Apparatus XY

36The third fellowship was for cancer research. The Finney Howell Research Foundation was established for ten years by Dr. George Walker upon his death in honor of his friends Dr. Finney and Dr. Howell, who were appointed to the Board of Directors along with 13 others including Sabin. Upon the deaths of Finney and Howell, Sabin served as President, with the Foundation providing grants from 1938-1947. Many of the recipients were women and in some years exclusively women (Series IV, Box 22, Folder 5, SSC). Again, there is no evidence that the sex of the individual was considered but it is clear that women received equal consideration with men and that Sabin's presence and leadership on the Board must have ensured this equity.

Spreading the Word

37 Finally, Sabin did her best, as she became a senior scientist recognized nationwide, to advocate on behalf of her younger colleagues. As noted above, with the Noether Fellowship and the later Richards prizes, Sabin considered it important for the future of women in science to gain recognition for women's achievements. She accepted her own recognition in that spirit, but felt the awards and honors should be more widely shared. In 1936 she received a note from Dr. Anna Colman of Radcliffe asking about women in science, and listing some she knew. Sabin wrote back an extensive reply providing 28 names with institutional affiliations for the areas of anatomy, biology, pathology, bacteriology, biochemistry, physiology, public health, and medicine (20 May Box H-Hol, APS). When Sabin was introduced to Jeanne Duplaix, who was writing an article on Women in Science for a journal called Revue, she suggested the names of Dr. Florence Seibert, Dr. Rebecca Lancefield, Dr. Sarah Tower, and Dr. Marion Hines, but objected to Duplaix's grouping so many women who worked in medical schools into zoology. She noted that she suspected that "there are more women doing research in medical schools than in all the scientific departments of universities put together" (3 May 1937 Box Doan, part 2-Fi, APS). The names of Sarah Tower and Marion Hines of Johns Hopkins Medical and Rebecca Lancefield of Rockefeller were once again put forth by Sabin for an article by Collier's Magazine on women in science. The suggestions to Irene Kuhn of the magazine came after Sabin had been contacted concerning a story on her work and background. She had written in response, that

my work has already received more publicity than it deserves…. If our recent studies had involved some spectacular discovery in which the public would really be interested, it would be quite a different matter,…Besides this point, I feel that the time has come when it is much more important to emphasize the work of some of the younger women in medicine." (30 Dec. 1937, 12 Jan. 1938 Bo Jo-Le, APS)

In 1936, when Sabin agreed to give a talk on "Some representative women in scientific research," to the College Club and Harvard Medical Society, she indicated that she would discuss the work of Doctors Rebecca Lancefield and Clara Lynch, in addition to talking a bit about the woman she labeled "the most wonderful woman scientist of our time," Emmy Noether (2 Apr. and May to Madelaine R. Brown, Box Be-Bu, APS). Finally, in 1940, in response to a letter from Carrie Chapman Catt, in which Catt notified Sabin that the Woman's Centennial Congress would devote its second night to women's career gains with ten women doctors to be recognized, Sabin again mentioned Drs. Lancefield, Lynch, Hines and Tower, along with Dr. Florence Seibert and Dr. Louise Pearce. She commented: "The thing that makes me most happy about the outlook for women in medicine is that there is now a group of younger women doing distinguished medical research….I take great pleasure and pride in their work" (15 Nov. Box C-Cr, APS).

38 Just as she advocated for the younger women coming up after her, Sabin gratefully publicly recognized those who had preceded her. In accepting an honorary degree from Syracuse University, on the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Geneva Medical College, she noted that "I shall esteem it a very great honor to have a degree from the institution that gave Elizabeth Blackwell her opportunity to study medicine," and reiterated the point in a letter after the commencement (28 Apr., 15 Jun. to Charles Flint, Box Fl-Fu, APS).

39 Her gratitude to her predecessors, and her desire to make their work known, was shown even more keenly in the acceptance speech she gave upon receiving the M. Carey Thomas Prize from Bryn Mawr, in which she noted that "there is distinction to an honor which bears the name of M. Carey Thomas." Asking why a Bryn Mawr honor touched "so deep a sense of gratification," she answered with the importance of the school for scholarship and for women. She commented on the important role of science at Bryn Mawr, made possible by Thomas's creation of a graduate school which allowed for research and scholarship, particularly citing the work in genetics of Netty Stevens, credited by Edmund Wilson, another member of the Bryn Mawr faculty. In addition, she praised Thomas for establishing the conditions required for admission to the new Johns Hopkins Medical School: "a college degree or its equivalent, a knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology, proficiency in modern languages, and admission of women on the same terms as men." This, Sabin asserted, opened to women "every single opportunity for advanced work in medicine which they have had since." Finally, Sabin concluded by discussing three leading women of science: Marie Curie, Emmy Noether, and Agnes Pockels, who, working on her own time in nineteenth-century Germany, studied the effect of salts in solution and developed an instrument for measuring surface tension as well as a method for getting exact dilutions. According to Sabin, the little-known Pockels was one of the founders of physical chemistry (2 Nov. 1935, Acceptance Speech, Thomas, M. Carey Prize #1, Box Ste-Thomas, APS).

40She was equally aware of how Drs. Mary Sherwood and Lilian Welsh had smoothed the path for her and others, and spoke of this in her written appreciation of Dr. Sherwood upon her death. Both women had studied in Zurich, and, in accordance with Sabin's philosophy that women had to receive the best medical education, she notes approvingly that "It showed sound judgment on her [Sherwood's] part to get such a medical training." When Welsh returned to the states she came with an introduction to the men at Hopkins Hospital from her professors there. She was welcomed into Dr. Welch's laboratory at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was supposed to have a residency under Dr. Osler, which fell through due to the ironic reason that it was dependent on another woman accepting as well. Nonetheless, she did work with Dr. Kelly there and collaborated with him on a paper. According to Sabin, the friendship and admiration which Sherwood and Welsh had gained from these doctors eased the way for the pioneering women at the medical school. Dr. Sherwood went on to working at the Bryn Mawr School and, along with Dr. Welsh, made major inroads in public health for women and children (4 Jun. 1935, "Doctor Mary Sherwood," Box S-Smith, APS).