The best historical books about women in science

Do you ever read a book that seems so perfect you wonder if someone concocted it in a lab just for you?

Remarkable Creatures is about two real nineteenth-century paleontologists, Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, the same duo that inspired the movie Ammonite (although the romantic relationship portrayed in the movie is, alas, fiction!). Mary Anning has enjoyed something of a renaissance in popular history lately, but Elizabeth, her lifelong best friend and scientific confidant, is less well-known.

I loved the way Chevalier portrayed Mary and Elizabeth’s passion and determination to pursue science in a time when female scientists were viewed merely as dilettantes, as well as the different ways in which religion and class affected the two women’s lives. 

For anyone who loved the movie adaptation of the same name, this book is a must-read!

I saw the movie first, and loved the way it brought to life the stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three real-life Black female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the 1960s.

The book, however, includes even more fascinating details about the history of Black computers at NASA, and the many ways in which these women’s work was crucial to the space race.

It also features a far wider cast than the movie; as author Shetterly said in a 2016 interview for Space.com, "It would be great for people to understand that there were so many more [Black computers at NASA]. … But I understand you can't make a movie with 300 characters. It is simply not possible."

Although this book centers a fictional scientist rather than a real one, the emotions and passion that the protagonist, Katherine, experiences feel all too real.

As a lifelong fan of mathematics, I’ve often felt that math is one of the most maligned branches of science, so I adored the way that Chung portrays Katherine’s love for the subject and the beauty of a good equation. (You can really tell that she herself has experience in the field!)

I also loved the way that Chung delved into the difficulties Katherine experiences as a woman of color in science in the decades after WWII, from outright racism and misogyny to the kind of constant, low-grade doubt and lack of support that can make being a minority in STEM so difficult. 

Marie Benedict has written several novels now about overshadowed women in history, and this one might be my favorite.

Rosalind Franklin was the talented chemist whose experiments in X-ray crystallographic imaging were crucial to uncovering the double helix structure of DNA – a discovery, of course, long attributed exclusively to her former colleagues Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins.

Benedict does a fabulous job of portraying the difficulties Rosalind faces as a female scientist in this era, constantly disrespected by many of her male colleagues and denied formal recognition by the scientific establishment.

I was fascinated (if at times infuriated on Rosalind’s behalf!) by this book, and also enjoyed the insight into Rosalind’s life as a Jewish woman in Europe in the shadow of WWII. 

Thinking about this book, I’m reminded of the quote “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” a phrase originally coined by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and which is often interpreted to mean that women ought to rebel in order to be remembered – although Ulrich’s original intent was actually to encourage us to appreciate the quiet impact that billions of ordinary women have made upon history.

In The Stargazer’s Sister, Caroline Herschel, the often-ignored sister of famous astronomer William Herschel, is a shy and soft-spoken soul, who starts out assisting with her brother’s work and ends up becoming an accomplished astronomer in her own right.

A beautiful and atmospheric read, this book is a great reminder that women’s contributions to science throughout history often consisted of unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work – but that doesn’t mean that they should be credited any less for their skill and ingenuity!