I was already familiar with some of the more well known early women scientists Dr. Breitenberger mentioned, but a lot of the women mentioned, and the accomplishments of some of the women I was already familiar with were new to me. I knew of Marie Curie, for example, but didn’t realize that she’d won not 1 but 2 nobel prizes, or that her daughter, Irene Curie-Joliot, also won a nobel prize for her work on radioisotopes.
Dr. Breitenberger mentioned that when women were able to be involved in science early on, they were generally doing field work, or more general data collection or analysis. Bill Bryson mentions this as well in the context of astronomy. I study mycology myself, and in my research I’ve come across a surprisingly high number of late 19th and early 20th century field mycologists.
We would be interested in learning more about them!