The best books about women in science whose names everyone should know

Until the mid-20th century it was largely assumed that nothing interesting lay on the bottom of the ocean floor.

Enter Marie Tharp, whose pioneering work mapping the records of soundings (sonar pings) laid the groundwork—literally—for our modern understanding of how the world’s continents and oceans are put together. Hali Felt’s biography of Tharp restores her to her rightful place in science history. I enjoyed, especially, the artistry involved in Tharp’s maps, which complied data from ocean expeditions that Tharp herself, as a woman, wasn’t allowed to join.

And, as a fan of geology, I was fascinated by Felt’s descriptions of how our modern understanding of continental drift and tectonic plates evolved from Tharp’s work.

As a schoolchild I was enthralled by descriptions of America’s race to the Moon to beat the Soviet Union. But until Margot Lee Shetterly’s groundbreaking book, few knew of the Black female mathematicians who made it possible.

Hidden Figures is a sweeping work of American history that covers three decades and honors hundreds of women who worked as “computers”—back when computers were people, not machines—for NASA and its predecessor, NACA.

At its heart are three women, Katharine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, who were skilled mathematicians and engineers. The book unflinchingly confronts America’s racism and sexism but remains a story of triumph and courage. It inspired me to think differently about the history I learned in grade school, and should be required reading for all Americans. 

Victorian women were once welcomed as nurses and caretakers, but barred from the world of medicine.

Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and Sophia Jex-Blake sought to change that. Olivia Campbell tells the story of how these three women earned medical degrees and changed the nature of medicine. One gripping part of the narrative, for me, were the stories of female patients who avoided medical care due to the indifference of their male doctors or the stigma associated with many types of disease.

It’s a battle that women still fight in today, and I found Women in White Coats to be both a fascinating history and highly relevant to our modern experiences in healthcare. 

Brace yourself for a heart-wrenching and sometimes horrifying journey with the factory girls of the early 1900s who were poisoned by the radium they used at work—marketed as safe by industry leaders who knew better.

Though not scientists themselves, these young women were forced to become experts in their own health, as their bodies were ravaged by radium. Grace Fryer stood out to me—she died in 1933 with no legal acknowledgment that her disease was linked to her occupation—as did Catherine Donohue, whose death five years later came after an uphill battle for justice.

This is a heartbreaking and necessary story. 

This book is a whirlwind tour of scientific history from Antiquity to the twentieth century, highlighting the often-forgotten women who have been doing science all along.

Among them are Nicole-Reine Lepaute, the French astronomer who helped calculate the path of Halley’s Comet; Jeanne Baret, who disguised herself as a man to circumnavigate the globe; and Bertha Parker, an Abenaki and Seneca archeologist.

Many of the women in this book rightfully have entire books of their own, but I was drawn to Forces of Nature for its sweeping perspective—and also the realization of just how many women made significant contributions to science, even if I never learned their names in school. I found it inspirational, reminding me that I’m not alone in my love of scientific inquiry.