Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie - A Dame Full of Vim and Vigor

A Dame Full of Vim and Vigor

Women in Science

Series Editor

Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma, USA

Editorial Board

Pamela Gossin, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas, USA

Joy Harvey, Independent Scholar

Catherine Hobbs, Rhetoric/Composition/Literacy, University of Oklahoma, USA

Sylvia McGrath, Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, USA

A Dame Full of Vim and Vigor: A Biography of Alice Middleton Boring; Biologist in China

Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie and Clifford J. Choquette

This book is part of a series. The publisher will accept continuation orders which may be cancelled at any time and which provide for automatic billing and shipping of each title in the series upon publication. Please write for details.

A Dame Full of Vim and Vigor

A Biography of Alice Middleton Boring; Biologist in China

Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie
and
Clifford J. Choquette

First published 1999 by Harwood Academic Publishers

Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1999 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.V. Published by license under the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint, part of The Gordon and Breach Publishing Group.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey

A dame full of vim and vigor : a biography of Alice

Middleton Boring : biologist in China. (Women in science)

1. Boring, Alice Middleton 2. Women biologists United States Biography 3. Biologists United States Biography 4. Women biologists China Biography

I. Title II. Choquette, Clifford J.

570.92

ISBN 13: 978-9-057-02575-4 (hbk)

(between pages 120 and 121)

PREFACE TO THE SERIES

For many years it was assumed that women had little or no part in scientific enterprise. However, during the last two decades, the interest in women and/or gender and science has increased. Research indicates that even in remote antiquity there have been women who were scientists. It is tantalizing to attempt to determine the special circumstances that existed in the lives of these women that made them able to overcome an often hostile environment. In order to reach a better understanding of these unique women, it is vital to study their lives and their works. Recognizing the importance of providing a publication outlet for scholarly works that will provide answers to some of these questions, Harwood Academic Publishers has established a series on Women in Science. This series provides a forum for the publication of full-length scholarly biographies of women scientists, collective biographies with a specific emphasis, collected works of women scientists, and critical analyses.

The books in this series will appeal to those interested in the history of science, technology, and medicine; women in history; and gender issues in science. Although these books are scholarly, they are written so that they will appeal to a more general audience.

Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie
Series Editor

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are heavily indebted to many individuals and institutions of learning. Without their time, expertise, and encouragement this project would have been impossible. We received the usual superb service from college and university archivists. Lucy Fisher West, Teresa Taylor and incumbent Caroline Rittenhouse supplied not only Bryn Mawr information on Alice Boring, but provided additional valuable advice and leads. Martha Lund Smalley at the Yale Divinity School archives led us to a treasure chest of Yenching documents and photographs, a collection given to them by the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. Wellesley and Radcliffe colleges made available for study the Grace M. Boynton papers which added much to our knowledge of Borings personality. Clark Eliott at the Pusey Archive Center at Harvard was an invaluable resource as he led us through the Boring family papers. The Rockefeller Foundation provided Ogilvie with a grant to study their rich resources on our subject. The Director, Dr Darwin Stapleton, and most especially the archivist, Dr Thomas Rosenbaum, made the trip to the Archive Center a success. We would also like to thank the archivists at Smith, Mount Holyoke and Haverford colleges.

In Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society and Free Public Library contributed as did the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Librarians at Harvard, the University of Wrzburg, the University of Maine at Orono, Johns Hopkins, and the Stazione Zoologica in Naples were also very helpful. Employees of the National Archives, Library of Congress, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Harry S. Truman Library, and Dwight D. Eisenhower library served us well.

We thank the staff of the Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington for supplying us with information concerning Borings trip home in 1943 aboard the neutral ship Gripsholm after months of confinement in a Japanese internment camp for non-combatants. The US Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, gave us a history of the 79th Pennsylvania Regiment of Infantry in which Dr Borings father served. Professor of Biology, Kraig Adler of Cornell, included Alice Boring in his work