Ellen Gleditsch: Woman Chemist in IUPAC’s Early History

In 1907, a 28-year-old Norwegian pharmacist-chemist arrived in Paris to work with Marie Curie at the Radium Institute. Like many women at the time, Ellen Gleditsch was attracted to the newly discovered phenomenon of radioactivity and wished take part in exciting scientific endeavour. Working with the Nobel Laureate Marie Curie was a unique opportunity for the ambitious young chemist, whose skills in mineral analyses led to her being accepted into the otherwise fully staffed laboratory. By all accounts, Ellen Gleditsch appears to have been one of the first women associated with IUPAC. In 1921 she was the Norwegian representative of the committee working on the Tables Annuelles de Constantes et Données Numériques de Chimie, de Physique et de Technologie [1], published under the auspices of IUPAC with the agreement of the International Research Council. In the following year she was a member of the Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry during its meeting in Lyon [2]. In 1947 Gleditsch became a full member of the Joint Commission of Standards and Units of Radioactivity, joining her friends Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie in this capacity, and all three continued to be members until the Commission’s dissolution in 1955 [3]. IUPAC was the mother union of this Joint Commission, and directly linked with International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU).

Ellen Gleditsch: Duty and responsibility in a research and teaching career, 1916-1946

ABSTRACT Ellen Gleditsch (1879-1968) became Norway's first authority of radioactivity and the country's second female professor. After several years in international centers of radiochemistry, Gleditsch returned to Norway, becoming associate professor and later full professor of chemistry. Between 1916 and 1946 Gleditsch tried to establish a laboratory of radiochemistry at the University of Oslo, a career which included network building, grant applications, travels abroad, committee work, research, teaching, supervision, popularization, and war resistance work. Establishing a new field was demanding; only under her student, Alexis Pappas, was her field institutionalized at Oslo. This paper presents Gleditsch's everyday life at the Chemistry Department, with emphasis on her formation of a research and teaching laboratory of radiochemistry. Her main scientific work during this period is presented and discussed, including atomic weight determination of chlorine, age calculations in minerals, the hunt for actinium's ancestor and investigations on 40K.