Richards, Ellen Swallow

Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911), American chemist, educator, and first president of the American Home Economics Association, was born in Dunstable, Massachusetts. She graduated from Vassar in 1870, and that same year was the first woman to be admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (as “a special student” pursuing an advanced degree in chemistry). In 1876, with the help of the Boston Women’s Education Association, she was instrumental in organizing the Woman’s Laboratory at MIT to offer scientific education for women. She served as an instructor in sanitary chemistry at the laboratory, and her first book, The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning, was published during this period. In 1884, when women were first admitted to the university as regular students, Richards became a member of the MIT faculty, a position she held until her death in 1911.