Category Archives: Ames Highlights

Theme Thursday today looks at the ten women who have won Nobel Prizes in the past century. Though they are few in numbers, their accomplishments have revolution modern science and how we look at everything today.

“Since 1901 there have been over three hundred recipients of the Nobel Prize in the sciences. Only ten of them — about 3 percent — have been women. Why? In this updated version of Nobel Prize Women in Science, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores the reasons for this astonishing disparity by examining the lives and achievements of fifteen women scientists who either won a Nobel Prize or played a crucial role in a Nobel Prize – winning project. The book reveals the relentless discrimination these women faced both as students and as researchers. Their success was due to the fact that they were passionately in love with science…” from Amazon.

MARIA GOEPPERT MAYER (1906 – 1972)

MARIE CURIE (1867 – 1934)

GERTY THERESA CORI (1896 – 1957)

FRANCOISE BARRÉ-SINOUSSI

ELIZABETH H. BLACKBURN

CAROL W. GREIDER

ROSALYN YALOW (1921 – 2011)

DOROTHY CROWFOOT HODGKIN (1910 – 1994)

COMPLETE LIST OF FEMALE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS, BY SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE:

PHYSICS

• 1903 – Marie Curie. “For joint research on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel.”
• 1963 – Maria Goeppert Mayer. “For discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure.”

CHEMISTRY

• 1911 – Marie Curie. “In recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements.”
• 1935 – Irene Joliot-Curie. “In recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements.”
• 1964 – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. “For her determinations by X-ray technique of the structures of important biochemical substances.”
• 2009 – Ada Yonath. “For studies of the structure and formation of the ribosome.”

PHYSIOLOGY/MEDICINE

• 1947 – Gerty Theresa Cori, nee Radnitz. “For the discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen.”
• 1977 – Rosalyn Yalow. “For the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones.”
• 1983 – Barbara McClintock. “For her discovery of mobile genetic elements.”
• 1986 – Rita Levi-Montalcini. “For the discoveries of nerve growth factors in cancer cells.”
• 1988 – Gertrude B. Elion. “For the discoveries of important principles for drug treatment.”
• 1995 – Christiane Nusslein-Volhard. “For the discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development.”
• 2004 – Linda B. Buck. “For the discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system.”
• 2008 – Francoise Barre-Sinoussi. “for the discovery of human immunodeficiency virus.”
• 2009 – Elizabeth H. Blackburn & Carol W. Greider. “For the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.”
• 2014 – May-Britt Moser. “For the discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.”

Read more here.

On this Theme Thursday we switch to women of color and their reproductive rights. “Undivided Rights presents a textured understanding of the reproductive rights movement by placing the experiences, priorities, and activism of women of color in the foreground. Using historical research, original organizational case studies, and personal interviews, the authors illuminate how women of color have led the fight to control their own bodies and reproductive destinies.

Undivided Rights shows how women of color—-starting within their own Latina, African American, Native American, and Asian American communities—have resisted coercion of their reproductive abilities. Projected against the backdrop of the mainstream pro-choice movement and radical right agendas, these dynamic case studies feature the groundbreaking work being done by health and reproductive rights organizations led by women-of-color…” from Amazon.

On this Theme Thursday, we’re exploring the 1950’s woman and transitioning into the stereotypical “housewife.” The twenty-one-million copy bestseller-available again for a new generation of readers. Originally published in 1977, The Women’s Room was a novel that for the first time expressed the inner lives of women who left education and professional advancement behind to marry in the 1950’s, only to find themselves adrift and unable to support themselves after divorce in the 1970’s.

Some became destitute, a few went insane. But many went back to school in the heyday of the Women’s Liberation movement, and were swept up in the promise of equality for both sexes. Marilyn French’s characters represent this wide cross section of American women, and her wry and pointed voice gives depth and emotional intensity to this timeless book that remains controversial and completely relevant.” from Amazon.

On this Theme Thursday we celebrate award winning children’s author Judy Blume and her coming of age book Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Margaret Simon, almost twelve, has just moved from New York City to the suburbs, and she’s anxious to fit in with her new friends. When she’s asked to join a secret club she jumps at the chance. But when the girls start talking about boys, bras, and getting their first periods, Margaret starts to wonder if

she’s normal. There are some things about growing up that are hard for her to talk about, even with her friends. Lucky for Margaret, she’s got someone else to confide in . . . someone who always listens.

On this Theme Thursday, we move into the life of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. “A moving story of action — direct, forceful, and plain-spoken.…It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this autobiography.” — Saturday Review of Literature.

While working as a nurse amid the squalor of New York’s Lower East Side in the early twentieth century, Margaret Sanger witnessed the devastating effects of unwanted pregnancies. Women already overwhelmed by the burdens of poverty had no recourse; their doctors were either ignorant of effective methods of birth control or were unwilling to risk defying the law.

Sanger resolved to dedicate her life to establishing birth control as a basic human right. Her battles brought a world of troubles — arrest, indictment, and exile among them — but ultimately she triumphed, opening the first American birth control clinic in 1916 and serving as the first president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1953.

The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger is a “fascinating firsthand account of an early crusade for women’s healthcare, this autobiography is a classic of women’s studies and social reform (Amazon).”

On this Theme Thursday we move into one of the most remembered and influential women in science: Marie Curie’s.  “In many ways, Marie Curie represents modern science. Her considerable lifetime achievements—the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, the only woman to be awarded the Prize in two fields, and the only person to be awarded Nobel Prizes in multiple sciences—are studied by schoolchildren across the world. When, in 2009, the New Scientist carried out a poll for the “Most Inspirational Female Scientist of All Time,” the result was a foregone conclusion: Marie Curie trounced her closest runner-up, Rosalind Franklin, winning double the number of Franklin’s votes. She is a role model to women embarking on a career in science, the pride of two nations—Poland and France—and, not least of all, a European Union brand for excellence in science.

“Making Marie Curie explores what went into the creation of this icon of science. It is not a traditional biography, or one that attempts to uncover the “real” Marie Curie. Rather, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, by tracing a career that spans two centuries and a world war, provides an innovative and historically grounded account of how modern science emerges in tandem with celebrity culture under the influence of intellectual property in a dawning age of infor
mation. She explores the emergence of the Curie persona, the information culture of the period that shaped its development, and the strategies Curie used to manage and exploit her intellectual property. How did one create and maintain for oneself the persona of scientist at the beginning of the twentieth century? What special conditions bore upon scientific women, and on married women in particular? How was French identity claimed, established, and subverted? How, and with what consequences, was a scientific reputation secured?

“In its exploration of these questions and many more, Making Marie Curie provides a composite picture not only of the making of Marie Curie, but the making of modern science itself.”

Artstor and Larry Qualls have released approximately 32,000 images of contemporary art exhibited in the New York area in the past three decades. This release joins the more than 100,000 images already available in the Larry Qualls Archive, making it our largest survey of contemporary art, and completes the collection in the Digital Library.

Creator: Deborah Kass; Date: 2010; Location: exhibited at Paul Kasmin Gallery, Fall 2010; Material: neon and transformers on powder-coated aluminum panel; Measurements: 66 x 68 x 5 inches

The Larry Qualls Archive includes all of the major figures equated with contemporary art from the 1980s to the present. Subscribers are able to see the development of such world-renowned artists as graffiti-inspired painters Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat; Neo-Geo practitioners Peter Halley and Jeff Koons; controversy-courting photographers Nan Goldin and Robert Mapplethorpe; Young British Artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin; relational artists Rirkrit Tiravanija and Carsten Holler; interdisciplinary artists Matthew Barney and Coco Fusco; and current headliners Ai Weiwei and Marina Abramovic. The collection also includes retrospective showings of veteran heavyweights such as Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, pioneer Pop artists Larry Rivers and Roy Lichtenstein, and minimalist sculptors Richard Serra and Carl Andre.

Qualls has been writing about and documenting the arts in New York for most of his career, and his extensive archive, now housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, surveys work exhibited in the New York area from 1988-2012. Qualls views this contribution to Artstor as an important source for future art studies. He says, “Not only will my work be preserved for generations to come, but the digitization will make the images available widely and in better and more stable form than could ever have been possible with film technology.”

Explore this collection in the Artstor Digital Library

Deborah Kass; After Louise Bourgeois; 2010; exhibited at Paul Kasmin Gallery, Fall 2010. Image and original data provided by Larry Qualls; © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York