A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War - Softcover

Fara, Patricia

3.61

205 ratings by Goodreads

9780198794998: A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198794991 ISBN 13: 9780198794998

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2019

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2018 marked a double centenary: peace was declared in war-wracked Europe, and women won the vote after decades of struggle. A Lab of One's Own commemorates both anniversaries by revealing the untold lives of female scientists, doctors, and engineers who undertook endeavours normally reserved for men. It tells fascinating and extraordinary stories featuring initiative, determination, and isolation, set against a backdrop of war, prejudice, and disease.
Patricia Fara investigates the enterprising careers of these pioneering women and their impact on science, medicine, and the First World War.

Suffrage campaigners aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress. Defying protests about their intellectual inferiority and child-bearing responsibilities, during the War they won support by mobilizing women to enter conventionally male domains. A Lab of One's Own focuses on the female experts who carried out vital research. They had already shown exceptional resilience by challenging accepted norms to pursue their careers, now they played their part in winning the War at home and overseas.

In 1919, the suffragist Millicent Fawcett declared triumphantly that 'The war revolutionised the industrial position of women. It found them serfs, and left them free.' She was wrong: Women had helped the country to victory, had won the vote for those over thirty - but had lost the battle for equality. A Lab of One''s Own is essential reading to understand and eliminate the inequalities still affecting professional women today.

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Review:

[An] interesting study. (Lucy Lethbridge, The Financial Times)

[An] important book ... a compelling tale ... [Fara's] book charts a significant chapter in lost feminist history. (Wendy Moore, The Guardian)

An engrossing, exciting tale of uncelebrated scientists who innovated and experimented against a background of grand historical events. (Dava Sobel, The New York Times)

As this remarkable book demonstrates, Fara is not only one of Britain's leading historians of science, but also one of her generation's most eloquent storytellers.

[A] fascinating book ... Carefully researched and absorbing ... Informative and moving, A Lab of One's Own is a timely reminder in helping us eliminate the inequalities that professional women still face today. (June Purvis, The Times Higher Education Supplement)

[An] enthralling book. (Uta Frith, Literary Review)

Fara's nuanced narrative [is] more than the sum of its parts. (Elizabeth Bruton, Nature)

Fara's research is meticulous ... it's a book I would highly recommend. (Jen Campbell, TOAST Magazine)

Fara has composed a worthy and lasting tribute to these pioneering women. (Foreign Affairs)

[A] powerful book. (Caspar Henderson, Five Books, Science Books of the Year 2018)

About the Author:

Patricia Fara lectures in the history of science at Cambridge University, where she is a Fellow of Clare College. She is the President of the British Society for the History of Science (2016-18) and her prize-winning book, Science: A Four Thousand Year History (OUP, 2009), has been translated into nine languages. In addition to many academic publications, her popular works include Newton: The Making of Genius (Columbia University Press, 2002), An Entertainment for Angels (Icon Books, 2002), Sex, Botany and Empire (Columbia University Press, 2003), and Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (Pimlico, 2004). An experienced public lecturer, Patricia Fara appears regularly in TV documentaries and radio programmes such as In our Time. She also contributes articles and reviews to many journals, including History Today, BBC History, New Scientist, Nature and the Times Literary Supplement.

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