W
OMEN IN
P
HYSICS AT
M
C
G
ILL
U
NIVERSITY
D
URING THE
20
TH
C
ENTURY1
by L. Gauthier
Dr. Luce Gauthier <lgauthier@ualberta.net>, 267 rue Rachel Est, #504, Montréal (Québec), H2W 1E5.
T
he fact that Physics is a still a field where women are in a minority is addressed from a historical point of view, using information from the McGill University archives. InCanada, McGill University’s Physics Department presents a good start for such a study because it had acquired a high international reputation very early in
the past century. Before the creation of the Faculty of Arts and Science in 1931, we follow the careers of indi-vidual women physicists. From then on and until the end of the century, we gather data on women and men students in Science, in Physics and, as points of comparison, in a few other scientific fields as well. We present and study the results, draw-ing on about 30 years experience in the scientific community and an ear-lier refletion on the situation of women scientists[1].
INTRODUCTION
Fairly recent statistics show that, although women account for over half of the graduates in Agricultural and Biological Sciences in Canadian universities, this is not the case in
Mathematics and Physical Sciences, nor in Engineering and Applied Sciences[2]. Physics, in particular, is still, today, a
field where women are in a minority. In order to shed more light on this situation, we address it here from a historical point of view. Very early in the century, McGill
University’s Physics department had gained an international reputation due to the presence of Rutherford, whose work there led to a Nobel Prize. This university is thus certainly one of the best choices for starting a historical study of the status of women in the field of Physics in Canada.
We present our results in three chronological segments, namely, 1900-1930, 1931-1970, and 1971-2000, reflecting the administrative status of the Department of Physics, and the kind of data presented in the Annual Reports[3-4] or in other
readily available archives[5-8]. FROM 1900 TO 1930
From 1900 to 1930, the Physics Department was part of the Faculty of Arts, which had offered courses in Natural Philosophy since 1843 and, since 1899, a program of courses
leading to a BSc degree. The Macdonald Physics Building was opened around 1890 and E. Rutherford arrived in 1898-99. While there, he conducted his Nobel Prize-winning research and stayed at McGill until 1907. In that year, the Macdonald Physics Building is said, to have “been raised to a distinguished position among the two or three most famous
labora-tories in the world”[4]. A year later,
E. Rutherford received the Nobel Prize.
Here, we rely exclusively on the Annual Reports[3-4] to follow the
careers of women physicists. For the entire period, we count at least 9 women cited in those reports. Miss H. Brooks, in 1900, had a paper in course of publication on the damp-ing of electrical oscillations and, in 1900-01 she was on staff as
Demonstrator when she was awarded a Research Fellowship. A year later, she co-authored, with Prof E. Rutherford, Comparison of the
Radiations from Active substances, in the Philosophical Magazine and received a Traveling Fellowship to Cambridge. In 1903-04, she published A volatile product of Radium in Nature and, Decay of Excited Radio-Activity of Thorium, Radium and Actinium, in the Philosophical Magazine. After that, the Annual Reports are silent about Miss Brooks and no women are mentioned until 1910-11 when Miss Marjorie Paterson-Smyth was appointed Demonstrator. She was said to have “a brilliant record in mathematics and physics”[4].
In 1914, Miss Violet Henry, who obtained First Rank Honours in Mathematics and Physics and the Anne Molson Gold Medalat the convocation[5], was appointed Demonstrator. From 1915
to 1917, she published Contact Resistance between Conductors in Relative Motion, Contact Resistance in Oil (with a colleague) and (with two colleagues), A First Year Course of Experimental Physics, Elementary and advanced. In 1917-18, another woman Demonstrator, Miss L. Smith, resigned her post for a similar one at the University of Alberta. The year after, she returned to McGill.
Hence, from 1900 to the end of the First World War, albeit at the lowest ranks, there were at least 4 women physicists on staff at the Macdonald Physics Building. Nevertheless, the
Although women account
for over half of the
gradu-ates in Agricultural and
Biological Sciences in
Canadian universities, this
is not the case in
Mathema-tics and Physical Sciences,
nor in Engineering and
Applied Sciences
[2].
Physics, in particular, is
still, today, a field where
women are in a minority.
1. This paper was presented at the 12th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists, Ottawa, Canada, July 27-31, 2002.
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following statements suggest that, after the First World War, only men were welcomed in the field of Physics: “The number of demonstrators is not yet sufficient to cope with the work, but men are not at present available” and “Unfortunately, there are not men at present available for bursaries, studentships and fellowships.”[4]
Is it because of the limited number of men available, that 4 women physicists figured simultaneously in the 1920-21 Annual Report? Miss Smith studied, experimentally, heat transmission through double windows. Miss Crowe worked on the electrical conductivity of deliquescent salts. Miss Henry determined tidal curves at different places on the estuary and Miss Douglas conducted research at Cambridge. In 1921-22, there were 5 Professors and 8 Demonstrators on the Department of Physics staff and, as attested by the number of PhD candidates, it remained one of the important departments at the University. See Tables 1 and 2.
TABLE 1
NUMBER OFCANDIDATES FORPHD BETWEEN1907 AND1921[ 3]
SCIENCE.
TABLE 2
NUMBER OFCANDIDATES FORPHD BETWEEN1907 AND1921[ 3]
ARTS
In 1921-22, Miss A.I. McPherson, a former Demonstrator, obtained a research bursarship from the Honorary Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. That same year, Miss M. Crowe published in the Physical Review, A precision determination of the electrical conductivity of concen-trated aqueous solutions of calcium chloride. In 1925-26, she gave a paper at the Royal Society of Canada and, a year later, more of her work on temperature coefficients and con-ductivity measurements was published in the Royal Society of Canada Transactions. The following year, she added a contribution to the University publications.
Meanwhile, after having been Demonstrator for 11 years, Miss Henry left the staff in 1923-24: “Miss Henry, after valu-able work as a demonstrator and doing research work on tidal problems, has left the staff on the occasion of her marriage”. Her contribution to the development of the Macdonald Physics Building Library is also acknowledged.
Last, but not least, Miss A.V. Douglas established herself in the field of Astronomy and stayed at the Physics
Department until 1940. After having obtained the Anne Molson Gold Medal of Honours in Mathematics and physicsand a MSc degree, she went to Cambridge on a fellowship from the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire.There, she first worked with Rutherford, who had been at
Cambridge since 1919, and then with Eddington. She returned to McGill in 1922-23. That year, she published The absorption and effective range of the B-rays from Radium E. In 1923-24, in what seems to be an understatement, one can read: “Miss A.V. Douglas has made some contributions to Astronomy, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society”. In 1925-26, she received a PhD degree for her work in Astrophysics done both “in Cambridge with Professor Eddington, and at Yerkes Observatory with Dr. Frost.”
That same year, Miss Douglas taught one of the two new courses in Astronomy and Astrophysics. An arrangement was also made with the Observatory at Ottawa so that qual-ified students could go for summer work. A year later, one of her students, Miss A. Turner,went to the Observatory. In 1925-26, Dr. A.V. Douglas published two papers in
Discovery, a review of a College Physics book, and three other articles related to her field. She also gave many lec-tures to the general public and to scientific societies. That year, twenty papers were presented at the Royal Society of Canada by 16 persons, among whom, there were two women: M. Crowe and A.V. Douglas. Also, Miss M.L. Chalk received a studentship from the National Research Council.
In 1926-27, Dr. Douglas published Spectroscopic absolute mag-nitudes and parallaxes of 200 A-type stars and Spectroscopic magnitudes of A-type stars. She gave many lectures to the general public, among them, Stars and snowflakes and
Starlight and star dust. She also addressed the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada on Sir Isaac Newton and his influence in modern astronomy. That year, she authored 4 of the 18 publications added by the Department of Physics to the University exchange lists. Moreover, “The new Moll apparatus has, in the hands of Dr. Douglas, led to close coopera-tion with the observatories at Ottawa and Victoria”[4].
In 1926-27, Dr. A.V. Douglas (MBE, MSc, PhD) was, at last, promoted from Demonstrator to Lecturer, still an appoint-ment renewable from year to year. In 1930-31, she was the sole author of 4 of the 10 publications of the Physics Department. Nevertheless, she had never obtained a tenure-track position, not even at the Assistant Professor level, in spite of the brilliant career she pursued, when she resigned in 1940.
The situation for women students towards the end of the Thirties is given in Table 3.[3]
TABLE 3
DEGREES GRANTED IN ALL FIELDS OF SCIENCE
FROM 1931 TO 1970
In 1931, the Faculty of Arts and Science was created and the Science Division offered the following Honours Courses: Bacteriology, Biochemistry, Botany, Physiology, Zoology,
Period Physics Botany Zoology Chem
07-11 7 3 0 24
12-21 25 4 2 53
Period Educ Modlang History Phil
07-11 0 4 0 3
12-21 2 6 5 5
Oct/May BSc-Wo BSc-Men MSc-Wo MSc-Men
28/29 4 27 2 21
29/30 6 20 0 19
Canada. At the October 1931 and May 1932 convocations, 27 BSc, 27 MSc, 19 PhD and 1 DSc were granted to men while 4 BSc, 1 MSc, 1PhD and no DSc were granted to women[3]. Given that, we examine the trend of women’s
registration in the BSc degree program. We present the data in Figure1 and, for comparison, Figure 2 shows the same data for male students. Care has been taken to follow the same groups of students from 1st to 4th year. From Figures 1 and 2, one can see that registration in 1st year peaked towards the end of the Second World War both for
men and women. A higher proportion of women registered in 1st year reached 4th year before the war than after it, as Figure 1 shows, while Figure2 indicates the opposite trend for men. On the whole, the perse-verance of women in finishing a degree was higher than that of men and much higher before the war.
Figure 3 shows that in 1948 the registration in 4th year was at a maximum both for women and men. Figure 2 also shows a mixing of the order of the four curves, starting in 1948. This could be due to many causes, such as the return of veterans and immigration. This phenom-enon persisted to the end of the Sixties and, Figure 1 shows that it is less pronounced in the case of women students. Moreover, it is missing from 1948 until 1960 and is not related to the post-war period.
Figure 1 shows that the number of women registered in the BSc program, after a slight leveling upwards in the post-war years, started to increase more rapidly from 1958. Figure2 shows that, for men, the increase starts a little earlier and is more pronounced. Figure 3 indicates that the 1948 war-time maximum is exceeded in 1964 for women and men. Finally, it shows that, in 1944, the number of women and men reg-istered in 4th year was approxi-mately the same, while in 1970 the number of women was less than 25%.
In order to know the distribution of women and men students among the different sciences, we have gathered available data on degrees granted from 1958 to 1970. Because Botany, Zoology Chemistry, Geology, Mathematics and Physics. In 1958,
Honours Courses in Genetics were also given.
The total eclipse of August 31, 1932 brought distinguished visitors to the Macdonald Physics Laboratory which, in 1932-1933, celebrated its 40th anniversary. In that year, 3 of the 6 demonstrators, held a PhD degree “and are fitted for higher professional appointments”[4]. A few years later, in
1936-37, Dr. A.V. Douglas, still a Lecturer, was elected a member of the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society of
Fig. 1 Number of Women registered in 1st to 4th year of BSc Degree program (1932-1970)
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and Genetics became Biology in 1971-72, we compare the data concerning Physics to the data of these three other sci-ences. Also, because women are now at parity with men in Biological Sciences, we compare the evolution of the num-ber of women in this field, to the numnum-ber of women in Physics. Finally, we also consider Biochemistry for compar-ison, because it is a field where the presence of women is high and because we believe that it appears to be as difficult as Physics to the lay person. Being particularly interested in students who will obtain higher degrees, we restrict our study to those registered in Honours courses.
From Table 4, we see that over the period 1958 to 1970, very few degrees in Physics have been granted to women while, in the field of Biological Sciences(Genetics, Botany, Zoology)
TABLE 4
NUMBER OF DEGREES GRANTED TOWOMEN ANDMEN FROM1958 TO1970
TABLE 5
PERCENTAGE OFWOMEN HAVING RECEIVED DEGREES FROM1958 TO1970
and, to a lesser extent in Biochemistry, women already formed an important part of the graduates. Table 5, gives the percentage of degrees granted to women. Thus, after World War Two, women had lost ground in the scientific commu-nity but, in the Sixties, they were slowly re-establishing their pres-ence in the scientific world, although not in the world of Physics, where very few pene-trated.
FROM 1971 TO 2000
On the first of June 1971
[3], the Faculty of Arts
and Science was divided into a Faculty of Arts and a Faculty of Science, and Botany, Zoology and Genetics were fused into a new Department of Biology. Another change was the beginning of the post-CEGEP three-year BSc degree program. Tables 6 and 7 show the number of degrees in Physics granted to women and men from 1970 to 1990, as well as similar data for Biology.
TABLE 6
NUMBER OF DEGREES GRANTED TOWOMEN ANDMEN FROM1970 TO1990
TABLE 7
PERCENTAGE OFWOMEN HAVING RECEIVED DEGREES FROM1970 TO1990
It is interesting to note that although Biology students are as numerous as Physics students at the BSc level, they are much more numerous in the higher degrees. It is also strik-ing to see how few women graduated in Physics. In 1990, with a small increase in percentage from 1970, women have roughly reached parity with men at the Bachelor and Master levels in Biology, while they account for less than 10% of the students in Physics at those two levels.
Nevertheless it is interesting to note that the percentage is about the same for the BSc Honours and the MSc level. Figures 4 and 5 show the evolution of the situation from
BSc MSc PhD
Physics 3.9% 1.7% 1.2%
Biochem 27.5% 36.7% 18.2%
Bio-Sc 40.6% 43.4% 25.9%
BSc
Wn BScMen MScWn MScMen PhDWn PhDMen
Phys 21 209 15 145 6 105 Bio 114 122 109 125 39 108 BSc MSc PhD Physics 9.1% 9.4% 5.4% Biology 48.3% 46.6% 26.5% BSc
Wn MenBSc MScWn MScMen PhDWn PhDMen
Phys 3 74 2 113 1 85
Bch 50 132 29 50 27 121
Bio 89 130 49 64 15 43
tions suggest that they were not as prized as men as potential students or staff members. Moreover, when she resigned in 1940, a woman astrophysi-cist was still a Lecturer, despite her long and brilliant career.
In the Thirties, women were very per-severing in their scientific studies and, towards the end of the Second World War, there were as many women as men registered in the 4th year BSc degree program. After the War, their perseverance decreased and, in spite of some increase in numbers, the gap between the number of women and men registered widened, so that, in 1970,women represented fewer than 25% of the students registered.
Moreover, from 1958 to 1971, extremely few women graduated in Physics while their number progressed, slowly but surely, in the fields of Biological Sciences and Biochemistry. In the last quarter of the Century, women
achieved parity with men at all but the Doctoral level in Biology but, even at the end of the Century, women remained a minority in Physics.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the staff of McGill University Archives, and in particular G. Burr, for their kind assistance and P. O’Leary for revising the English.
REFERENCES
1. L. Gauthier, Propos d’une physicienne sur la situation de la femme de science. Les Éditions Carte-blanche,
Outremont, 1999.
2. Chaire CRSNG/Alcan pour les femmes en sciences et génie au Québec. Web site:
www.fsg.ulaval.ca/chaire-crsng-alcan 3. McGill University Annual Reports. McGill Archives.
Consultation room.
4. Report of the Committee of Management of the Macdonald Physics Building, in McGill Annual Reports.
5. McGill University, Programme of the Annual Convocation for Conferring Degrees in Arts, Applied Science, Law, Dentistry and the Graduate School. McGill Archives. Consultation room.
6. McGill University Archives. RG 7, Office of the Registrar and Director of Admissions and Recruitment. Container 761. Statistics-Degrees and Diplomas 1958-1968 comparison. Accession no 99-098. Box 5.
7. McGill University Archives. RG 7, Office of the Registrar and Director of Admissions and Recruitment. Container 761. Statistics-Degrees Granted and Diplomas Awarded 1964-1991. Accession no 99-098. Box 5.
8. Statistics Vol.2 and Vol.3. McGill Archives. Consultation room.
1971 to 2000. One can see that parity of representation of men and women in Biology has been achieved for about twenty years at the BSc level, while, for Physics there is no clear trend towards an important change. At the MSc level, the curve for Biology is fluctuating more or less regularly around the 0,0 line (50%) since 1970, with some gains for women since about 1985. For Physics the curve is fluctuat-ing much higher up, around 0,8 (20%) and less regularly since 1987. It remains to be seen if those changes were relat-ed in any way to the programs on equity but, our lack of some data after 1991 prevents us from going into more details.
CONCLUSION
From the beginning of the Century, women were on staff at the Department of Physics, but none of them was in a tenure-track position. They were usually restricted to the rank of Demonstrator, and after the First World War,
indica-Fig. 4 Normalized difference between the number of BSc Degrees granted to men and to women (1971-2000). [(men-women)/(men+women)]
Fig. 5 Normalized difference between the number of MSc Degrees granted to men and to women (1971-2000). [(men-women)/(men+women)].
