Ellen Swallow Richards Essay

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The World has not seen that many good Environmental Engineers, and not that many female engineers, until Ellen Swallow Richards. Before I go into the life of Ellen Swallow Richards, I would like to point a couple of things out. Ellen Swallow Richards was a feminist and she was a great woman to prove feminism existed and that all human beings are created equal. Ellen Swallow Richards was born on December 3, 1842 in Dunstable, Massachusetts. She was the only child of Peter Swallow and Fanny Gould Taylor, both of whom came from established families of modest means and were believers in the value of education. She was informally educated by her parents who themselves were teachers. Ellen Swallow was educated mainly at home. She briefly attended Westford Academy and also taught school for a time. Ellen then went on to further her education at …show more content…

Be that as it may, her career was anything but average. Ellen Richards was the first woman to graduate from MIT, a pioneer in the fields of sanitary engineering and public health, and the founder of euthenics and home economics. Ellen Swallow Richards was also "One of America’s first female professional chemists and the first woman to be accepted by a scientific school, Ellen H. Swallow Richards is best known for pioneering the field of sanitary engineering. Richards performed an unprecedented survey in 1890 that led to the first state water-quality standards in the nation. She is credited for making important contributions to the understanding of environmental

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