Rasheedah Phillips was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1984. She moved to Philadelphia at fourteen years old, the same year she became a mother. Four years later, Rasheedah graduated with honors from Abraham Lincoln High…

Marion C. Thurnauer was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and moved with her family to Minnesota when she was still young. Her father, a ceramic engineer, introduced her to rocks and minerals and encouraged her to follow…

Damali Rhett was born in October 1977, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her name derives from a Nigerian praise poem and means “beautiful vision.” As an infant, Damali moved to Washington, D.C. During high school Damali was accepted…

Eileen Flanagan was born in Philadelphia in 1962. She grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in Bala Cynwyd, just outside of Philadelphia. She attended Friends Central High School and graduated from Duke University. In the…

Kirtrina Baxter was born in 1969 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She grew up in a diverse neighborhood in Willingboro, New Jersey, where her parents are Evangelical pastors. Katrina spent childhood summers in Philadelphia…

Kathleen L. Collins grew up in Norwell, Massachusetts, a small town near Boston, the second of four children. Her father was a teacher and an assistant principal. Her mother was a nurse until she stayed home with her…

Chavela M. Carr grew up near Indianapolis, Indiana in a large family. From early childhood she was interested in school, finding the math-based sciences interesting. Due to a high school human genetics course, Carr…

Frances M. Brodsky grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. Her father worked at ETS (Educational Testing Service), a job he began shortly after the company was founded. Her mother, an artist, was a professor at Rutgers and…

Allison A. Aldridge calls Ottawa, Kansas her home town. Her father was in the Air Force, her mother worked in industry and she has three brothers. When she was young Aldridge wanted to be a veterinarian, but working…

Two views of a product demonstration at the Hercules Powder Company exhibition display at an unidentified chemical industry trade show. The individuals visible in the photograph are unidentified.

Formed in 1912 as part…

Lee Ann Niswander was born in Bluffton, Ohio, the fourth child of six. Her parents were moderately devout Mennonites until her father's job caused them to move to Okemos, Michigan, where they became Methodists. Both…

Diane M. Papazian spent her early years in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest of three children. Her father was an insurance salesman and administrator, her mother a housewife. She exhibited an early interest in science,…

Emma Parmee grew up in Keynsham, England, the youngest of four children. Her father was a banker, her mother a housewife. She had always liked math and science, but she also liked languages. She attended all-girls…

Jennie R. Patrick grew up in Gadsden, a small, typically Southern, town in Alabama, the fourth of five children. Her parents were laborers whose formal education stopped in junior high school. As a child, she had no…

Marilyn Resh grew up in what she calls a typical Long Island town. When she was in high school she discovered science, particularly chemistry, but continued her extensive violin playing throughout college and graduate…

Judy Lieberman, the second of three daughters, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but grew up in a New Jersey suburb of New York City. Her father worked for Maidenform Incorporated, and her mother was an elementary…

Jane E. Koehler was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1953, the third of four sisters. Her father was the son of German-American farmers from Missouri; he was a World War II veteran who was the first in his family to attend…

Reatha Clark King was born in Pavo, Georgia, the second of three daughters. Her father was a sharecropper who never learned to read or write, and her mother, who went to school only through third grade, worked as a…

Hannele Ruohola-Baker was born in Kullaa, Finland—a small farming village—the younger of two siblings. Her mother was a banker who always had an interest in learning, though did not have many opportunities for education…

Audrey Rust begins her oral history with a discussion of her love of Nature and how she came to work for the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST). The vast majority of her interview is focused on her work with POST, even…

Jean S. Kane grew up mostly in Tenafly, New Jersey. Although her father was an accountant, Jean was the first in her family to attend college. She began at Keuka College, intending to get a nursing degree, but she…

Erin M. Schuman was born in San Gabriel, California, though spent most of her childhood in Huntington Beach, the oldest of three siblings; her mother was a teacher at a Catholic school. She was a "serial hobbyist" with…

Gail P. Jarvik was raised in Mount Prospect, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, one of six siblings (with an age-span of seventeen years between the oldest and youngest). Her mother was a housewife who received a college…

Catherine T. Hunt grew up in Bronxville, New York, one of seven children. Her father was a chemist at Allied Chemical Company, and Katie often went to work with him and always had questions for him about why things are…

Christine E. Holt was born and raised in Wylam, a small village in Northumberland in the north of England, the youngest of three siblings. Her mother was a homemaker; her father was a naval sea captain during World War…