as trained or employed in one
of the zoological sciences, used in the broader interpretation and in
cluding general zoology itself, which employed less than one-fifth of
the total. (See table 7.) Of the 615 women registered, however, the
majority were general zoologists, and physiologists ranked second.
On the other hand, there were almost twice as many men in the applied
animal and poultry sciences as there were in general zoology. The
mother science was also outranked by entomology in the volume of
its employment of men.
In the discussion that follows, the outlook for women in general
zoology is presented, followed by special mention of physiology be
cause of the increasing interest in and emphasis on this field. The
applied sciences of animal husbandry are also discussed separately,
but anatomy, entomology, and parasitology are included with general
zoology.
Table 7. Distribution by Specialization and Sex of Persons Registered in Zoology
and Related Sciences With the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized
Personnel, Dec. 31, 1946 1
Number registered
Specialization
Total
Total
Physiology----------------------------------------- ---------------- ----------Pathology
Entomology---------------------------------------------------------------------Parasitology.-- ----------- ---------- --------- --------—
Dairy, poultry, and other animal sciences------------------------ ---
Men
Women
Percent
women
are of
total
7,800
7,185
615
7.9
1,545
863
651
474
1, 555
327
2,385
1,215
754
588
432
1, 524
298
2,374
330
109
63
42
31
29
11
21.4
12.6
9.7
8.9
2.0
8.9
.5
1 This is by no means a complete listing of all zoologists, but is a report of voluntary regis
trations. Younger workers especially are likely to be represented inadequately in a roster
ol this type.
Source: National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (SO).
3-47
3-48
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
GENERAL ZOOLOGY
Prewar Distribution
As in many of the other sciences, the type of employment in zoology
often varies with the amount of training and degree of specialization.
For zoologists with the Ph. D., college teaching was the most common
type of employment before the war, as it was after, except for the
entomologists.
In 1940, 255 entomologists, 122 anatomists, and 976 other zoologists
who had received their doctorates during the preceding decade re
ported their type of work to the American Council on Education (12).
Almost one-half of the entomologists were engaged in research work
exclusive of teaching, compared with only one-fifth of the zoologists
and one-third of the anatomists. More than three-fourths of the
anatomists and almost two-thirds of the zoologists were teaching full
time or combined teaching with research or administrative work.
But less than half of the entomologists were instructing at all, and
only one-third were engaged primarily in teaching. Separate statis
tics on women were not given, but all available evidence indicates that
women who received the doctorate usually became college teachers,
while a few were engaged in research in a medical school or in a
research institution.
Young women graduated with master’s degrees in zoology before
the war usually continued their graduate work toward the doctorate
and became teachers of science in colleges or took research assistant
jobs in medical or other research institutions. A few became secondary
school teachers.
Medical laboratory work, other medical or health work (usually
involving additional training), and high school teaching were the
principal occupations of women graduating with bachelor’s degrees
in zoology before the war. For work in many hospital laboratories,
a learning period of 6 months without pay or a special training course
in medical laboratory technology was required for employment (4.2).
However, for work in medical school laboratories, training was usually
given on the job. A laboratory technician in neurology, for example,
was taught on the job to prepare and embed tissues by the frozen
paraffin and celloidin methods, to section tissues, stain sections, and
make permanent slides of various types of nervous tissues. She also
was trained to assist in operations on monkeys and dogs. A wide
variety of activities is represented in the prewar employment of 110
women with undergraduate degrees in zoology, as reported to the
Women’s Bureau from a number of colleges. (See table 8.) Among
the miscellaneous activities were chicken raising, scientific illustrat-
ZOOLOGY
3-49
mg, editorial work and statistical work in a laboratory as well as
such nonscientific work as employment in a real estate office;
Very few were employed in industry, and they worked either in
biological laboratories in companies manufacturing food products,
pharmaceuticals, or other chemicals, or in chemistry laboratories in
various industries where they were applying techniques learned more
often in chemistry than in zoology.
Table 8. Prewar Employment of 110 Women Graduated With Bachelor’s Degree
in Zoology 1928—41, Compared with Wartime Employment of 120 Women
Graduated With Bachelor’s Degree in Zoology 1942—44
Women graduated with bachelor’s degree in
zoology in—
Type of employment
Total ________________ ____ _____ __
Medical laboratory work_____________
Other medical or health work (including medicine,
nursing, physical therapy, X-ray work, and health
education or preparation for such work)_____
Teaching, high school________________
Research work in institutions or universities (except
medical schools)___ __
Industrial laboratory work______
Secretarial, clerical or business work
Graduate study (sometimes with teaching duties) ..
Museum work_ . . _ _ ... ____
Military service_____ ______ ___
Government employment_________ _______
Social science or personnel work__________________
Nutrition work_____________ ...
Engineering aid _ ___________
Miscellaneous_____ ______________
1928-41
and
employed
1940-41
1942-45
and
employed
wartime
1928-41
and
employed
1940-41
Number
110
Number
120
Percent
100.0
Percent
100.0
30
27
27.3
22. 5
17
13
20
4
15.4
11.8
16. 7
3. 3
8
8
8
7
3
8
9
10
18
7.3
7.3
7.3
6. 4
2. 7
6. 7
7. 5
8. 3
15. 0
2
6
1. 8
b. 0
1942-45
and
employed
wartime
10.9
Fifty women were employed in the Federal Government in 1938 as
zoologists or naturalists, 7.7 percent of all the Federal employees in this
occupational group (4.1). In the year ended June 30, 1940, however,
only one woman received a probationary or permanent Civil Service
appointment to a zoological job, that of junior aquatic biologist. But,
13 men were appointed that year to professional field jobs and 6 others
as aids or assistants in entomology; another 13 men were appointed as
biological aids for injurious mammal control, one was appointed in a
junior professional job in animal nutrition, and 8 in professional jobs
as wildlife specialists (23).
Annual Addition to the Supply
The number of Ph. D. degrees awarded annually in general zoology
in the years from 1935 through 1940 averaged 169, nearly one-fourth
of them in entomology, and about one-tenth of them in anatomy (11).
3-50
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
There is no estimate of the proportion women comprised of this group.
The number of men and women receiving bachelor's degrees in
zoology before the war is not known. However, scattered reports from
a variety of colleges to the Women’s Bureau indicate that few schools
graduated more than 10 women a year with a major in zoology. The
maximum reported by any one school for a single year was 36.
Wartime Changes
Although World War II affected higher education in obvious ways,
the evidence from 14 representative colleges points to no significant
change in the number of undergraduate degrees in zoology awarded to
women either during the war or in the early postwar year of 1946, as
compared with 1939 or 1940. Only 3 colleges, all on the west coast,
showed a decline in the number of women graduated in zoology during
the war. This decline continued into 1946. Eleven other colleges
showed no change or small increases.
At the graduate level, however, a noticeable drop took place. The
number of doctorates in zoology, entomology, or anatomy awarded to
men and women in 1944 totaled 84, compared with more than twice that
number, 181, in 1940 (11). The demand for highly trained scientists
in this as in other fields caused many to leave college work temporarily
for research connected with war problems; potential male graduate
students were likewise diverted to military service. However, indica
tions are that the number of women graduate students did not decline.
They were sought for the more desirable graduate assistantships which
prior to the wTar had more often gone to men than to women. This
induced many women to continue graduate work.
Many experienced zoologists meanwhile worked on wartime projects,
often at their usual posts. In the Fish and Wildlife Service, for
example, a woman zoologist with a Ph. D. who had become a specialist
on furs advised the Army on the best type of shoes and sleeping bags to
use in frigid climates. Others, with sufficient training in related fields,
were diverted to physiological or bacteriological work. Still others
■worked on projects financed by the Federal Office of Scientific Research
and Development. One young woman, for example, who graduated
with a bachelor’s degree in zoology in 1944, worked as a research assist
ant to a parasitologist attempting to ascertain whether snails native to
the United States could enable tropical blood diseases afflicting our
servicemen to invade the United States.
In a wartime statement to her students on the lines of work for
zoology majors in which there was a special demand because of the war,
a leading zoologist listed: technician work in medical laboratories;
technician and research assistant work in research institutions and on
ZOOLOGY
3-51
research projects; parasitology; medicine, nursing, and public health;
teaching; and scientific library or secretarial work (11^). Because of
the tremendous need in medical laboratories, women were hired for
hospital laboratory work without the customary learning period or the
special course in medical technology usually required.
Jill
Bssm
Courtesy U. S. Department of Agriculture
Figure 14.—Entomologist testing repellency of cloth against mosquitoes.
The wartime occupations of young women who graduated with the
bachelor’s degree in zoology during the war years 1942 to 1945 proved
to be quite similar to those of prewar graduates, except for the addi
tional outlets of military service and government research projects.
(See table 8.) Relatively more women, as scholarships and fellow
ships were more easily available, undertook graduate work, sometimes
combined with college teaching assistantships; this may in part explain
the drop in the proportion taking teaching positions in high schools.
3-52
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Earnings and Advancement
The only recent comprehensive report on earnings of zoologists and
others trained in zoology is that of the American Physiological So
ciety, which studied the earnings of physiologists in its 1945 survey.
But fragmentary reports on other fields indicate wide variations. In
1946 the salary offered young women with the bachelor’s degree in
zoology to teach high school science varied from $1,400 to $2,100 for
the academic year of 9y2 months. In laboratories in medical schools
and hospitals, beginning salaries for those with undergraduate degrees
varied from $1,300 to $2,250 a year, with lunches often included on
hospital jobs. Although most young women took salaried jobs, one
recent graduate after taking training became a partner in a medical
laboratory, on the basis of receiving one-third of the profits. In 1946
she averaged from $300 to $500 a month. In industry, laboratory jobs
paid beginners from $1,800 to $2,000' a year. Those with a master’s
degree usually started at a salary of $1,800 to $2,500 a year in research
laboratories or in biological supply houses. But wide variations in
salaries were evident at all levels. A zoologist who had just received
her Ph. D. was hired in 1946 by a research foundation at a salary of
$2,000 a year as an industrial research chemist. These represent be
ginning salaries. In the Federal Government the entering salary in
1947 was $2,644. Before the war, 90 percent of the women zoologists
employed by the Federal Government earned more than the beginning
salary (which at that time was $2,000) (41).
More comprehensive information is available on physiologists. In
1945 the median professional income for women physiologists was
$3,200 a year; the median for the entire group, $5,050 (2). Part of this
more than 50-percent difference may be due to the fact that 17 percent
of the women lacked the doctorate, while only 2 percent of the men
were without it.
Advancement in zoology, as in sonic of the other sciences, has come
to women in the form of recognition as scientists but seldom in terms
of economic rewards or promotion in title or position. In college
teaching, however, a number of women have attained recognition.
In 1946, 111 women zoologists were teaching zoology or entomology
on the faculties of 330 institutions of higher education that were rep
resentative of enrollment in the 1,749 institutions of this type in the
United States. Eleven of these women had become full professors,
and 17 others had reached a rank above that of instructor. Two of
the full professors were in universities. Some of these educators have
attained distinction in research as well. For example, 1 woman pro
fessor of zoology at a woman’s college is well known for her research
contributions in endocrinology. One anatomist, who added an M. D.
ZOOLOGY
3-53
degree to her degree in science, has won national renown for her work
on the pathology of tuberculosis and on the origin, nature, and activi
ties of the white blood cells. Other women in zoology have made con
tributions to cancer research; a few have become recognized as authors.
During the period 1919-38, 14 of the 134 national research fellow
ships awarded in zoology by the National Research Council went to
women. All had their doctorates, 6 of them in zoology, 3 in physiology,
1 in entomology, 1 in herpetology, 1 in genetics, 1 in morphology, and
1 in biochemistry {15).
Organizations
In 1946 the American Society of Zoologists had more than 1,080
members, of whom about 100 were women (3). This Society, which
requires the Ph. D. for membership, is composed mainly of those who
are in academic rather than in industrial work. The American Physi
ological Society, which requires the doctorate and additional original
contributions to the literature, in 1945 had 905 members, of whom 59
were women.
'
In the American Society of Parasitologists women formed 13 per
cent of the membership, which in 1947 numbered 521. A college
degree with some work in zoology is required for membership, and
most of the members have had training in parasitology or in tropical
medicine. In 1947 the American Association of Anatomists had 864
members, of whom 91 were women (7).
The Entomological Society of America, open to anyone interested
in the scientific; study of insects, in 1946 had 943 members, of whom 42
were women. In 1934 a woman was for the first time elected to the
presidency of this organization. The American Association of Eco
nomic Entomologists had approximately 2,000 members at the end
of 1946. Only a few were women, however, since economic ento
mology involves field work in which heavy manual labor is sometimes
necessary.
There are numbers of other societies such as the American Ornithol
ogists Union, interested in bird life; the American Society of Ichthy
ologists and Herpetologists, interested in fish and reptiles; and the
American Society of Mammalogists, interested in man and other
animals that nourish their young with milk.
The Outlook
Less affected by World War II than such sciences as chemistry and
physics, zoology appears likely to offer to women in the future oppor
tunities similar in quantity and in nature to those available just before
the war. The principal possibilities of expanding demand lie; in the
3-54
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
increasing need for teachers, but primarily for those who can teach not
only zoology but biology and other sciences as well; in research or
laboratory work which is likely to require training in physiology or
chemistry as well as in general zoology.
The postwar occupations of women members of the American Society
of Zoologists supply the best indication of work available to women
with the doctor’s degree and experience in zoological work. In August
1946, the type of employment of 90 percent of the women members of
the Association was indicated in a membership list (3). Seventy-eight,
or 85 percent, were working in colleges or universities, a few in research
but most of them in teaching. Eleven of the women members, or
roughly 12 percent, were employed in separate research institutions
or laboratories. Only one was employed in the Federal Government.
Of the remaining two, one worked in a museum, the other in a petro
leum company.
The women members of the American Association of Anatomists,
which also requires a doctor’s degree for membership, were very simi
lar in their distribution by type of employer. Eiglity-one women
anatomists in 1947 indicated their employment on the Association’s
membership list (7). Sixty-seven, or 83 percent of them, were working
in colleges or universities either in teaching or research. Eleven, or
14 percent, were employed in such research institutions as the Wistar
Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia, the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, and the "Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Lab
oratory at Bar Harbor, Maine.
In 1946, 146 women were found listed in the catalogues of 330 insti
tutions of higher education, comprising a United States Office of Edu
cation enrollment sample of all such institutions, as teaching zoology,
anatomy, entomology, or parasitology. An additional 9 women were
teaching one of these subjects in combination with other sciences or
subjects. If these institutions are a true sample of college faculties,
as they are of enrollments, there were in all institutions of higher
education 585 women teaching one of these zoological sciences exclu
sively and an additional 130 teaching them in combination with other
subjects. Not all of these women, however, had their doctorates. One
half of them had either a master’s or a doctor’s degree. Most of the
others, however, were graduate or teaching assistants, probably
engaged in work leading to a higher degree. In addition to their
teaching duties, a few of these faculty women also served on the staff
of an experiment station. In 1945-46, two women, one a professor of
zoology and one an associate professor of entomology, also were on
the research staff of the experiment station. Some women were en
gaged in full-time research at these stations. In 1945-46, two women
ZOOLOGY
3-55
in animal genetics were on station staffs in addition to a much larger
number in animal husbandry and animal pathology as noted later.
At the bachelor’s degree level, one of the characteristic paths fol
lowed by many young women graduated in zoology will continue to
be training and practice in one of the professions in the medical and
other health services. Of 23 young women graduated in zoology in
1945 or 1946, on whom follow-up reports were available, only 1 was
going jon with graduate work in zoology, while 7 were taking training
for work as a physician, nurse, occupational therapist, medical labora
tory "technologist, or health educator. One writer, in calling attention
to the fact that “medicine is the destination of the majority of stu
dents who take zoology,” expressed the opinion that this has been a
handicap to the development of zoology (.9). One prominent woman
zoologist believes that this is due to the failure to make known to
college students interested in zoology the variety of other work avail
able. For women, the difference in opportunity between medicine
and zoology is less marked than it has been for men. The deciding
factor is more likely to be the preference for an occupation involving
constant practice of procedures and techniques as compared with one
in which teaching is the principal outlet for those who become expert.
Except in certain universities and in a few of the women’s colleges,
preparation for medicine is uppermost, and the curriculum is designed
to meet the requirements of the medical schools.
For those trained at the bachelor’s level, teaching in secondary
schools will continue to provide opportunity, especially for those who
can teach biology, other sciences, or mathematics, besides zoology.
Three of the 23 graduates in 1945-46 mentioned above became teachers.
A large demand for the bachelor group, however, will continue to come
from medical laboratories of all types. Of the 23 graduates men
tioned before, 6 were employed in medical laboratories. One, after
completing a special training course for medical technologists, was
doing routine laboratory tests in a hospital. Two others were work
ing in pathology laboratories in hospitals. [See Women’s Bureau
bulletin ,on medical laboratory technicians (4®)-] The other three
were research assistants, one in a hospital, one in a medical school, one
in a public health laboratory. Only two of the graduates were working
in industrial laboratories: one as an assistant in a biological labora
tory, the other as an assistant in the chemical laboratory of a phar
maceutical company.
Women trained primarily in zoology are rarely found in industry.
In the 100 industrial firms visited by a representative of the Women’s
Bureau in the course of this study, the only woman with a bachelor’s
degree in zoology found, employed in scientific work was one working
Courtesy Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, Inc.
Figure 15.—Training in zoology prepared this micro-slide technician
for her work in a biological supply house.
3-56
ZOOLOGY
3-57
in the entomology department of a biological supply house. To open
the way to employment in industry, courses in general zoology must
be combined with physiology or chemistry.
Although very few women are employed in general zoological work
in the Federal Government, there will be an occasional opening fromtime to time in research work. At the end of 1946 the United States
Department of Agriculture employed in the Washington, D. C., area
two women as zoologists, two as parasitologists, one as a bibliographi
cal entomologist, and one as a Hematologist (concerned with nematodes
such as pinworms and trichina).
Early in 1947 a woman entomologist was employed by the Tennes
see Valley Authority. Most of the seven women biologists employed
by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1947, including
three aquatic biologists, were zoologists. One, for example, was em
ployed in a laboratory, where she was studying shad with a view to
restoring the depleted shad fisheries of the Atlantic coast. Since a
new scar is added to each scale every time a roe shad spawns, she
could tell how many times a shad had spawned by studying its scales.
She kept thousands of shad-scale impressions on plates for micro
scopic study. Another, classified as an assistant biologist, was work
ing in ornithology. She maintained 2 million file cards of informa
tion on migratory birds obtained through the Service’s program of
banding birds and of recording reports received from those who re
turn the bands.
Zoological gardens would appear to offer some opportunity, but
openings for women are rare indeed. In the first place, employment
is limited by the number of such parks. In 1946 there were about
40 zoological gardens in the United States (4). Their number in
creases very slowly because, although their educational and recrea
tional function is recognized increasingly, they are costly to maintain.
At least 1 large zoological garden has employed women trained in
zoology in its information service, its children’s zoo, and in 1 of its
laboratories. Museums of natural history and children’s museums,
which are growing in number, offer more possibility in the future for
young women than do zoological gardens.
These and other occupations followed by zoology majors have
been outlined in detail for students by some colleges and universities
(13) (17). The following list is based chiefly on Dr. Ann Haven
Morgan’s outline prepared for women students, with some additions
from other lists (14) :
Graduate students, including opportunities for fellowships and
graduate assistantships.
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
3-58
Technicians and research assistants in universities and research
institutes and projects. This includes usually preparation of
materials for histological (tissue) and cytological (cell) study;
it often involves doing experiments with and the care of ani•
mals and drawing or photography. Subjects of research may
be in the fields of endocrinology (internal secretions), genetics
(breeding or heredity), or embryology (early stages of devel
opment).
Technicians in hospitals, medical institutions, physicians’ and
public health laboratories. This involves such duties as gross
and microscopic preparation and examination of tissues and
blood.
Staff members of State experiment stations and Federal and State
government research projects. This involves study of animals
and plants, identification of life history, study of insects,
pamphlet writing about animals and insects. Specialists in
entomology (insects), ichthyology (fish), parasitology (human
parasites and parasites of other animals), ornithology (birds),
herpetology (reptiles).
Teachers of zoology or biology in colleges, universities, private
schools, secondary schools.
Nature leaders, natural history park and museum guides and
teachers, camp directors, and conservation educators.
Museum workers in medical museums and anatomy laboratories,
including the preparation and demonstration of exhibits, art
work, and guiding.
Librarians in medical, biological, and agricultural libraries.
Secretaries for scientists or for scientific organizations.
Scientific illustration, writing, or editing might be added to this
list. Of them all, the medical outlets are those in which expansion
is most likely because of the increasing emphasis on medical care,
involving laboratory check-ups, and on research. Additional train
ing is required for most of such work. Although .calls for young
women with majors in zoology alone may continue to be few at col
lege placement bureatis, calls will continue to come in to the heads of
zoology departments. There will be few trained who do not find an
outlet in teaching or laboratory work. The demand for teachers has
outstripped the supply of qualified persons in this field ever since
World War II.
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY
The physiology of human beings is sometimes distinguished from
the physiology of lower animal's as well as from plant physiology by
calling it medical physiology. Being concerned with the functioning
ZOOLOGY
3-59
of the body in relation to its structure, development, and environment,
the physiologist may specialize in the functioning of various parts
of the body such as the brain (neurophysiologist) or the glands
(endocrinologist). Closely related is the work of the pathologist,
concerned with the nature, cause, and control of diseases affecting
body functions (25).
Many physiologists, especially those employed in medical schools,
hospitals, and medical research centers, have taken their principal
training in medical schools and have M. D. degrees. In 1945, accord
ing to a survey by the American Physiological Society, 36 percent of
the physiologists had an M. D., and 77 percent had a Pli. D. or Sc. I).,
with 19 percent holding both an M. D. and a Ph. D. (2). More than
half of those with the Ph. D. had done their doctoral work in
physiology.
This survey covered 955 physiologists in North America, 116 or 12
percent of whom were women. This proportion corresponds closely
to the 13 percent women comprised of the 863 registrants in physiol
ogy in the United States reported by the National Roster of Scientific
and Specialized Personnel' (30). Women were relatively fewer,
however, in the American Physiological Society, which requires the
doctorate and additional evidence of original contributions to the
literature on physiology. Among its 905 members in 1945, women
numbered only 59 or 6 percent.
Most physiologists work in universities, according to the Associa
tion, which found two-thirds of the physiologists in North America
covered in its 1945 survey so employed. The remaining group were
about evenly distributed among the following: Other teaching insti
tutions, research institutes, commercial laboratories, government serv
ice, and hospitals. Most of those who taught were instructing medi
cal, dental, or graduate students. Only 10 percent taught under
graduate students primarily (2).
An average of 76 men and women were awarded a doctor’s degree in
physiology each year in the prewar years of 1935-40 (11). During the
war, however, the number declined, so that in 1945 only 25 such de
grees were awarded. If this lag were to continue there would be an
estimated shortage of 600 physiologists by 1955 according to the
American Physiological Society’s 1945 study (2). In 1944 the with
drawal of men students for military service resulted in women under
graduate students in physiology outnumbering the men enrolled.
More than 200 women and only 38 men were enrolled in such courses
in the majority of institutions of higher education that reported data
to the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (1ft).
Scattered reports from colleges that offer an undergraduate degree
with a major in physiology, however, showed no noticeable increase
^100$
|
Courtesy Science Service, Inc.
Figure 16.—A research assistant, who plans to specialize ultimately in
neurophysiology, working on the physiological effects of DDT on
nervous systems of insects at the Harvard Biological Laboratories.
3-60
ZOOLOGY
3-61
Or decrease in the number of enrollments of women majors in these
fields during the war. In the related applied field of hygiene and
public health, the number of women expecting to receive undergraduate
degrees had been steadily increasing and approached 500 a year (31).
In some schools a major in physiology and hygiene combined was
offered. Except for those who went on to graduate work or to study
medicine or nursing, most of those who had majored in physiology
and hygiene entered teaching or medical laboratory work.
Half of the 10 graduates with a major in physiology and hygiene
of the 1945 and 1946 classes in one eastern school, for example, became
medical laboratory technicians. Two became teachers, and one en
tered graduate school. Another took a department store advertising
job, and another married and was not seeking outside work. Of 45
girls graduated with the same major from another eastern women’s
college during 1939-43, 37 engaged in work definitely related to their
major following graduation. Of these, 13 became associated with the
Johns Hopkins University, either in the Hospital, the Medical School,
or the School of Hygiene and Public Health. Two studied for the
doctorate and one for the M. D. degree.
Very few women physiologists are employed under that designation
in government or industry. During the war, the Army Air Forces
commissioned approximately 200 physiologists and general biologists
with the Ph. D. who were used in training, research, and testing pro
grams in aviation physiology (6"). But none of them were women.
In 1947, however, 2 women were employed as physiologists by the
Quartermaster Corps, which had employed 3 during the war. Two
women physiologists were also employed in the Washington, D. C.,
metropolitan area by the United States Department of Agriculture.
The demand is not great however. Only 4 men and no women were
appointed to probational or permanent positions in physiology by the
United States Civil Service Commission in the year ended June 30,
1940 (23). In industry, physiologists, although found more often than
general zoologists, were likewise scarce. Only one woman with a bach
elor’s degree in physiology was found in 78 firms having industrial re
search laboratories visited in 1945-46. She was working in the bacte
riology department of a dairy products laboratory. A woman with a
Ph. D. in physiology was employed in an industrial research laboratory
in a chemical company, where there was also an opening for a girl with
a bachelor’s degree in physiology and biochemistry. Animal and
human nutrition research in universities, health departments, and
food manufacturing companies also absorbed some physiologists. In
1945-46, four women were working as research assistants or techni
cians in animal nutrition in State experiment stations, in addition to
one woman who held the rank of associate professor of poultry
physiology.
3-62
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Teaching will probably continue to offer the greatest opportunity
for the employment of women physiologists. In 1946, 45 women were
listed as members of physiology faculties in a study which covered
330 catalogues of institutions of higher learning included in an enroll
ment sample selected by the United States Office of Education. An
additional 29 women taught physiology in combination with other sub
jects, and 25 taught hygiene, almost invariably in combination with
another subject. If these institutions are representative of the 1,749
institutions of higher learning in the United States, there were, in
1946, 286 women college teachers of physiology, of whom 156 taught
that subject exclusively. An additional 100 women were instructing
in hygiene.
High school teachers of physiology almost invariably teach other
sciences as well, and, in many schools, instruction in hygiene is given
by physical education teachers rather than by the science faculty. It
is possible for this reason that some young women who major in
physiology take further training in physical education rather than in
science.
For young women who are interested in college teaching, research,
or laboratory work, however, study in other sciences such as chemistry
and physics or in medical subjects is desirable.
Women in pathology are fewer than those in physiology, and there
is less information about them. In 1946, 63 women were registered
in pathology with the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized
Personnel, 10 percent of the 651 registrants in that field (30). Unlike
the women in physiology, only 14 percent of the women in pathology
had the doctor’s degree.
Most pathologists are employed in medical schools or laboratories.
In 1946,15 women were listed on college faculties as teaching or assist
ing in pathology alone or in combination with another subject, in the
330 institutions included in a United States Office of Education enroll
ment sample. None had reached a rank above that of assistant pro
fessor. If these institutions are typical of all such institutions in the
United States, there were, in 1946, 47 women employed on pathology
faculties in colleges and universities in the United States. Some of
them were undoubtedly engaged in research as well as in instruction.
In 1945—46. three women were on State experiment station staffs,
engaged in work in animal pathology, and two additional women were
instructing in animal diseases as well as serving on station staffs.
The few remaining women in this field in 1947 were divided among
industry, government, and research institutions not connected with
colleges and universities. In 1 of the 78 industrial laboratories
visited by a representative of the Women’s Bureau in 1945 and 1946,
2 women trained in pathology were employed in the research labora
tory of a chemical company. In 1947, 7 women pathologists were
ZOOLOGY
3-63
employed in tlie United States Department of Agriculture in the
Washington area.
Medical training appears to he even more essential for attaining
rank in this field than in physiology. And women will find relatively
more opportunity in the related field of bacteriology.
DAIRY, POULTRY, AND OTHER ANIMAL
HUSBANDRY SCIENCE
As in other sciences, a large proportion of those trained in zoology
apply their scientific knowledge to production, in this case, of animal
life, including dairy cattle, fish, poultry, and bees. At least 2,400
men were engaged in such activities according to the National Roster
of Scientific and Specialized Personnel in 1946. (See table 7.) Only
11 women, however, were registered in these applied sciences. Their
proportion of the total was almost as low as their proportion in
engineering and forestry.
Only occasionally is a woman found registered in courses in animal
husbandry in schools of agriculture. But the variety of work possible
in this field, as described in detail by the Nat ional-Roster of Scientific
and Specialized Personnel, indicates many opportunities in which
heavy work with large animals (considered prohibitive for most
women without help) is never involved (32). A University of Wis
consin bulletin points out that, “Women always have done a good share
of the work involved in producing and processing poultry products.
Women are also doing very important work in operating hatcheries.
This includes culling the hatchery flocks, blood testing work, and
learning to sex baby chicks. In fact, as time goes on, it looks as if
women will be doing all the work in many hatcheries” (^d).
Bee raising is another activity in which women have successfully
engaged. In these applied fields, the marketing or business end must
also be considered. One woman trained in poultry science, for example,
has teamed up with a woman expert in business administration in the
operation of a successful chicken farm.
At least seven women were college teachers in poultry or animal
husbandry in 1946. A few more were instructing in schools of veter
inary science. On State experiment station staffs in 1945-46, there
were 14 women assisting in animal husbandry, of whom 2 were in
poultry and 6 in dairy specializations.
In spite of the negligible number of women in these fields at present,
there will always be opportunity in these animal sciences for women
with scientific interest and with the initiative, confidence, and per
sistent effort required to leave the beaten path.
THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN
GENERAL BIOLOGY
Most biological scientists are zoologists, botanists, or bacteriologists,
and wherever possible the distinction between these fields has been
retained. But it was obvious from a study of both the preparation
and employment of biological scientists that the term biologist itself
is in general use. Some colleges offer bachelor of science or arts de
grees with specialization in biology or “life science” as it is sometimes
called rather than in botany or zoology. The pages which follow
supply information on the trends in the supply of and demand for
women whose principal training or work experience is in biological
science but who cannot be classified readily as zoologists or as botanists.
Most of them are: outstanding scientists who have made contributions
involving a high degree of specialization in more than vine biological
science; beginners who have taken undergraduate training in biology
or in both botany and zoology without specialization.
J!i!if
i||Bi
jtliiSiss,
Courtesy Bryn Mawr College
Figure 17.—An associate professor of biology instructing
college students.
3-64
GENERAL BIOLOGY
3-65
Prewar Distribution
There are no comprehensive prewar statistics on general biologists,
but their number is estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000, of whom about
20 percent were women. High school biology teaching was the largest
single area of demand, according to a prewar study of openings for
biologists, as indicated by 200 professors of biology who cooperated in a
questionnaire study (18). State and Federal agencies were mentioned
as other outlets. Varying opinions were given on young graduates’
chances for placement, ranging from “poor” to “good.”
The employment reported for 47 young women graduated with
bachelor’s degrees during the period 1938 to 1941 with majors in biology
rather than specifically in either botany or zoology indicates that the
majority ultimately became medical laboratory workers or physicians
or nurses, following training, of course. (See table 9.) The next
largest number continued to study science in graduate schools, while
some went at once into teaching, usually at the high school level. Only
3 of the 47 were employed in industry, and they were in chemical
laboratory work.
Of the 78 firms with industrial research laboratories visited in the
course of this study, only 4 employed women biologists before the war.
These 4 were all chemical manufacturing companies, 1 of which was
engaged in pharmaceutical work only. Only a few women were em
ployed by each of these companies, most of them as technicians. One
was a research associate in microbiology. Two of the 18 commercial
testing laboratories visited employed women biologists on biological
testing.
Table 9. Prewar, Wartime, and Postwar Employment of Some Women Graduated
With Bachelor’s Degree in Biology
Women graduated with bachelor's degree in biology in—
Type of employment
Total.
...
................................ .
Medical laboratory work_______ ____ ___
Laboratory or research work not further
identified.. _______
Graduate study in science (sometimes
with teaching or research duties)
Medicine or nursing (including preparation for)
Teaching
Industrial laboratory work
Farming______________________ ________
Secretarial or other clerical. . ...
Military service........... ....................................
Miscellaneous....... ...........................................
Source: Women’s Bureau, 1945-46.
1938-41
and em
ployed
194041
1942-45
and em
ployed
1944-45
1941-46
and em
ployed
1946
1938-41
and em
ployed
194041
1942-45
and em
ployed
1944-45
1941-46
and em
ployed
1946
Number
47
Number
94
Number
95
Percent
Percent
100.0
100.0
Percent
100.0
36.2
21.3
29.5
17
14
7
5
3
1
20
28
27
26
4
15
2
9
7
10
4
1
1
1
1
4
12
4
5
5
3
28.7
27.3
29.8
4.3
15.8
14.9
10.6
6.4
2.1
9. G
7.4
12.7
2.1
10.5
4.2
1.1
1 l
1 1
1.1
4. 2
4.3
5.3
5.3
3.1
3-66
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
In the Federal Government, general biologists were also rare com
pared, for example, with bacteriologists and chemists. An oversupply
at the beginning professional level in biology was indicated by the
fact that almost 3,800 persons applied in 1940 for the junior profes
sional assistant examination in biology, while only 117 persons passed
the examination, and only 1 man was appointed that year. Only 5 of
the 726 women who took the examination passed it. Biological statis
ticians, being fewer, fared better. Of the 167 who applied, 26 passed
the examination for biometricians, and 7 of them were women. One
man and one woman were appointed that year to beginning posi
tions (%S).
Annual Addition to the Supply
The annual number of men and women graduated with bachelor’s
degrees before the war with a major in general biology as distinct
from botany or zoology or even for all these biological sciences together
is not known. In 1941-42, the first war year, 4,629 bachelor degrees
were awarded in all the biological sciences taken together, according
to the United States Office of Education. Almost 2,000 of them, 43
percent, were awarded to women (43).
At the doctoral level, where more specialization takes place, degrees
in the biological sciences were most often awarded in botany and zool
ogy, with physiology, bacteriology, and entomology ranking next.
Some 20 to 25 degrees were usually awarded each year in genetics (11).
But only occasionally were Ph. D. degrees awarded in general biology
itself. These were usually in microbiology, the study of the life of
microscopic organisms.
Wartime Changes
Although some writers, in 1944, reported a decline in enrollments
in the biological sciences, the 4,622 graduating in 1943-44 with bache
lor’s degrees in all the biological sciences combined was almost identical
with the 1941-42 total. For the first time, however, more than half
of those graduating were women (A?) (4h)- The contradiction was
probably due to wide variations in the trend in particular schools. In
general biology alone, the effect of declining enrollments in 1 school
was apparently offset by increasing enrollments in another. Of 15
colleges which reported bachelor’s degrees granted over a period of
years to women with a major in “biology” (rather than in a particular
biological science such as botany or zoology), 7 reported no appre
ciable change in the number granted in the war years as compared
with the years just before World War II. Four, however, reported
an increase. A west-coast school, for example, granted women 47
bachelor’s degrees with a major in biology during 1943-45, compared
GENERAL BIOLOGY
3-67
with 18 during 1939-41. An east-coast school granted 137 in 1945 as
compared with 65 in 1939. Two of the 15 schools initiated undergrad
uate majors in biology during the war. Only two schools showed a
definite decline during this period in the number of first degrees
awarded to women with a maj or in biology. Fewer women in this field,
however, went on to graduate work in science. (See table 9.)
Although the war did not result in an immediate and .overwhelming
demand for general biologists, as it did for chemists, physicists, and
engineers, certain wartime research jobs required the particular ex
pertness of biologists. Two women were employed directly by the
Quartermaster Corps, for example, as biothermologists. A num
ber of others worked on research projects financed by the Federal Gov
ernment at various universities. In the WAC and WAVES a few
women were classified and assigned as biologists. At least two
WAVES who had majored in biology in college were assigned as
instructors, one as an aviation physiologist, and another as biological
instructor in connection with the low pressure and chill chamber. One
also served both as an assistant bacteriology laboratory officer and
as an instructor of corpsmen. Others, with sufficient bacteriological
training although they had majored in general biology, were used as
serologists or bacteriologists in penicillin and other laboratories.
Biologists also felt the repercussions of the tremendous wartime
demand for scientists in other fields, particularly in medicine and
chemistry. As one authority put it, “The colleges and universities
have been stripped of many of their physicists, chemists, engineers,
even mathematicians, but the biologists have been left to teach medical
students or have been used in scientific studies of agriculture, health,
and nutrition. Biology is in time of war less applied than these other
subjects, but it is no less important” (8).
As men biologists were drawn into military service, the opportuni
ties for women increased. The number of professional women, most
of them trained in biology, employed by the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service, for example, increased from 10 in 1940 to 35 during
the war. One junior biologist there worked on the effect of DDT,
the new insecticide, on wildlife. More biological aids were also em
ployed, like the three women hired by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
In industry, 2 additional firms of the 78 with industrial research
laboratories visited by a representative of the Women’s Bureau were
added to the 4 which had employed women biologists before the war.
One was a food company which hired a biologist as a technician; the
other a manufacturer of containers which employed one in its central
research laboratory. Meanwhile, the number of women trained in
biology employed in the other 4 firms had increased, although exact
figures for the two periods were not available.
3-68
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
The wartime demand at the laboratory technician and aid levels
increased so much that some universities offered special 2-year pro
grams to train women as biological aids or as medical laboratory aids.
The programs included inorganic and organic chemistry, quantitative
analysis, animal biology, English, mathematics, and biological
techniques.
The wartime occupations of 94 young women who graduated with
bachelor’s degrees in biology during the war from 5 schools in the
East, Middle West, and South indicate a decline in graduate study and
an increase in industrial laboratory work, as compared with the pre
war activities of a similar group. (See table 9.)
However, a considerable number of women who major in biology
never enter scientific work, even under the pressures of wartime. A
follow-up study in 1944, by a large eastern college, of 48 girls it had
graduated 5 years earlier with a major in biology showed that almost
one-third of them were married and not employed. One-fourth were
engaged in business or clerical activities, including secretarial work,
accounting, advertising, and retailing. Only one-fifth were using
their scientific training directly in their work. Another one-sixth,
however, were in occupations in which biology is useful as background,
such as nursing, psychology, personnel, and social work.
Earnings and Advancement
The earnings of those trained in biology are similar to those described
under zoology. (See p. 3-52.) Advancement depends largely upon
graduate work which, in turn, means specialization in botany, zoology,
or bacteriology. Occupations in the health services, which also require
further training, offer alternative avenues for development.
Organizations
In 1946 the recently organized American Biological Society had
420 members of whom 47, or 11 percent, were women. Any profes
sional biologist sponsored by two members may join this association.
There are a number of organizations which include zoologists, bot
anists, as well as general biologists among their members, like the
Ecological Society of America and the American Society of Nat
uralists. The former, in 1947, had 51 women members out of a total
of 700. Thirty-five of these women ecologists were employed in col
leges and universities, 17 of them specializing in plants,' 17 in ani
mals, and 1 in both. Four were teaching both plant and animal sci
ence in high school. Twelve others were plant ecologists engaged in
government or industrial research, or other activities. In 1946, the
American Society of Naturalists, which elects to membership only
GENERAL BIOLOGY
3-69
those who have made a research contribution in natural science, had
38 .women members. Most of them had a doctor’s degree in a field
such as: embryology, histology, anatomy, botany, or zoology. The
membership of the Genetics Society of America brings together plant
geneticists as well as those who are interested in the breeding of ani
mals and the heredity of human beings. Among its 604 members in
1946 were 69 women, divided about evenly between plant and animal
genetics.
A number of societies which together include some 3,000 nutrition
ists, physiologists, endocrinologists, pathologists, immunologists,
pharmacologists, and biochemists, constitute the Federation of Amer
ican Societies for Experimental Biology. Further evidence of the
efforts toward co-ordination in a rapidly developing field is the Union
of Biological Societies, created to facilitate co-operation among more
than 80 organizations in the biological sciences, among which there
is, of course, much overlapping of membership as well as mutuality of
interest.
The Outlook
The demand for college women who have majored in biology, as
shown by placements in the early postwar period and scattered reports
from college placement bureaus, will continue to be large from labora
tories in medical schools, public health departments, hospitals, and
medical research centers. One bureau reported that those trained in
biology were difficult to place except in medical school or hospital lab
oratories or on occasional orders received from research foundations.
As competition from industry for science graduates decreased at
the end of the war, the hospitals and medical centers again became
more exacting in their requirements for research laboratory jobs, pre
ferring those with training in physics or chemistry as well as in bi
ology. On high school teaching jobs, for which occasional requests
were received, mathematics was the combination subject most fre
quently required. In some city school systems, a master’s degree in
education was required for a high school teaching position. A variety
of science and training in mathematics and related subjects .were
usually preferred to pronounced specialization.
Although most of the girls preferred industrial laboratory jobs,
there were only occasional orders of this type, usually from companies
manufacturing biological products, including pharmaceuticals and
foods. There was a continuing demand, however, for technical librar
ians and literature searchers.
The kinds of jobs held in 1946 by 95 young women who were gradu
ated with a bachelor’s degree with a major in biology during the war
years reflected the decline in the demand for them in industrial labora-
3-70
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
t<Hy work. (See table 9.) The other noticeable difference was the
apparent continued trend away from the study of medicine or nursing
and a resumption of graduate study in science. But the numbers
were too few to assume that these trends were general.
Courtesy Ralston Purina Co.
Figure 18.—A technician with a bachelor’s degree in science using
microbiological procedure in an industrial laboratory to measure
pantothenic acid in feedstuff's.
Some of the women trained in biology who worked in industry were
in chemistry rather than biological laboratories. This was especially
the case during the war. However, biological techniques are re
quired in some chemical companies, particularly in those manufac
turing pharmaceuticals and in some engaged in food processing. In
1946, 39 women were found doing professional work under the title
of biologist in the 78 firms having industrial research laboratories
visited by a representative of the Women’s Bureau. Three of these
women were in microbiology. There was an even larger number, 57,
employed as technicians or assistants on work for which a college de
gree was not required, but for which 2 or 3 years of college science in
cluding both biology and chemistry were preferred. Two women with
bachelor’s degrees in biology were employed in 2 of the 18 commercial
GENERAL BIOLOGY
3-71
laboratories visited. In a biological supply house, two girls with high
school training in biology were mounting specimens for museums.
Biological illustration, writing, editing, and library work in medical
and other scientific libraries in which publications in the field of
biology are important represent related areas of work. (See Women’s
Bureau Bulletin 223-8.)
Aside from State and local public health departments, where medi
cal laboratory work is available, there will probably continue to be
very little government employment of women trained in biology. In
the Federal Government, the Department of Agriculture is the largest
employer of those trained in all the biological sciences taken together.
However, most of those employed are highly specialized in a particu
lar botanical or zoological science. In 1946, this Department employed
in the Washington area only one woman as a biologist and another as
a biological aid. However, some of the 81 women employed there as
scientific aids undoubtedly had their principal scientific training in
the biological sciences, although some may have been trained
primarily in the physical sciences.
Two women were employed in 1947 by the Tennessee Valley Au
thority as biologists in addition to two as biological aids. The Fish
and Wildlife Service employed seven women as biologists in addition
to two biological editors and several librarians and information
specialists. Because most of the professional positions in this Service
involve strenuous outdoor duties regularly or seasonally, frequently in
remote areas, the employment opportunities for women will probably
continue to be restricted to laboratory or desk rather than field jobs
(24) ■ Most of the biologists employed by the National Park Service
as park naturalists or park historians likewise work almost entirely
in the field, and men will continue to be preferred for this work. Two
women scientists, however, were employed in 1947 by this Service as
aerobiologists in the far West.
More women in the future will probably be employed in nature
education in local communities, since there is growing interest in this
type of local instruction. This requires broad biological knowledge,
as both animal and plant identification are necessary. Courses in
the applied fields of forestry and agriculture as well as training in
zoology and botany are helpful in this field as in wildlife management
and conservation in which almost no women are employed. The
schools which offer specialized courses in wildlife management and
conservation have been listed by the Fish and Wildlife Service (24).
A few schools also offer degrees in nature education. During the war,
at least two women obtained such degrees at a State college.
In college teaching, the number of women biologists will continue
to grow. Although most of the higher degrees in the biological sci
3-72
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
ences were granted in botany or zoology, rather than in general biology,
more women were teaching general biology in colleges and univer
sities than were teaching zoology or botany alone. In 1946,212 women
were listed on the faculties of 330 institutions of higher learning, in
cluded in a United States Office of Education enrollment sample of
such institutions, as teachers of biology, only a few of whom also
taught in another subject field. If these schools are truly representa
tive of the total, more than 1,000 women were on biology faculties in
1946. Of course, some of these may be primarily zoologists or botanists
by virtue of their research work or training, although they are teaching
in general biology. A distinguished woman biologist listed as out
standing in American Men of Science, after 50 years of teaching expe
rience in the East, South, and far West, says that graduate students
in recent years seem to be more interested in “life sciences” as related to
problems of living than in pure science and research. She, herself,
after her teaching and laboratory research principally in experimental
morphology and embryology is devoting her energies to gerontology,
t he study of the phenomena of old age, serving as a lecturer and coun
selor for the American Institute of Family Relations on work with
people over 65 years of age.
The emphasis on biology in college instruction combined with the
recent information of organizations of biologists appears to indicate
a trend toward growing opportunity for persons trained in general
biology, especially in teaching. Like the biological aid positions in
government, there are corresponding positions as research assistants
in biological research laboratories such as the Department of Genetics
of Carnegie Institution. Although only two women were employed
on the full professional staff there early in 1947, one a cytogeneticist,
the other a chemist, there were 10 working as research assistants and
3 as technical assistants. One woman was employed in a State experi
ment station in 1945-46 as a research assistant in microbiology.
Even in such positions, however, as in most others, young women
will find their chances for entrance and for advancement greatly
improved if they also have training in chemistry, or in bacteriology or
physiology. Such courses in some schools are required for the degree
in biology.
APPENDIX
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Botanist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4, 1947)'
Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in botany; or
B. Courses in botany, in a college or university of recognized stand
ing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work totaling at
least 20 semester hours; plus additional appropriate experience which,
when combined with the 20 semester hours in botany, will total 4 years
of education and experience and give the applicant the substantial
equivalent of a 4-year college course. The following are types of ex
perience which will be accepted in combination with education to
complete the 4-year requirement:
Subprofessional or professional laboratory work which has pro
vided a working knowledge of the theory and application of the
basic principles of a botanical science.
Experience in abstracting, editing, or translating reports or
scientific literature in botany or closely related fields.
Research experience in botany or related fields.
Professional work in botany, such as that described above as
typical duties of the positions to be filled from this examination.
Teaching botany.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Plant Pathologist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4, 1947 )l
Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized stand
ing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in botany or plant science, includ
ing at least 10 semester hours in plant pathology; or
1 For more complete and later information, consult latest announcements of the Civil
Service Commission posted in first- and second-class post offices.
3-73
3-74
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
B. Courses in botany or plant science, in a college or university of
recognized standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory
work totaling at least 20 semester hours, at least 10 of which are in
plant pathology; plus additional appropriate experience or education
which, when combined with the 20 semester hours in botany or plant
science, will total 4 years of education and experience and give the ap
plicant the substantial equivalent of a 4-year college course. The
following are types of experience which will be accepted in combina
tion with education to complete the 4-year requirement;
Subprofessional or professional laboratory work which pro
vided a means of obtaining a working knowledge of the theory
and application of the basic principles of a natural science.
Experience in abstracting, editing, or translating reports or
scientific literature in plant pathology or closely related fields.
Research experience in plant pathology or related fields.
Other professional work in plant pathology, such as that de
scribed above as the duties of the positions to be filled from this
examination.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Plant Physiologist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Oivil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4, 1947 )*
Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in botany or plant science,
with a minimum of 10 semester hours of plant physiology; or
B. Courses in plant science, in a college or university of recognized
standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work total
ing at least 20 semester hours, at least 10 of which are in plant
physiology; plus additional appropriate education or experience
which, when combined with the 20 semester hours in plant science,
will total 4 years of education or experience and give the applicant the
substantial equivalent of a 4-year college course. The following are
types of experience which will be accepted in combination with edu
cation to complete the 4-year requirement:
1 For more complete aiul later information, consult latest announcements of the Civil
Service Commission posted in first- and second-class post offices.
APPENDIX
3-75
Subprofessional or professional laboratory work which pro
vided a means of obtaining a working knowledge of the theory
and application of the basic principles of a natural science.
Experience in abstracting, editing, or translating reports or
scientific literature in plant physiology or closely related fields.
Research experience in plant physiology or related fields.
Other professional work in plant physiology, such as that de
scribed above as the duties of the positions to be filled from this
examination.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Horticulturist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4, 1947 )*
Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in horticulture (olericulture,
pomology, or floriculture); or
B. Courses in horticulture, in a college or university of recognized
standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work total
ing at least 10 semester hours, and study in plant sciences (including
plant physiology) totaling at least 10 semester hours; plus additional
appropriate education or experience which, when combined with the
20 semester hours in horticulture and plant science, will total 4 years
of education and experience and give the applicant the substantial
equivalent of a 4-year college course. The following are types of
experience which will be accepted in combination with education to
complete the 4-year requirement:
Subprofessional or professional laboratory or field work which
provided a means of obtaining a working knowledge of the theory
and application of the basic principles of a natural science.
Experience in abstracting, editing, or translating reports or
scientific literature in horticulture or closely related fields.
Research experience in horticulture or related fields.
Other professional work in horticulture.
1 For more complete and later information, consult latest announcements of the Civil
Service Commission posted in first- and second-class post offices.
3-76
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Agronomist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4,194711
Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in agronomy; or
B. Courses in plant science and agronomy, in a college or university
of recognized standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and labora
tory work totaling at least 30 semester hours (10 semester hours must
have been in farm crops, 6 in soils, and 4 in animal husbandry); plus
additional appropriate experience or education which, when combined
with the 30 semester hours, will total 4 years of education and expe
rience and give the applicant the substantial equivalent of a 4-year
college course. The following are types of experience which will be
accepted in combination with education to complete the 4-year require
ment:
Responsible technical experience on a farm which grows hybrid
corn or a similar class of seed for commercial purposes.
Responsible agronomic experience at a college or other experi
ment station.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Soil Scientist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4,1947 )1
Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in soils or closely related
subjects: Agronomy, physical geography, geology (not economic); or
B. Courses in soils or closely related subjects: Agronomy, physical
geography, geology (not economic), in a college or university of recog
nized standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work
totaling at least 20 semester hours; plus additional appropriate expe
rience or education which, when combined with the 20 semester hours,
will total 4 years of education and experience and give the applicant
the substantial equivalent of a 4-year college course. The following
1 For more complete and later information, consult latest announcements of the Civil
Service Commission posted in first- and second-class post offices.
APPENDIX
3-77
are types of qualifying experience which will be acceptable in combina
tion with education to complete the 4-year requirement.
Responsible experience with a soil survey crew.
Responsible experience in a soils laboratory.
Teaching experience in the field of soil science.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Forester ($2,644 a Year): Options (1) Forest;
(2) Range
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4,1947)1
(1) FOREST OPTION
Applicants for the Forest option must have successfully completed
one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree with major work in forestry,
science, wildlife management, or range management which has in
cluded the following courses:
One course in each of the following groups:
(1) Dendrology or taxonomic botany.
(2) Forest ecology, silvics, or plant physiology.
(3) Range management or wildlife management.
(4) Soil science, forest soils, or geology.
Two courses in each of the following groups:
(1) Forest economics, forest finance, forest valuation, forest
history, policy, or law.
(2) Plane surveying and mapping, topographic surveying and
mapping, or forest improvements.
Three courses in each of the following groups:
(1) Forest entomology, forest pathology, or forest fire pro
tection.
(2) Wood technology and forest utilization. (Courses such as
logging, forest products, pulp and paper, milling, and wood pres
ervation will also be accepted as courses in wood technology and
forest utilization. However, not more than one course in chemical
wood utilization or wood preservation will be accepted.)
Five courses in any combination of the following: forest mensura
tion, silviculture, forest planting, or forest management.
1 For more complete and later information, consult latest announcements of the Civil
Service Commission posted in first- and second-class post offices.
3-78
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
A bachelor’s degree in forestry from a college or university of recog
nized standing will be accepted as meeting the educational require
ments for this position; or
B. Courses in forestry, as listed in (A) above, in a college or uni
versity of recognized standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and
laboratory work; plus additional appropriate experience and educa
tion which, when combined with the courses in forestry, as listed in
(A) above, will total 4 years of education and experience and give
the applicant the substantial equivalent of a 4-year college course.
(2) RANGE OPTION
Applicants for the Range option must have successfully completed
one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree with major work in forestry,
including 15 semester hours of study in range management, or plant
ecology, or a combination of these two subjects; or
B. Courses in a college or university of recognized standing con
sisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work totaling 30 semester
hours in basic forestry subjects and 15 semester hours in range manage
ment or plant ecology or a combination of these two subjects; plus
additional appropriate experience or education which, when combined
with these courses will total 4 years of education and experience and
give the applicant the substantial equivalent of a 4-year college course.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Professional
Assistant With Option as Bacteriologist (Medical) ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 75, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4, 194711
Applicants must have successfully completed 4 years of study lead
ing to a bachelor’s degree, in a college or university of recognized
standing, with at least 20 semester hours’ credit in either general or
medical bacteriology.
There is no experience requirement for this grade.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Serologist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Probational Examination Specification No. 842,
issued June 24, 1947)’
Applicants for all grades must have successfully completed four years
of study leading to a bachelor’s degree in a recognized college or uni
1 For more complete and later information, consult latest announcements of the Civil
Service Commission posted in first- and second-class post offices.
APPENDIX
3-79
versity with at least 20 semester hours of credit in serology or in gen
eral or medical bacteriology.
There is no additional experience requirement for this grade.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Option as Agricultural Bacteriologist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4, 194711
Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in biological science, including
at least six semester hours in bacteriology; or
B. Courses in biological science, in a college or university of recog
nized standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work
totaling 20 semester hours, at least 6 of which are in bacteriology; plus
additional appropriate experience or education which, when combined
with the 20 semester hours, will total 4 years of education and experi
ence and give the applicant the substantial equivalent of a 4-year col
lege course. The following are types of experience which will be ac
cepted in combination with education to complete the 4-year require
ment :
Technical experience in a biological science laboratory.
Teaching bacteriology courses.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements for Application for
Beginning Federal Civil Service Position as Junior Agricultural
Assistant With Options as: Zoologist (Parasitology), Entomologist,
Biologist (Wildlife), Aquatic Biologist ($2,644 a Year)
(As taken from Civil Service Announcement No. 76, issued October 14, 1947,
closed November 4,1947 )*
For option as Zoologist (Parasitology) applicants must have suc
cessfully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in zoology including at least
one course in parasitology; or
B. Courses in zoology and parasitology, in a college or university
of recognized standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and labora
tory work totaling at least 20 semester hours; plus additional appro
priate experience or education which, when combined with the 20 se
mester hours, will total 4 years of education and experience and
1 For more complete and later information, consult latest announcements of the Civil
Service Commission posted in first- and second-class post offices.
3-80
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
give the applicant the substantial equivalent of a 4-year college course.
Applicants must show at least one course in parasitology or 6 months
of technical experience working with animal parasites.
The following are types of experience which will be accepted in
combination with education to complete the 4-year requirement:
Subprofessional or professional laboratory work which pro
vided a means of obtaining a working knowledge of the theory
and application of the scientific principles involved in operations
of a zoological laboratory.
Research or technical experience in parasitology or closely
related fields.
For option as Entomologist applicants must have successfully com
pleted one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in entomology or in zoology,
including at least one course in entomology; or
B. Courses in entomology or in entomology and zoology combined,
in a college or university of recognized standing, consisting of lectures,
recitations, and laboratory work totaling at least 20 semester hours;
plus additional appropriate education or experience which, when com
bined with the 20 semester hours in entomology or entomology and
zoology, will total 4 years of education and experience and give the
applicant the substantial equivalent of a 4-year college course. The
following are types of experience which will be accepted in combina
tion with education to complete the 4-year requirement:
Subprofessional or professional laboratory work which pro
vided a means of obtaining a working knowledge of the theory
and application of the basic principles of a biological science.
Experience in abstracting, editing, or translating reports or
scientific literature in entomology and closely related fields.
Research experience in entomology or related fields.
Other professional work in entomology.
For option as Biologist (Wildlife) applicants must have success
fully completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in biology, including at least
10 semester hours in zoology; or
B. Courses in biology, in a college or university of recognized
standing, consisting of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work,
totaling 30 semester hours, at least 10 of which are in zoology and
10 in botany; plus additional appropriate experience or education
which, when combined with the 30 semester hours in biology, will total
4 years of education and experience and give the applicant the sub
APPENDIX
3-81
stantial equivalent of a 4-year college course. The following are types
of experience which will be accepted in combination with education
to complete the 4-year requirement:
Technical laboratory work in biology dealing with some phase
of wildlife.
Responsible experience in making surveys of wildlife habits
and foods.
For option as Aquatic Biologist applicants must have successfully
completed one of the following:
A. A full 4-year course, in a college or university of recognized
standing, leading to a bachelor’s degree in biological science, including
at least 6 semester hours in the biology of aquatic organisms; or
B. Courses in biology, in a college or university of recognized stand
ing, consisting of lectures and recitations totaling 30 semester hours
in biology, at least 6 of which are in the biology of aquatic organisms;
plus additional appropriate experience or education which, when
combined with the 30 semester hours in biology, will total 4 years of
education and experience and give the applicant the substantial equiva
lent of a 4-year college course. The following are types of experience
which will be accepted in combination with education to complete
the 4-year requirement:
Subprofessional or professional laboratory work which pro
vided a means of obtaining a working knowledge of the theory
and application of the basic principles of a biological science.
Experience in abstracting, editing, or translating reports or
scientific literature in aquatic biology or closely related fields.
Research experience in aquatic biology or related fields.
Other professional work in aquatic biology.
SOURCES TO WHICH REFERENCE IS MADE
IN THE TEXT
(1) American Association of Anatomists. Officers and list of members. The
anatomical record 98 : 446-488, July 1947.
(2) American Physiological Society. Physiology in North America, 1945.
Survey by a committee of the American Physiological Society. E. F.
Adolph, Chairman, T. E. Boyd, J. H. Comroe, Jr., and Philip Dow. Roch
ester, N. Y., the Society, Wallace O. Fenn, President, 260 Crittenden
Boulevard, Rochester, N. Y. 29 pp. Reprinted from Federation pro
ceedings 3:407-436, September 1946.
(3) American Society of Zoologists. Proceedings, officers, constitution, by-laws,
and list of members, forty-second annual meeting, St. Louis, Mo. The
anatomical record 95: 401-556, August 1946.
(4) Andrews, Ethan Allen. Zoological gardens. .Scientific monthly 53:5-21,
116-32, July-August 1941.
(5) Botanical Society of America, Inc. Year book, 1944-1945. New York, N. Y.,
the Society, Office of the Secretary, 1945. 68 pp. (Miscellaneous series—
publication 129.)
(6) Bronk, Detlev W. Re-employment of biologists now in the Army Air
Forces. Science 102 : 335-0, Sept. 28, 1945.
(7) Chester, K. Starr. National requirement and availability of botanists.
American journal of botany 34: 240-243, April 1947.
(8) Conklin, Edwin G. Biological future. Science news letter 43:149-50,
Mar. 6, 1943.
(9) Griggs, Bobert F. Organization of biology and agriculture. Science
96: 545-51, Dec. 18, 1942.
(10) Hartsell, S. E.; Learning, Mary Alice; Tetrault, P. A.; Remmers, H. H.
The teaching of bacteriology in colleges and universities. LaFayette,
Ind., Purdue University, May 1941. 49' pp. (Studies in higher educa
tion No. XLI.)
(11) Henry, Edward A.} ed. Doctoral dissertations accepted by American
universities, 1943-1944. Compiled for the Association of Research Li
braries. New York, N. Y., the H. W. Wilson Co., 1944. 88 pp.
(12) Hollis, Ernest V. Toward improving Ph. D. programs. Washington, D. C.,
American Council on Education, 1945. 204 pp.
(13) Hunter College, Faculty Council Committee on Vocational Guidance. What
to do in the world’s work. New York, N. Y., the College, April 1941.
152 pp.
(14) Morgan, Ann H, Lines of work for zoology majors. South Hadley, Mass.,
the Author, Mount Holyoke College, 1946. 2 pp. Mimeo.
(15) National Research Council. National research fellowships, 1919—1988.
Physical sciences, geology and geography, medical sciences, biological
sciences. Washington, D. C., the Council, 1938. 95 pp.
(16) Ohio State Employment Service. Employment information series. Occu
pational release. Columbus, Ohio, the Service, Nov. 16, 1946.
(17) Ohio State University, Occupational Opportunities Service. Ohio State
and occupations. Columbus, Ohio, the University, June 25, 1945. 198 pp.
(18) Rust, Carolyn Davis. Biology as a career. Science education 24 : 369-72,
December 1940.
•
3-82
SOURCES
3-83
(19) (The) School of Horticulture for Women. Prospectus, 1946-47. Ambler,
Pa., the School, 1946-47. 27 pp.
(20) Tippo, Oswald. Analysis of the major interests of the members of the
Botanical Society of America. Science 94 : 326-327, Oct. 3, 1941.
(21) Transeau, Edgar N. Golden age of botany. Science 95 : 53-58, Jan. 16,
1942.
(22) Tuttle, Marguerite. Career schools and junior colleges. New York, N. Y.,
1945. 118 pp.
(23) U. S. Civil Service Commission. 57th annual report, 1940. Washington,
D. C., U. S'. Government printing office, 1941. 146 pp.
(24) U. S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service. Employ
ment possibilities in the Fish and Wildlife Service. Washington, D. C.,
the Service, August 1945. 13 pp. Mimeo.
(25) U. S. Department of Labor, U. S. Employment Service, National Roster of
Scientific and Specialized Personnel. Agricultural and biological
sciences. Washington, D. C., U. S. Government printing office, 1947.
39 pp. (Description of professions series, pamphlet No. 1.)
.
(26) --------- ---------- Bacteriology. Washington, D. C., the Roster, undated.
4 pp. (Descriptions of professions—folder series) (Revision of defini
tion made by the secretary of the Society of American Bacteriologists)
(27) ------------------- Botany. Washington, D. C., the Roster, undated. 3 pp.
(Descriptions of professions—folder series)
(28) --------------------Directory of colleges and universities offering graduate
degrees and some form of graduate aid. Washington, D. C., the Roster,
January 1946. 42 pp.
(29) --------->--------- Distribution by professional field—sex and extent of edu
cation, Nov. 1, 1942. Washington, D. C., the Roster, 1942. 1 p. Multi.
(30) ---------------------- Distribution of Roster registrants, Dec. 31, 1946. Washing
ton, D. C., the Service, 1946. 5 pp. Multi.
(31) ------1------------- Faculty members and students in institutions of higher
education, December 1942. Washington, D. 0., the Roster, June 15, 1943.
Chart. Multi.
(32) ---------------------Handbook of descriptions of specialized fields in animal,
dairy, and poultry husbandry and dairy products technology. Washing
ton, D. C., U. S. Government printing office, June 1945. 18 pp.
(33) ------------------- Handbook of descriptions of specialized fields in plant
pathology. Washington, D. C., U. S. Government printing office, 1945.
7 pp.
(34) ---------------------Handbook of descriptions of specialized fields in zoology
and parasitology. Washington, D. 0., U. ,S. Government printing office,
June 1945. 14 pp.
(35) ---------------------The job of the bacteriologist. Washington, D. 0., U. S.
Government printing office, Sept. 1, 1945. 12 pp. (Occupational brief
.
No. 6.)
(36) --------------------The job of the forester. Washington, D. C., U. S. Gov
ernment printing office, 1945. 13 pp. (Occupational brief No. 24.)
(37) --------------------The jobs of the botanist, plant pathologist, and plant
physiologist. Washington, D. C„ U. S. Government printing office, Sept.
1,1945. 14 pp. (Occupational brief No. 7.)
(38) --------------------- The jobs of the horticulturist, agronomist, and soil scien
tist. Washington, D. 0., U. S. Government printing office, 1945. 13 pp.
(Occupational brief No. 27.)
3-84
WOMEN IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(39) --------------------Plant pathology and plant physiology. Washington, D. C.,
the Service, undated, 2 pp. (Folder series.)
(40) ---------------- -— Report on survey of full-time civilian college students as of
January 1944. Washington, D. C., the Roster, 1944. 12 pp. Multi.
(41) ------ Women’s Bureau. Employment of women in the Federal Govern
ment, 1923 to 1939. Washington, D. O., TJ. S. Government printing office,
1941. 60 pp. (Bulletin No. 182.) (See,Table III, p. 51.)
(42) --------1— The outlook for women in occupations in the medical services.
Medical laboratory technicians. Washington, D. C., TL S. Government
printing office, 1945. 10 pp. (Bulletin 203, No. 4.)
(43) (U. S.) Federal Security Agency, U. S. Office of Education. Statistics of
higher education, 1939-40 and 1941-42. Volume II. Chapter IV. Wash
ington, D. C., U. S. Government printing office, 1944. Table 10, p. 55.
(Biennial surveys of education in the United States, 1938-40 and
1940^2.)
'
(44) ------------ Statistics of higher education, 1943-44. Chapter IV. Wash
ington, D. C., U. S. Government printing office, 1946. Table 10, p. 62.
(Biennial survey of education in the United States, 1942-44.)
(45) (U. S.) National Youth Administration of Georgia. Occupations in plant
pathology. Georgia, the Administration, 1937. 10 pp. Mimeo.
(46) University of Wisconsin. Occupations for college women. Prepared by
the Dean of Women and a Faculty Committee. Madison, Wis., the Uni
versity, 1944. 50 pp.
(47) Winslow, Dr. C. E. A. First forty years of the Society of American Bac
teriologists. Science 91:125-129, Feb. 9, 1940.
INDEX
[The numeral 3, indicating the volume in the series, is not shown in the page references
of the index]
Page
Page
Advancement 10, 39, 52-53, 68, 72
Aerobiology---------------------------71
Agriculture (see also farm
work, floriculture, olericul
ture, pomology) _1, 2, 4, 23, 33, 67, 71
Agricultural Assistant73-81
Agronomy------------------------------2, 5,
6, 7, 9, 20, 21, 23, 34, 76
American Association of Anato
mists________ 53,54
American Association of Eco
nomic Entomologists________
53
American Biological Society_
68
American Ornithologists Union
53
American Public Health Asso
ciation, Laboratory Section_
38
American Physiological Society
52,
53, 59
American Phytopathological
Society------------------------------- 10,17
American Society of Ichthy
ologists and Herpetologists_
53
American Society of Mammalogists---------------------------------53
American Society of Natural
ists
68
American Society of Parasi
tologists,^_________________
53
American Society of Plant Phy
siologists10, 17, 18
American Society of Zoologists 53, 54
Anatomy 4, 5,
11, 13, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 69
Animal husbandry science (see
also dairy science and poultry
science) 1, 47, 55, 62, 63, 68, 76
Artist, scientific or technical.
(See illustrator.)
Assistantships_____ 8, 37, 50, 51, 54, 57
Association of Official Seed
Analysts----------------------------- 10,18
Biometrics (see also statistics)
66
Bionomics
46
Biotliermology_______________
67
Botanical gardens_____8,12,15, 22, 26
Botanical Society of America_ 6, 8,
9,10,11
Botany------ 1, 2, 4-27, 33, 34, 43, 64, 65,
66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 80
General2, 6, 7,11,13
Bacteriology1, 2, 5,
7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 28-45, 50, 61, 63,
64, 66, 67, 68, 72, 78, 79.
Bee raising---------------------------63
Biochemistry 1,13, 53, 61,69
Biological aid 49, 67, 68, 71, 72
Biology------------------------------- 1, 4, 6, 7,
8, 33, 54, 55, 57, 58, 79, 80-81
General---------------------- 2, 61, 64-72
Aquatic---------------------- 49, 57, 79, 81
Chemistry____________________
1,
5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 27, 33,
34, 35, 41, 45, 49, 52, 53, 54, 57,
62, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72.
Conservation 26, 58, 71
Cytogenetics 4, 72
Cytology------------------ 4,5, 8,11,46, 58
Dairy science2,47, 63
Definitions 4,16, 20, 24,28, 46
Dendrology Dentistry_____________________
77
1
Earnings--------------- 9-10,37-39, 52, 68
Ecological Society of America_
68
Ecology (see also bionomics)_ 4,5,
8, 11, 26, 46, 68, 77, 78
Economics13, 77
Editing, scientific or techni
cal------ 15, 49, 58, 71, 73, 74, 75, 80, 81
Educational requirements for
beginning Civil Service posi
tions------------------------------------ 73-81
Embryology-------------- 46, 47, 58, 69, 72
Endocrinology 52, 58, 59, 69
Engineering2, 63, 67
Engineering aid______________
49
Entomological Society of Amer
ica------------------------------------53
Entomology------------ 46, 47, 48, 49, 50,
51,52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 66, 77, 79, 80
Enzymology _________________
44
Ethology------- .------------------------46
Experiment station8, 9,17, 23,
33, 54, 55, 58, 61, 62, 63, 72, 76
Farm work------------------ 21, 23,65, 76
Federation of American Socie
ties for Experimental Bi
ology ---------------------------------69
Floriculture15, 75
3-85
3-86
INDEX
Page
Pago
Forestry------------------------------1,2,4, 5,
6,10,21, 22, 24-27, 63, 71,77-78
Forestry aid__________________
26
Natural science and nature edu
cation 2,
49, 58, 69, 71, 75
Gardening:___________________ 8, 23
Genetics1,
2, 4,5,
11, 21, 46, 53, 55,58,66, 69, 72
Genetics Society of America___
69
Geography________________
76
Geology------------------------------ 25, 76, 77
Gerontology______________
72
Heads of laboratories_________
10,
35,36,39,41
Health education (see also hy
giene, physical education)__ 49,55
Health
services
(see also
dentistry, health education,
hygiene, medicine, • medical
laboratory work, nursing, oc
cupational therapy, physical
therapy, X-ray work)_______
68
Herbarium.
(See
botanical
garden.)
Herpetology 53, 58
Histology 4, 5, 46, 58, 68, 69
Historian, park_______________
71
Home economics______________
33
Horticulture____________________
4,
5, 6, 7, 9,18, 20-23, 34, 75
Hygiene61, 62
Ichthyology 46, 53, 58
Illustrator, scientific or techni
cal, 15, 26, 48,58, 71
Immunology33, 69
Information specialist--------------57, 71
Landscape design_____________
Librarian, scientific or techni
cal 15, 23,51, 58,69, 71
Limnology.
Literature searching (see also
librarian, scientific or techni
cal) 69,73,74, 75,80,81
57
Olericulture__________________
75
Occupational therapy_________
55
Oceanography________________
1
Organizations, scientific_______
10,
39, 53,68-69
Ornithology_____________ 46,53, 57,58
Paleobotany4, 5, 8
Paleontology-------------------------46
Parasitology_________________
47,
50, 51, 53, 54, 57, 58, 79-80
Pathology__ 2, 47, 53,55, 59, 62-63, 69
Plant2, 4, 5, 6,8, 9,10,11,
12,13,16,17-18, 26, 73-74, 77
Personnel work49, 68
Pharmacology 2, 4, 69
Photography_________________
58
Physical education____________
62
Physical therapy 8, 49
Physician. (See medicine.)
Physics______ 5, 8,13, 35, 53, 62, 67, 69
Physiology 1, 2, 8, 28, 46, 47, 50,
52, 53, 54, 57, 58-62, 66, 67, 69, 72
Plant1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8,
10,11,13,16,17,18, 58, 74-75, 77
Phytogeography______________
4, 5
Plant doctor_________________
17
Plant sciences. (See botany.)'
Pomology 22,23, 75
Poultry science---------- 2, 47, 48, 61, 63
Protozoology46
Psychology---------------------------- 1
68
23
Scholarships and fellowships1
Mammalogy__________________
53
Mathematics__ 13, 35, 45, 55, 67,68, 69
Medical laboratory work--------7,
9, 33, 36,38,39, 40, 44, 48,49, 50,
51, 52, 55, 58, 61, 65, 68, 69, 71.
Medicine______________________
1,
13, 33, 36, 40, 44, 49, 51, 52-53,
55, 58, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 70.
Microbiology___ 37, 41, 42, 65,66, 70, 72
Morphogenesis.________________
5
Morphology_____ 4, 5,11, 46, 47, 53, 72
Museum work________________
9,
12,15, 49, 54, 57, 58, 71
Myeological Society of America.
10,
14,17
Mycology10,11,12,13-14,17, 33
Nematology_____________________
Nursing_____ 1,49, 51, 55, 61, 65, 68, 70
Nutrition 1, 2,
33, 49, 61, 67, 69
51,
53, 57
Scientific aid (see also biological
aid, engineering aid) _______
71
Secretarial work, scientific or
technical 49,51, 58, 65
Seed technology__ 6, 8, 9,10, 13,18, 76
Serology 33,40, 44, 67, 78-79
Silviculture^24,77
Social work49, 68
Society of American Bacteri
ologists-_______________ 17, 38,39, 44
Society of American Foresters_10, 26
Society of Commercial Seed
Technologists____________
18
Soil science___ 5, 6, 9, 20, 21, 23, 76-77
Statistics13,49,66
Student aid.
(See assistantships, scholarships and fellow
ships. )
Surveying_________________
77
Taxonomy 4,5,11,12, 46, 47,
77
INDEX
3-87
Page
Page
Teaching
6,
8, 9,10,11,12, 13,14,17, 18, 22,
23, 25, 27, 34, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44,
48, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 58, 59, 61,
62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 79.
Higli school6, 8, 9, 11,
12, 48,
49, 51, 52, 55, 58, 62, 65. 68, 69
Training, scientific (see also
educational requirements)__
5,
13, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 37, 45, 46,
55, 57, 63, 64, 68, 71, 72.
Wildlife science______________
2
49, 71, 77, 79, 80-81
Women’s military services— 49,51, 65
WAC---------------------------------g, 36, 67
WAVES-------------------------------- 36,67
Wood technology 24,25,26,27, 77
Writing, scientific ortechnical15,
23, 53, 58, 71
X-ray work__________________
49
Union of Biological Societies_
Virology--------------------------------------
Xylotomy--------------------------------- 13,25
Zoological gardens57, 65
Zoology--------------- 1, 2, 7, 8,13, 33, 46
63, 64, 65, 66,68, 69, 71, 72, 79-80
General------------------------ 2, 47, 48-58
69
33
o
@FedFRASER