A Lab of One's Own: One Woman's Journey Through Sexism in Science
Colwell, Rita [Sharon Bertsch McGrayne]
Language: English
Published by Simon and Schuster, NY, 2020
- First Edition
- Signed
- Hardcover
- Used





Seller: Rural Hours, La Grande, OR, U.S.A.Rural Hours
AbeBooks seller since June 16, 2020
Condition: Used - Fine
£ 291.85
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Inscribed on the title page in blue ink: "To Yonah, with great affection and admiration. Ruth Colwell." Uncommon signed. A "memoir-manifesto" by the first woman to direct the National Science Foundation. It draws on six decades of her life in science and shows the levels of sexism she confronted, a book that "shares the sheer joy a scientist feels" and "the science book for the #MeToo era." Colwell is a decorated microbiologist and a professor at the University of Maryland and John Hopkins. A fine book in a fine jacket.
Seller Inventory # 2042
- Title
- A Lab of One's Own: One Woman's Journey Through Sexism in Science
- Author
- Colwell, Rita [Sharon Bertsch McGrayne]
- Publisher
- Simon and Schuster, NY
- Publication year
- 2020
- Condition
- Fine
- Dust jacket
- Fine
- Signed
- Signed by Author(s)
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1501181270
- ISBN 13
- 9781501181276
- Edition
- First edition.
- Seller catalogs
- History of Science/Ecology, Science/Environmental Memoirs, Women in the Environment
If you think sexism thrives only on Wall Street or in Hollywood, you haven't visited a lab, a science department, a research foundation, or a biotech firm.
Rita Colwell is one of the top scientists in America: the groundbreaking microbiologist who discovered how cholera survives between epidemics and the former head of the National Science Foundation. But when she first applied for a graduate fellowship in bacteriology, she was told, 'We don't waste fellowships on women.' A lack of support from some male superiors would lead her to change her area of study six times before completing her PhD.
A Lab of One's Own documents all Colwell has seen and heard over her six decades in science, from sexual harassment in the lab to obscure systems blocking women from leading professional organizations or publishing their work. Along the way, she encounters other women pushing back against the status quo, including a group at MIT who revolt when they discover their labs are a fraction of the size of their male colleagues'.
Resistance gave female scientists special gifts: forced to change specialties so many times, they came to see things in a more interdisciplinary way, which turned out to be key to making new discoveries in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Colwell would also witness the advances that could be made when men and women worked together'often under her direction, such as when she headed a team that helped to uncover the source of the anthrax used in the 2001 letter attacks.
A Lab of One's Own shares the sheer joy a scientist feels when moving toward a breakthrough, and the thrill of uncovering a whole new generation of female pioneers. But it is also the science book for the #MeToo era, offering an astute diagnosis of how to fix the problem of sexism in science'and a celebration of the women pushing back.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne is the author of five books on the history of science, including Nobel Prize Women in Science, The Theory That Would Not Die, and A Lab of One's Own, which she coauthored with Rita Colwell. She lives in Seattle.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Rural Hours
La Grande, OR, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since June 16, 2020
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Visit us at www.ruralhours.com. Rural Hours (formerly Wood River Books) specializes in ecology, natural history, nature and science writing, the environment, ecopoetics, contemporary essay, and literary journalism, with a special passion for association copies and notable inscriptions. Our name is an homage to Susan Fenimore Cooper's book Rural Hours (1850), considered the first work of environmental nonfiction by an American woman. The daughter of James Fenimore Cooper, Susan Cooper was also an accomplished watercolorist, and her birds from Rural Hours populate these pages. Her rendering of a "chimney swallow" (now known as a swift) serves as our logo and mascot: sleek and elevated, part sky and part city street. Rural Hours is mainly a project of writer and teacher Nick Neely. Along with a pair of MFA degrees in nonfiction and poetry, Nick has a Master's in Literature and Environment from the University of Nevada, Reno. He has much expertise and years of experience in the field of eco-writing. His first book, Coast Range, was a finalist for John Burroughs Medal for nature writing and his second book, Alta California--about a 12-week trek he made along the California coast--was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Check out the "Rambles" page for eventual short essays from him on environmental lit, new books, and more. Rural Hours is a young venture, but we aspire to be among the leaders in the field of rare and interesting eco-writing. We believe, emphatically, that environmental literature and its preservation is in the service of the preservation of the world. In addition to helping serious collectors and institutions build their libraries and archives, our goal is to curate a substantial "house collection" of environmental writing for public display on this site and beyond, one that shows the evolution of the genre(s). That will be a perennial work in progress. We hope to draw a deep, explorable map of environmental writing that traces the lineage and connections between authors and artists determined to render and protect the earth, locally and globally. At the same time, we would like to challenge the usual contours of the "environmental literature" canon and promote a more diverse and inclusive array of voices; in that way, our longterm goal is to excavate the past and curate toward the future. Rural Hours also hopes to eventually have an open shop and gallery space, but for now we are only online. You've come to the right the place. Enjoy poking around, and then head out for a walk.…
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