The Stories Untold: Influential Women in STEM that Never got the Credit they Deserved

By: Anabel Weinstein

In late 1952, one of the most influential discoveries was made. A year later, in 1953, this same discovery was made for the second time. And the second discovery was the story told; the first discovery, the story untold. It wasn’t until after Rosalind Franklin’s death that she got the credit she deserved for first discovering the structure of a DNA molecule through her use of X-Ray diffraction. She completely changed the field of molecular biology, but her story was never credited enough. Franklin isn’t the only one whose story was overshadowed by men in STEM, and Franklin isn’t the only one who’s story remained untold.

Eunice Foote discovered the greenhouse effect long before the term “greenhouse gas” was used. She was an American scientist in the 1800s who used experimentation to demonstrate how carbon dioxide heated up much more quickly than regular air. She was then the first individual to predict that as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increased, so would the temperature of the world. Thus, Foote was the first person to predict global warming. However, Foote’s story is one that was mostly left untold, overshadowed by men who gained more credit later on.

Lise Meitner was an Austrian physicist who was incredibly influential in the discoveries of nuclear fission and protactinium. Meitner then went on to become the first female professor of physics in Germany. She almost undoubtedly deserved a Nobel Prize for her research, but she did not receive one due to the fact that women were not allowed higher education in her time period, and thus all her research was overlooked. 
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There are so many more influential women in STEM fields that never got the credit they deserved, and the way to fix this is by talking about them. In AGSS workshops, volunteers always make sure to tell the stories of the women whose stories were never fully told. These untold stories are some of the most important parts of history, or rather, her-story.