Women in Science: Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century: A Biographical Dictionary and Bibliography. Manlyn Bailey Ogilvie. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986. 272 pp. $25.
Anyone seeking accurate biographical information about women scientists of the past will find this work an indispensable reference tool. This has previously been a very difficult and daunting task for the little available information was often scattered, sketchy, and at times erroneous or inconsistent. Just how much of an advance Ogilvie's book is can be illustrated by comparing it with the previous major biographical dictionary for the history of science, the monumental, 16-volume Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Of its some 2,000 entrants, just 25 are women (20 of whom were born before 1885). By contrast, Ogilvie, who worked essentially on her own in the extensive history of science collections at the University of Oklahoma, presents entries ranging from a few sentences to 8½ pages for...
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