Contributors & Credits
Principal Investigator: Serenity Sutherland
Special thanks to the following student contributors:
- Leandra Baptiste
- Emma Colling
- Matthew Danielsson
- Tyler Dohse
- Brendan Heims
- Elizabeth Miller
Mining Engineering and Mineralogy
Ellen Richards was the first woman inducted into the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1879 based on her work alongside her husband, mining engineer Robert Richards, on extractive metallurgy. Robert and Ellen Richards frequently spent their summers performing field research at mines in Canada and Northern Michigan. Her 1877 paper on methods for determining nickel concentrations in pyrrhotite also led to her nomination to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Nutrition Science
Richards started an experimental kitchen alongside of fellow scientist Mary Hinman Abel. Located in Boston, the New England Kitchen was a place for working class and immigrant Bostonians to purchase what the reformers believed were “healthy meals” and to also observe the latest scientific tools and techniques in the quickly expanding field of nutritional science. Other versions of the New England Kitchen opened in Baltimore and Chicago, but most changed focus or closed after only a few years.