UNT faculty member to write book about pioneering female food chemist

Alarmed that Americans had insufficient knowledge about healthy eating and safe food preparation, Ellen Swallow Richards included nutritional information about the dishes served at her restaurant.

This isn't an original idea for 2001. Fast-food restaurants like McDonald's have provided information on the calorie, fat and sodium content of their meals for several years, and the Food and Drug Administration requires nutritional labeling for most packaged foods under the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990.

But Richards' idea was radical for 1893, when she opened the Rumford Kitchen to provide lunch to people attending the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Gail Lippincott, assistant professor of English, is writing a book on Richards. The book will focus on her pioneering work in home economics and ecology and her distinction as the first American woman to earn a bachelor's degree in chemistry.

"The late 19^th century was, in a way, very similar to today. The emphasis was on new technology, and many immigrants were coming to the United States," Lippincott says. "Ellen Richards set out to teach poor immigrants economical and sanitary ways of preparing food, and this grew to include more Americans through the opening of Rumford Kitchen. That's a lesson many of us could use today. Traditional cooking knowledge either doesn't get handed down from the previous generation, or it can't accommodate new food technologies."

Lippincott says Richards is best remembered for her work in home economics and ecology. However, she wants to uncover Richards' scientific writing.

"Her chemistry background led her to write on the chemistry of water, air and food. She founded home economics as a science and wrote about how to understand enough science and chemistry to discern the packaging on products," she says. "While she could talk to the general public, she was also a highly respected scientist, and other scientists did not dismiss her because she was a woman."

Lippincott says she became interested in writing about Richards while earning her doctoral degree in rhetoric from the University of Minnesota. She was minoring in feminist studies.

"I was looking at the writings by women scientists — and there aren't a lot — and came across Richards' entry in a biographical dictionary," she says.

Born in rural Massachusetts in 1842, Ellen Swallow Richards received only four years of formal education during her childhood. After completing her education, she taught school and worked in her father's store, saving $300 to enroll in Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. She entered at age 26 and finished the four-year program in two years. In 1871, she was admitted on a "special student" basis to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became the university's first female student.

She graduated with her chemistry degree two years later and became an MIT instructor. In an era in which married women did not work, she continued to teach after marrying an MIT faculty member, Robert Hollowell Richards. However, she was denied a request to study for a doctorate at MIT.

While still an MIT student, Richards began to test Massachusetts' streams, water supplies and sewage for the Board of Health. Her water analysis became the seed for the National Chlorine Map, a standard for sanitary surveys. She opened the Science Laboratory for Women in a renovated MIT garage and began further study of ecology. Since she was not paid for running the laboratory, she supported herself with a private chemical consulting practice.

In 1890, she opened the New England Kitchen to introduce cheap, healthy cooking to Boston immigrants. She ended the experiment after three years and brought the scientific principles of food preparation to the World's Columbian Exposition through the Rumford Kitchen.

Lippincott says the kitchen was originally going to be located in the fair's Women's Pavilion, "but Richards was clear that she didn't want nutrition and sanitary food preparation to be considered just for women."

During the months of the exposition, the Rumford Kitchen was a great success. It served 10,000 people, charging 30 cents for a choice of two or three luncheons. In addition to having menus with nutritional information, the kitchen provided cooking demonstrations by having the cooks work in sight of the customers. Customers could also read pamphlets about food and nutrition prepared by professors at Johns Hopkins and Yale universities.

After the Rumford Kitchen closed, Richards returned to MIT to teach. Before her death in 1911, she helped to establish the organization that eventually became the American Association of University Women and published more than a dozen books.

Despite Richards' contributions to ecology, home economics and science, Lippincott says only two books were written about her – one in 1912 shortly after her death, and one in 1973. Lippincott conducted research on Richards this summer at the archives at MIT and the University of Chicago, which acquired the equipment for the Rumford Kitchen after it closed.

Lippincott says the purpose of her book will be not only to uncover Richards' scientific writings, but also to focus on her communication strategies in educating Americans about nutrition.

"She had to be subtle, because married women of that time did not teach, and because she did not want to be seen as a suffragette. Instead, she wanted to present her scientific messages to different types of people," Lippincott says. "We can learn from her strategies today."

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

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• UNT seeking nominations for annual alumni awards
• Tom Malone to perform at UNT Nov. 20
• Guest column: Suggestions to preserve security at UNT
• Mail safety tips: Ways to protect yourself
• Staff awards presented at sack lunch
• Administrators give reports to Faculty Senate

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