Huron Expositor, 2015-01-21, Page 88 Huron Expositor • Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Harriet Brooks: "That woman scientist"
In her obituary in 1933,
Lord Ernest Ruther-
ford, the father of
nuclear physics, said of
Harriet Brooks that she
was "next to Marie Curie,
the most outstanding
woman in the field of
radioactivity." Brooks'
remarkable scientific
career spanned just eight
years but her contribu-
tions to nuclear physics
made her one of the most
important women of sci-
ence in the modern age.
Brooks was born in
Huron History
David Yates
Exeter on July 2,
1876. Harriet was the
third of George Brooks
and Elizabeth Worden's
nine children. Her father
was a traveling flour
salesman who, it was del-
icately suggested, "com-
ported himself more like
a single gentleman." After
a brief move to Montreal,
the family re -located to
Seaforth in 1888.
Brooks graduated from
Seaforth Collegiate in 1893
where she developed an
interest in science. Defy-
ing tradition, she deter-
mined to study at McGill
University on one of the
newly created scholarships
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for women funded by Lord
Strathcona. Brooks
excelled in her studies and
placed first in Ancient His-
tory, Greek, Geometry,
Arithmetic and Algebra.
As female students were
forbidden to study the
Classics beyond second
year, Brooks graduated
with first class honours in
math and science in 1898.
She won the Anne Molson
Gold Medal for mathemat-
ics and was elected class
President. Ernest Ruther-
ford, a physics professor at
McGill, honoured Brooks
by inviting her to become
his first graduate student.
Brooks made invaluable
discoveries on the rates
and measurements of
radioactive
decay. Rutherford
encouraged her to publish
her research in the Royal
Society of Canada's Trans-
actions. In 1901, her arti-
cle earned Brooks the first
Master's degree McGill
conferred upon a woman.
Later that year, Brooks
accepted a fellowship at
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Bryn Mawr, the prestigious
Pennsylvanian Women's
College, to do doctoral
research and teach mathe-
matics. However, with her
fame as a researcher, and
Lord Rutherford's influ-
ence, she won a European
scholarship where, in 1903,
she became the first
woman to study at Cam-
bridge's Cavendish Labo-
ratory with J. J. Thomson.
An extraordinary instruc-
tor, seven of Thomson's
students won Nobel prizes.
Although having com-
pleted the required num-
ber of experiments for her
doctorate, Brooks did not
enjoyworkingwith the
moody and argumenta-
tive Thomson and so she
returned to McGill to work
with Rutherford without
obtaining her doctorate.
In 1904, Brooks
accepted a teaching posi-
tion at Columbia Universi-
ty's Bamard College for
women in New York City at
an annual salary of $1
000. However, her engage-
ment to fellow physicist
Bergen Davis, in 1906, cre-
ated problems from Bar-
nard's female Dean, Laura
Gill. Gill informed Brooks
that as a married woman,
her employment would be
terminated.
According to Marelene
and Geoffrey Rayner -Can -
ham's book Harriet
Brooks: Pioneer Nuclear
Scientist (1992), Brooks
argued the contradiction
of a women's college edu-
cating women for the pro-
fessional world and then
expect them to give it up
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upon marriage. Dean Gill,
a traditionalist, responded
by advising Brooks to turn
"homemaking into a pro-
fession:' Her engagement
to the brilliant but erratic
Davis ended in August
1906, but Brooks never
returned to Barnard.
Brooks spent the sum-
mer of 1906 recovering
from her personal crisis at
the Summerbrook resort
in the Adirondacks. Sum-
merbrookwas established
in 1896 as a retreat for pro-
gressive artists, writers and
reformers. Labelled as 'that
woman scientist; she was
considered a celebrity.
At Summerbrook, she
met the radical Russian
literary giant, Maxim
Gorky, and his common-
law wife. For the next
several months, Brooks
became a traveling com-
panion of the Gorky's
throughout their Euro-
pean adventures. On one
occasion, Brooks barely
escaped with her life
when police nearly fired
upon her carriage after a
mob of 5,000 Italian
socialists almost started a
riot after one of Gorky's
speeches.
While the Gorky's rested
on the Isle of Capri, Brooks
went to Paris to resume her
physics research working
with Madame Marie Curie
in late 1906. As Madame
Curie was a difficult task-
master,
askmaster, reluctant to give
credit to her research assis-
tants, it is hard to ascertain
what influence Brooks had
on Madame Curie's work
In 1907, Lord Ruther-
ford returned to England
to continue his research
at the University of Man-
chester. Brooks left
Curie's laboratory when
Rutherford asked her to
join his research
team. However, in the
period before the Great
War, tradition trumped
ambition, and Harriet
Brooks reluctantly, and
against Rutherford's
advice, became engaged
to Frank Pitcher, a scion
of Montreal's wealthy
Anglo -aristocracy.