The Franklin Institute: Women and TechnologyAuthor(s): Stephanie MorrisSource: Signs, Vol. 4, No. 1, Women, Science, and Society (Autumn, 1978), pp. 173-174Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173340 .

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Autumn 1978 173

Sexism pervades both the production and content of the literature that bridges the gap between professional scientists and the lay public. Thus, much of what general readers lean about science is distorted, and sexist bias masquerades as scientific objectivity.

Department of Sociology McMaster University

The Franklin Institute: Women and Technology

Stephanie Morris

The technological community has generally been considered a man's world. Mechanics institutes of the nineteenth century were intended to help industrious young men get ahead. However, archives at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the most successful mechanics in- stitute in the country, show that women also participated in its activities. Scholars researching the institute's extensive collections will find docu- mentation of women's involvement in the mechanic arts.

The Franklin Institute sponsored industrial exhibitions, educational programs, and a journal for the technological community.1 Twenty-six exhibitions of American manufactures were conducted by the institute between 1824 and 1858. Women were among the several thousand arti- sans and manufacturers from the mid-Atlantic region and beyond who exhibited there, most in the classes of household goods, straw goods, fine arts, wool, cotton, and linen goods. By 1854, women were among the judges of exhibits. Manuscripts of the judges' reports comment on the work of "females" whose craftsmanship was commendable despite a lack of formal training. Between 1874 and 1899 the institute sponsored four specialized exhibitions in which women participated both as exhibitors and judges.

From 1824 to 1900 members of the institute's Committee on Science and the Arts examined 2,200 inventions and improvements to technological processes and equipment.2 Although only 2 percent of the

This is an expanded version of remarks made at the inaugural meeting of Women in Technological History, a committee of the Society of the History of Technology, Philadel- phia, December 1976.

1. For a comprehensive history of the Franklin Institute's first forty years, see Bruce Sinclair's Philadelphia's Philosopher Mechanics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974).

2. For a historical sketch of this committee and a calendar of the nineteenth-century records, see A. Michal McMahon and Stephanie Morris, Technology in Industrial America: The Committee on Science and the Arts of the Franklin Institute, 1824-1900 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1977). These records are also on microfilm (twenty-eight rolls available through Scholarly Resources, Inc.).

Signs

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174 Notes on Science

inventors were women, committee reports on some items express the attitudes of entrepreneurs toward women and women workers.

Records also exist for the educational programs, including evening lectures and classroom instruction, which were open to women after 1827. In 1850, the Franklin Institute agreed to sponsor Mrs. Sarah Peters's School of Design for Women. The school was chartered as a separate entity in 1853; Moore College of Art is, in part, one of its descendants. In 1910 all the existing programs of the institute were reorganized as departments in the School of Mechanic Arts (1910-23). By the 1880s, the names of women appear in the student rosters, which may be found in the archives. The formal educational programs closed in 1923.

The Committee on Exhibitions (1824-1900), the Committee on Sci- ence and the Arts (1824-1900), and the Committee on Instruction (1824-1923) are the main record groups at the Franklin Institute to offer a perspective on the role of women in technological history. There is little biographical information, however, on the women who appear in these records. The richest source of information will be the committee reports reflecting attitudes toward women. Advertising materials sub- mitted by inventors applying for examination or exhibition are also available in the exhibition and Science and Arts records. The manuscript exhibition catalog is another rich source of information on the craftsmanship of women, listing all articles deposited by each exhibitor and, frequently, a note about sales. These records tell us something about the often overlooked women artisans and the industrial commu- nity of which they were a part.

Francis C. Wood Institutefor the History of Medicine College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Encouraging Women in Science

Cherry S. Granrose and Ann E. Kammer

Recently the Women in Science Program of the National Science Foun- dation and the Women's Educational Equity Act Program in the Office of Education of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare have funded a series of projects to promote the entry of women into scientific careers. These programs encourage successful experiences with mathe- matics and mechanical tools, locate role models and mentors from the ranks of women scientists, provide peer support, and give students an opportunity to clarify their own values and definitions of appropriate roles for women.

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