The Remarkable Life and Career of Ellen Swallow Richards: Pioneer in Science and Technology

Chapter 8

Uncharted Ground

“I hope in a quiet way, I am winning a way which others will keep open.”

~ Ellen Swallow, February 11, 1871

In January 1871, Ellen’s first semester at MIT was about to begin. She walked through Boston searching for a place to live and for a job. Frigid New England winds must have made it difficult to keep from slipping on the icy, unpaved streets. The odors from repulsive garbage, manure, and open sewer drains would have been sickening. Dirt blew onto the meats, cheeses, and produce sold from the open horse-drawn carts that lined the loud, crowded city streets. How different it all was from the tidy New England towns she had left behind.

Ellen finally found a room in a boarding house at 523 Columbus Avenue, but she didn’t have enough money for both the rent and the meals. Fortunately, when the boarding house owner realized how capable and efficient Ellen was, she offered her the job of managing the establishment in exchange for her meals. With these arrangements, and before long with tutoring as well, she supported herself.

Always a reader, Ellen knew the works of such popular writers of the time as Longfellow, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Alcott, Dickinson, Twain, Melville, and Poe. As she chartered new ground, the familiar words by Ralph Waldo Emerson may well have been a comfort: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Being the first woman accepted to any American institution of science and technology, Ellen ...