ABOVE: SAY CHEESE: Helen Purdy Beale (front row, in the fur coat) poses for a photo in 1919 with her mycology class at Cornell University, where she began her graduate work in plant pathology.
W.R. FISHER, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
In 1925, after years of study and research, Helen Purdy Beale seemed to be on track to become the first woman to graduate with a doctorate from Cornell University’s plant pathology department. Her final hurdle was to obtain the approval of her adviser, Herbert Whetzel, who, unbeknownst to her, had dissuaded previous female graduate students from obtaining PhDs on the grounds that overqualified women could not get hired at agricultural experimental stations. True to form, Whetzel told Beale that her thesis could not be accepted and returned it, heavily marked up with red ink. Beale hurled the pages into his face, screaming, “You have shown the claws of the devil!” and stormed out, ...
