Gertrude B. Elion Gertrude Elion was a very influential and prominent women in the development of various drugs that aided in fighting diseases such as leukemia and AIDS. She was born in New York City and was the child of immigrants. Before the death of her grandpa, whom she was very close to, she had little to no interest in the medicine and or science. However, after her grandpa died of leukemia, she decided that “no one deserves to suffer that much”. She went on to attend Hunter College and obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the age of 19. At first getting into laboratories to start work was proven fairly difficult, as there was a stigma against women in chemistry field. She started off as a non paid lab assistant
With all that Ethel Waters has contributed to music and film, it is surprising that she is often forgotten. She was a talented blues singer whose unique style distinguished her from other blues singers and she was a jazz vocalist as well. Her talent extended beyond singing, when she became a dramatic actress who earned award nominations for her performances. What was most remarkable about Waters' performances was how she reconstructed the mammy character into one that challenged stereotypes.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr. Wharton removed a sample of her cervix tumor and a sample of her healthy cervix tissue and gave this tissue to dr. George Gey, who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for years. In the meantime that Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab. This all happened without the permission and the informing of Henrietta Lacks. The cells started growing in a unbelievable fast way, they doubled every 24 hours, Henrietta’s cells didn’t seem to stop growing. Henrietta’s cancer cell grew twenty times as fast as her normal healthy cells, which eventually also died a couple of days after they started growing. The first immortal human cells were grown, which was a big breakthrough in science. The HeLa cells were spread throughout the scientific world. They were used for major breakthroughs in science, for example the developing of the polio vaccine. The HeLa-cells caused a revolution in the scientific world, while Henrietta Lacks, who died Octob...
Agnes Fay Morgan is known for many things, but most importantly she is honored and praised for her accomplishments within the field of chemistry and biochemistry. Born in 1884, she was the third of four children to an Irish immigrant and was born in Peoria, Illinois. Her family consisted of two boys and two girls, where ironically, both boys didn’t attend college and both females did. Due to Agnes’s exceptional grades and limitless possibilities, she was offered a full college scholarship by a local benefactor and enrolled at Vassar College. She then continued her education by transferring to the University of Chicago where she earned both her BS degree and her MS degree in chemistry. Once obtaining this degree she decided to teach chemistry in Montana and
The novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by author Rebecca Skloot is about a black woman whose cells were used by doctors to study medicine without her knowledge or her permission. Rebecca Skloot first heard of Henrietta Lacks when she was 16-years-old in her college biology class. Her professor, Donald Defler, mentioned Henrietta briefly during his lesson about cells. Defler talked about how Henrietta’s cells helped scientists learn all they know about cell and cell culture today, and allowed them to develop disease-fighting drugs to combat herpes, leukemias, influenza, hemophilia and Parkinson’s disease. Although Defler did acknowledge the fact that it was Henrietta’s cells who helped change the future of medicine, all Defler added was that she was a black woman. Skloot was unsatisfied with this information and she wanted to know more about Henrietta Lacks, such as “Where was she from?... Did she know how important her cells were? Did she have any children?” (Skloot 4). The problem was, though, that no one cared to find out anything about the person whose cells were famous all over the world. Most people, in fact, did not even realize that her name was Henrietta Lacks, and not Helen Lane. All people knew about this woman was that her cancerous cells were referred to as HeLa cells. Thus, Skloot’s purpose was to inform people around the world about the life of the woman whose
Even before she spent "four strange summers" of her early teenage years hanging "in the heart of chaos," Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, or Zitkala-Sa, found her Native American world in 1884 at age eight compromised by her mother's tears and the hard, bitter line of her lips. Zitkala-Sa's mother's hatred of white Americans cast dark shadows over the happy days when Zitkala-Sa was clear in her vision of herself as a young Yankton Nakota girl. The biological fact that Zitkala-Sa's father was a white Indian agent, a man named Felker, who deserted Zitkala-Sa and her mother, and the historical turmoil of the cultural degeneration of the American Indians in the late nineteenth century combined to set the stage for chaos and problems of identity. Zitkala-Sa addresses the personal and historical impact of the transition of the American Indian into a white man's world in her American Indian Stories (1921), a collection of essays first published in Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly in 1900 and 1901, many of which are autobiographical. Although she wasted those "four strange summers" grieving that she "was neither a wild Indian or a tame one" (69), her book reveals that Zitkala-Sa chose not to just "hang in the heart of chaos." Zitkala-Sa chose to stand up and take action.
Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 , Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of Atonement in Breslau Germany now Wroclaw Poland. She was born into an Orthodox Jewish family and was the youngest of 11 children. When she was not yet 2 years of age, her father suddenly died. This left Edith's mother to raise the seven remaining children since 4 had died in childhood and manage the family business. She considered her mother an example of the woman in Proverbs 31, who rises early to care for her family and trade in the marketplace. At around the age of 13 she no longer practiced her Jewish faith and became an atheist although she admired her mother's attitude of total openness towards God.
“IF you develop a wonderful protocol, its’s useless if nobody uses it,” Edna B Foa
Susan Brownell Anthony was considered one of the first women activist. She fought for the abolition of slavery, African American rights, labor rights and women’s rights. Susan Anthony fought for women’s rights by speaking up and campaigning for women and serval others around the United States. She devoted her time and attention on the needs of women. Ms. Anthony helped reform the law to benefit women and improve our conditions, and encouraged the eliminations of laws that only benefited the men of our country. Susan B. Anthony helped change the life of African Americans and women in the United States with her morals and influential beliefs in equality.
She had many struggles trying to receive higher education because of the restrictions women had when it came to furthering ones education. But after many attempts, she was able to study with the great German mathematician Karl Weierstrass. She worked with him for the next four years and then in 1874, received her doctorate. By this time, she had published numerous original papers in the field of higher mathematical analysis and applications to astronomy and physics. But despite all her attempts, and brilliance, she was still a woman in her time period, and therefore unable to find a job in academia. Weierstrass had tried helping her find a job because he was astonished with her abilities and intellectual capacity, but had no luck because after all, she was still a woman.
Rosalind Franklin: Seeing a woman as a scientist during this time is somewhat rare, so the fact that she has taken up this profession show that she is persistent, dedicated, and smart. The only problem is that she is undervalued because of her gender. She is also very quiet and reserved because she’s in a different country.
Ethel Smyth, composer and outspoken suffragist, was born in 1858. Her middle-class English family opposed her ambition to study music in Germany, thinking the goal of becoming a professional musician unladylike. Smyth’s father eventually allowed her to study composition in Leipzig, but only after she waged a campaign of protest that included a hunger strike and self-imposed isolation. Among her seventy-two compositions are six operas, and works for orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensembles. Afflicted with deafness later in life, a malady that afflicted both Beethoven and Smetana, she died in 1944.
Ida B. Wells was a woman dedicated to a cause, a cause to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from being murdered by lynching. Lynching is defined as to take the law into its own hands and kill someone in punishment for a crime or a presumed crime. Ida B. Wells’ back round made her a logical spokesperson against lynching. She drew on many experiences throughout her life to aid in her crusade. Her position as a black woman, however, affected her credibility both in and out of America in a few different ways.
Eleanor Marx Eleanor Marx is not remembered as an economist. Her life, though more so her death, has captured the imaginations and curiosities of novelists and biographers and her existence has been cast into the role of the “tragic socialist.” Yet, as the daughter of Karl Marx, she was a prominent writer and activist for socialist reform. She edited Marx’s unpublished texts after his death and contributed several articles of her own on economic topics. Similarly, in her daily interactions, she worked for social reform that was fundamentally economic in nature and associated with a wide range of feminist and socialist activists.
In the Shakespearean tragedy "Hamlet," Prince Hamlet’s mother Gertrude encounters many misfortunes, which she feels that she is to blame for. Gertrude was brought into the middle of everybody’s dilemmas and thus felt responsible for the occurrences that happened to all of the significant characters throughout the play. She allows her emotions to build up in an unhealthy manner and this leads to her eventual death. The question that surrounds her death is whether she committed suicide or led a natural demise?
Marie Curie's determination to work with the dangerous elements that destroyed her body can be likened again to the Feminist Movement. She strove to attain understanding of elements until it killed her.