"A Physicist and Later a Housewife" (1896)

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post   Overall Post # 5134

Paging through some of the first half dozen or so volumes of the iconic Physical Review, I bumped into a paper¹ by Caroline Willard Baldwin ("A Photographic Study of Arc Spectra. I" (and II)--and what stopped me was the "Caroline" part as the date of publication was 1896.  I did not expect to see this entry, and after going back to check the other two preceding volumes it can be said that this was the first paper published by a woman in the Physical Review. This may be common knowledge but it wasn't to me--frankly I was a little surprised that the paper appeared this early on in the life of the journal. After a little research in some scant mentions I found that Baldwin (1869-1928) was the first woman to receive a doctorate in physics/Sc.D. from a U.S. university, and so far as I can see this was her only published paper. Baldwin had one other publication—a physics/mechanics textbook written with George Arthur Merrill--which was the end of her publishing career. She taught physics at the California School of Mechanical Arts in San Francisco, and then married in 1900, which ended her career, evidently, because there's nothing more on her that I can find except for a few refences for her being "a physicist and later a housewife", which caused quite a sad sigh. There is nothing wrong or demeaning or lessening in being a housewife, or graduating from being a physicist to being a housewife (or househusband for that matter), except there are all of those "firsts" next to her name...It seems as though she went as far as she could go in academic advancement despite her history and doctorate, having a position "...teaching physics at the California School of Mechanical Arts, a vocational secondary school in San Francisco associated with UC Berkeley".² Once married--and then married with children--her fate in physics was sealed.

Notes:

1. Caroline Willard Baldwin (1869-1928)  "A Photographic Study of Arc Spectra. I" and "A Photographic Study of Arc Spectra. II", in  Physical Review, Series 1, volume 3, published 1 March  and 1 April 1896.
2. +3. "Equipped with a doctorate, Baldwin nonetheless taught physics at the California School of Mechanical Arts, a vocational secondary school in San Francisco associated with UC Berkeley.  Baldwin’s status as a married woman with two children, similar to that of other Berkeley women graduates in STEM of her era,  would have been an obstacle to a position in higher education."  Berkeley Mechanical Engineering, website, "Caroline Willard Baldwin" entry.