The MIT Libraries maintain a significant collection of rare books featuring works by pioneering scientists, mathematicians, and engineers from the past six centuries. To mark Ada Lovelace Day — an annual celebration of the history of women in the STEM fields — the libraries present a selection of MIT’s holdings by 10 noted women in STEM. The entries herein are inspired by the new Big Names on Campus blog, which highlights important works in STEM history within MIT’s collections. A slideshow below illustrates the variety of documents in the rare collections and in the stacks.
Maria Agnesi
Unlike most 18th-century parents, the mother and father of Italian mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) were not typical for their time: They actively encouraged their daughter to study math and natural philosophy. Agnesi excelled and went on to become the first woman offered a professorship in mathematics at the University of Bologna. Her two-volume “Instituzioni Analitiche” (“Analytical Institutions,” 1748) was translated widely and became a standard university text. MIT owns the original Italian edition as well as the first English translation.
Hertha Ayrton
A British physicist, suffragist, feminist, and the first woman granted membership in the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923) wrote the definitive text on electric arcs, a breakdown of gas that creates ongoing electrical discharge. The Royal Society of London awarded her the prestigious Hughes Medal in 1906. MIT owns two copies of Ayrton’s “The Electric Arc”: One is from the libraries’ historic Vail Collection; the other appeared in the stacks.
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MIT recently obtained a rare copy of Émilie du Châtelet’s highly influential translation of Isaac Newton’s “Principia.” Du Châtelet is considered to have been a leader in the move among French academics away from Cartesian and toward Newtonian physics.
Photo: Maia Weinstock/MIT
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Marie Curie earned her doctorate in 1903, the same year she won her first Nobel Prize. The MIT Libraries own this 1904 French printing as well as German and English translations that appeared the same year.
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Ada Lovelace Day’s namesake is most famous for her translation and commentary on Luigi Menabrea’s work about the Analytical Engine, an early model for a computing machine devised by Charles Babbage. MIT’s first edition is bound in half-calf with marbled boards, and dates to 1843.
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In Ada Lovelace’s famous Note G within her translation of Luigi Menabrea’s commentary on the Babbage Analytical Engine, Lovelace provides a method for the engine to calculate a sequence of the Bernoulli numbers. Many consider this to be the world’s first computer program — and, by extension, Lovelace the first programmer.
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Mary Somerville’s “Preliminary Dissertation” was originally written as a preface to her magisterial 1831 “Mechanism of the Heavens.” The following year, the “Dissertation” took on a life of its own as an introductory text in astronomy.
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Alice Ball, the first African-American and first woman to earn an advanced degree from the University of Hawaii, was published in a prestigious chemistry journal before starting grad school. She would later devise a treatment for leprosy.
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MIT’s copy of electrical engineer Hertha Ayrton’s influential “The Electric Arc” dates to 1902. The book is dedicated to friend and fellow British feminist Barbara Bodichon, after whom Ayrton named her first daughter.
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MIT’s copy of a 1786 report on one of Caroline Herschel’s comet discoveries includes a pullout with engraved diagrams of her observations.
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The two-volume “Analytical Institutions” is an English translation of Maria Gaetana Agnesi’s standard university mathematics text, originally written in Italian.
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A handwritten personal letter from pioneering Massachusetts astronomer Maria Mitchell to her friend Emma Rogers harkens back to MIT’s early years: In her closing salutation, Mitchell gives her regards to Rogers’ husband, MIT founder William Barton Rogers.
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MIT Libraries holds a first edition of Rachel Carson’s 1962 “Silent Spring,” which gave rise to the modern ecology movement.
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Alice Ball
The life of chemist Alice Ball (1892-1916) was tragically brief, but rich with accomplishment. The first African-American — and the first woman — to receive an advanced degree from the University of Hawaii, she was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society before she even began her graduate studies. Prior to her death at age 24, she devised a treatment that relieved the suffering of thousands with leprosy, a.k.a. Hansen’s disease. MIT’s copy of her paper appeared in 1914.
Rachel Carson
American Rachel Carson (1907-1964) trained as a marine biologist and wrote widely on marine matters. But with the publication of “Silent Spring” (1962) — a first edition of which is in MIT’s collections — she became a household name. In response to her argument against unrestrained use of the pesticide DDT, she also became an enemy of the pesticide industry, even though a scientific advisory panel headed by MIT’s Jerome Wiesner supported her findings. Carson’s science withstood attacks, and the book was a sensation, giving rise to the modern ecology movement.
Émilie du Châtelet
Raised amid the court of Louis XIV, French scholar Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) was bred to be an ornament of society. Her charm and wit were indeed celebrated, but she made her real mark among the French intelligentsia. She wrote on physics and championed Isaac Newton before unreceptive Parisian academics. Her French translation of his “Principia” — and, more significantly, her in-depth commentary upon it — has never been supplanted. When the MIT Libraries established its first fund for rare book acquisitions in 2015, this was the initial purchase.
Marie Curie
Only four people have ever won the Nobel Prize twice, and the first to do it was Polish-French scientist Marie Curie (1867-1934). The 1903 physics prize was shared by Curie, her husband Pierre, and Henri Becquerel for their work on radiation. In 1911 Curie won the chemistry prize outright for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium. Her doctoral thesis (1903) was published commercially and translated widely; MIT owns copies in several languages.
Caroline Herschel
Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) received a minimal education and was treated as a housemaid by her parents in Germany. When she was 22, she traveled to England to join her brother, astronomer William Herschel, hoping for a career in music. Instead, she ended up assisting her brother, often performing menial tasks. Eventually though, she took to astronomy herself, discovering three nebulae and eight comets. Among other honors, the Royal Astronomical Society awarded Herschel its Gold Medal in 1828. MIT’s copy of a 1786 report on one of her comet discoveries includes a pullout with engravings of her observations.
Ada Lovelace
The creators of Ada, a programming language developed for the U.S. Department of Defense in the early 1980s, had good reasons for naming it after British mathematician Ada Lovelace (1815-1852). Like her, it’s highly sophisticated and accomplishes a great deal. In 1843, Lovelace set out to translate a French article describing Charles Babbage’s proposed “Analytical Engine,” an early computing machine. She took matters much further, and when the translation was published with her extensive additions, the world had been presented with what many consider the first computer program. MIT owns an original copy of the translation, which includes her groundbreaking description of how the Analytical Engine would compute the Bernoulli number sequence.
Maria Mitchell
Massachusetts-born Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) was America’s first professional female astronomer. Mitchell held several overlapping jobs: She was the Nantucket Atheneum’s librarian; she computed ephemerides for the U.S. Nautical Almanac; and she was on the faculty of Vassar College from its inception. The first woman to earn membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Mitchell also received a gold medal from Frederick VI of Denmark for her discovery of a comet in 1847. Within MIT’s holdings is a hand-written letter from Mitchell to Emma Rogers, wife of MIT founder William Barton Rogers.
Mary Somerville
Like Émilie du Châtelet and Ada Lovelace, Scottish writer Mary Somerville (1780-1872) set out to do a translation and ended up creating original work that remains influential. Her first book was “Mechanism of the Heavens” (1831), a “common language” translation of Pierre-Simon Laplace’s “Traité de Mécanique Céleste” that was swiftly adopted as a university textbook. Her…
