Thread by @sciencemuseum

We are the Assistant Curator team at Blythe House, working on the One Collection project. We’re taking over Twitter for #InternationalWomensDay - a couple of days early since we don’t work weekends! A thread 👇

Hi! 👋 I’m Kerry (@Kerryland101), an Open University graduate with an interest in space & the history of medicine! I’ve been an Assistant Curator for 8 months and was previously a Collections Assistant here – working on the shiny new Medicine Galleries!

I’d like to shout all women in the space industry! In particular Mae C. Jemison, the 1st woman of colour in space in 1992, and the 1st Japanese woman in space, Chiaki Mukai in 1994. Both have a background in medicine! bit.ly/2xgIemw 📸 NASA/JAXA #IWD2020

A special shout-out to Katherine Johnson, one of the female ‘human computers’ that helped put the human race into space. She sadly passed away on Feb 24th at the age of 101. Here is a lovely article about her by Mae Jemison: nyti.ms/330sJuD 📸 NASA #IWD2020

Williamina Fleming was a female computer at Harvard College Observatory where she discovered the Horsehead nebula in 1888! She also designed a system for classifying stars, cataloguing 10000+ stars in 9 years. bit.ly/2xgJk1C 📸 Harvard #IWD2020

Daphne Oram was a pioneer of electronic music in the mid 20th C. She was the 1st woman to design an electronic instrument, the Oramics Machine, as well set up & direct a music studio: BBC's Radiophonic Studio. bit.ly/2x96UNA 📸 Fred Wood/Daphne Oram #IWD2020

Gladys West was instrumental in the creation of GPS. She's worked on multiple areas of this tech, including programming the computer that calculated an accurate model of Earth’s irregular Geoid shape that was the foundations of GPS bit.ly/2VPxTYX 📸Wikipedia #IWD2020

Hello!! I’m Rebecca, I have a degree in History and Sociology from the University of Sheffield, I’ve been at the museum for 10 months and my favourite area of research is menstruation.

Born in 1912, Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner invented the sanitary belt; an elasticated waistband designed with two clips at the front and back in order to hold a menstrual pad in place.📸 Wikipedia #IWD2020

Her invention revolutionised menstruation. It meant that people were able to wear a device that soaked up menstrual blood while still remaining relatively comfortable, without having to stuff old rags into their underwear.

Her revolutionary idea did not make her a fortune though, despite big companies later going on to take up and manufacture the belt. She says, ‘when they found out I was black, their interest dropped’.

Sales started to decline in the 1970s when adhesive, disposable pads came in. We have just accessioned a menstrual belt into our collection so look out for it on Collections Online soon! bit.ly/2v4MJjq

Hi! I’m Harriet, an Assistant Curator at the Science Museum. I’m really interested in social history & women’s history so #InternationalWomensDay has been a really fun chance to do some more research into women’s stories in the collection & highlight the women that inspire me!

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was a pioneer of very early computing. She saw the potential of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine and wrote the world’s first computer programme to show how it could be used to calculate complex series of numbers. bit.ly/2PT1IEl #IWD2020

Ada’s programme would have been entered into the Analytical Engine using punch cards. This idea was inspired by Jacquard looms, first built in 1804, which used punch cards to control the weaving of cloth and make intricate patterns. bit.ly/2Trb785

Punch cards remained important well into the 20th century and were the main way to input and store date until the 1960s and 1970s. Card punches like this one were used to manually record the data and programme on the card. bit.ly/3azj3tA

From WW2 until the late 1960s most computer programmers were women. The act of programming punch cards & operating computers was labour intensive & seen as similar to secretarial work. But the perception of this work began to change & women were pushed out bbc.in/2IsbzwF

When a Power-Samas computer was introduced to Swindon, the Western Regional Accounting Office of British Railways, in 1957, the coverage from the time shows women being the ones to punch the cards and operate the machines. bit.ly/2wymkuz 📸 SSPL/@railwaymuseum

Also, a bonus fun fact: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became England’s first female doctor in 1870 and her sister was the women’s suffrage campaigner Millicent Fawcett. Clearly a trailblazing family! bit.ly/3avGZy7 #IWD2020

Hi all, I’m Miriam. I'm an Assistant Curator and enjoy working with the diverse objects in the collection, which have had incremental and monumental effects on our lives. Best of all, I like sharing them with you guys.

Julia Margaret Cameron’s exquisite portraits are amongst the best-known Victorian photographs. She pioneered creative stylistic techniques and was a master of the art and science of photography. bit.ly/3aAPEiC

Anna Atkins was a key figure in scientific photography. Her cyanotype images of rare and significant botanical specimens are not just visually striking, they were the first photographs used to illustrate books. bit.ly/2xgExxb

Hi all, it’s @EmmaMacNicol here, working across a range of collections on the One Collection project means I’ve had a chance to look into a long history of women who have made amazing contributions to various STEM subjects. Here’s a short list of some of my faves...

Agnes Yewande Savage (1906- 1964) became the first West African woman to obtain a medical degree. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1929 with first class honours in Medicine. 📸 bit.ly/39x7EKP

She was also awarded the Dorothy Gilfillan Memorial Prize for the best woman graduate. She later went on to practice in modern-day Ghana and supervised the establishment of the still running Korle Bu Nursing and Midwifery Training College in Accra.

Next up is Grace Hopper (1906 - 1992), US Navy Rear Admiral, Computer Scientist and Mathematician who helped develop the first commercially available computer and its predecessor, the UNIVAC I and MARK I respectively. 📸 bit.ly/39y8Sp2

And her innovative ideas on an English-based computer programming language paved the way for COBOL, one of the most widely used computer languages, which we even have a reel of in the collection bit.ly/2PQkVXe

Lastly is Sameera Moussa (1917-1952), Egyptian nuclear physicist & accessible healthcare advocate. She was the first woman to earn a doctorate in Atomic Radiation & in her own words aimed to “make nuclear treatment as available and as cheap as Aspirin” 📸 bit.ly/2TrF1Jw

She was a lifelong advocate for peaceful use of atomic energy and thanks to efforts like hers we regularly use nuclear and radiation based technologies in the treatment and diagnosis of various ailments, including in cancer therapy bit.ly/38yizCx

To find out more about women in the collection, join one of our volunteer-led tours! bit.ly/3avHGrd

Let us know the women in science that inspire you! 😊 #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2020