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43 c h a p t e r t w o Endless Frontiers for Scientific Womanpower In their 1946 Journal of the American Association of University Women article , “Science Out of Petticoats,” chemists Eleanor Horsey and Donna Price surveyed the status of women in postwar science. Compared with their own experiences as graduate students during the Great Depression, Horsey and Price agreed that prejudice against female scientists had noticeably decreased. Yet opposition to their education and employment remained “very general and very large,” as evidenced by such persistent obstacles as unequal pay, occupational segregation, and skepticism toward married women’s career commitments. The marginalization of female scientists , the lack of support for their goals, and their continued underrepresentation were glaringly apparent to Horsey and Price, who suggested that these phenomena now posed particular problems for postwar science and security.1 Their assertion found footing in broader debates regarding the evolving relationship between science and the state. Although the federal government had mobilized and funded scientific research and development on an unprecedented scale during the war, it was not immediately clear what role it would or should play in the years ahead. Policymakers, scientific administrators , and military officials took up this question even before the war had ended. Despite their differences regarding the desired size and shape of government involvement, most agreed that science must remain a national priority and that American influence in the postwar world depended on continued scientific progress. Military readiness, economic prosperity, and the fate of the nation more generally, it seemed, would rest in the hands of both science and scientists. This view was expressed most famously by Vannevar Bush, chief architect of wartime science and director of the OSRD, in his 1945 report, Science , the Endless Frontier. Commissioned by Franklin Roosevelt in November 1944 and delivered to Harry Truman in July 1945, the nearly 200-page document firmly established science as central to national security and advocated federal support through such mechanisms as a national research 44 | Endless Frontiers for Scientific Womanpower foundation and a permanent science advisory board. It also called for what Bush termed the “renewal of our scientific talent,” which had been visibly depleted by the Second World War. By Bush’s calculations (which were informed by the sixteen-man committee he put on this task), the war had interrupted the education of approximately 150,000 undergraduates and 17,000 graduate students who would have otherwise earned degrees in scientific and technical fields. This “accumulating deficit,” Bush warned, threatened the future of postwar science and security since “the real ceiling on our productivity of new scientific knowledge . . . is the number of trained scientists available.”2 Horsey and Price agreed with Bush’s ominous assessment, reiterated his findings, and suggested that the looming shortage that he described would be remedied only “when women are encouraged to enter scientific professions, and when they no longer encounter the obstacles we have mentioned.” To this end, they advocated providing government support to women as well as to men and promised that this action would double the number of scientists available. According to Horsey and Price, women constituted not only “one practically untapped source of scientists” but also a particularly important one “in view of the current demand for increased scientific personnel.”3 By yoking the plight of female scientists to national security concerns, Horsey and Price put forward a compelling argument for improving women ’s participation in scientific fields. In doing so, they built on the tradition of technocratic feminism as employed by Virginia Gildersleeve and other reformers during the Second War World. In the postwar period, these efforts were buoyed by an enlarged population of scientifically trained women who knew firsthand the problems and possibilities of wartime science. While mindful of formal obstacles, however, these technocratic feminists generally focused their energies on what they viewed as equally detrimental social conventions and stereotypes. Those who were most successful in advancing their interests drew on national security anxieties not only in a rhetorical sense but also in actively encouraging scientific womanpower through their outreach efforts. Instead of framing women’s education and employment as defense measures intended largely for the duration, these reformers foresaw no clearly defined end to postwar planning along science’s seemingly “endless frontier.” The dawn of the atomic age and the emerging Cold War had resulted in a precarious peace that demanded ongoing preparedness in all areas of society. This development both allowed and required a new [3.137.171.121] Project MUSE...

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