{"id":523,"date":"2011-01-28T01:00:14","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T06:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/?p=523"},"modified":"2023-07-07T16:54:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T16:54:22","slug":"1882","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/2011\/01\/28\/1882\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 22 – 1882: The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning: A Manual for Housekeepers by Ellen H. Swallow Richards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published: Boston, 1882<\/p>\n

Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman admitted to MIT, is one of the Institute\u2019s historical celebrities. Her name graces a prestigious professorship for women faculty as well as a busy lobby in Building 4, complete with a portrait, relief sculpture, and exhibit. As MIT\u2019s first female degree recipient and an instructor and researcher at the Institute for almost forty years, she surely deserves the stature. Richards was a pioneer for women not only at MIT, but in all of science.<\/p>\n

Richards received her S.B. from MIT in 1873 (her second\u2014the first was from Vassar in 1870). She was instructor in chemistry and mineralogy in the MIT Women’s Laboratory from its opening in 1876 through its closing in 1883 and instructor in sanitary chemistry from 1884 until her death in 1911.<\/p>\n

She is considered the founder of the field of \"\"<\/a>home economics, the application of scientific principles and expertise to matters of household, health, and family. The field became a sphere where women could pursue scientific careers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (although it also reinforced stereotypes of \u201cwomen\u2019s work\u201d and formalized gender segregation in science). During its initial years, most of the students Richards worked with in the Women\u2019s Laboratory were schoolteachers who wanted to improve their scientific knowledge and skill for the classroom. In 1880, Richards began to focus her attention on the potential utility of chemistry to homemakers, and in 1882, just before the closing of the Women\u2019s Laboratory and the opening of MIT\u2019s sanitation laboratory, she published her first book, The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The book opens with the declaration that \u201cin this age of applied \"\"<\/a>science, every opportunity of benefiting the household should be seized upon.\u201d In about 90 pages, Richards describes the science behind baking bread, cooking nutritious meals, removing stains from clothes and tarnish from silver, and other topics of \u201cinterest to the housekeeper.\u201d The book found its audience, and subsequent editions were published in 1897 and 1907.<\/p>\n

Find it in the library<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published: Boston, 1882 Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman admitted to MIT, is one of the Institute\u2019s historical celebrities. Her name graces a prestigious professorship for women faculty as well as a busy lobby in Building 4, complete with a portrait, relief sculpture, and exhibit. As MIT\u2019s first female degree recipient and an instructor and researcher at the Institute for almost forty years, she surely deserves the stature. Richards was a pioneer for women not only at MIT, but in all of science. Richards received her S.B. from MIT in 1873 (her second\u2014the first was from Vassar in 1870). She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":false,"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4215,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/4215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}