Margaret Eliza Maltby

Early life

Margaret Maltby was born Minnie Eliza Maltby on her family's farm in Bristolville, Ohio, on December 10, 1860, to Edmund Maltby and Lydia Jane Brockway. She had two older sisters: Betsy (Maltby) Mayhew and Martha Jane Maltby who were 15 and 13, respectively, at the time of her birth. Minnie Maltby was named by her sisters, but she disliked the name and later changed it to Margaret in 1889. After Edmund Maltby's death, the Maltby family moved to Oberlin, Ohio for educational opportunities.

Education Maltby attended the preparatory school at Oberlin College before matriculating there in 1878. She graduated from Oberlin in 1882. Following college Maltby studied at the Art Students League of New York and taught high school in Ohio for four years.

In 1887, Maltby enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and went on to earn a B.S. degree in 1891. She had to enroll as a "special" student because the institution did not accept female students. She met Ellen Swallow Richards in 1887 and joined her "Women's Laboratory" at MIT. Maltby formed a life-long friendship with Richards, and later spoke at her memorial of her "constant thoughtfulness" towards female students as the only female teacher at MIT.

Maltby was the first woman to earn a B.S. degree from MIT, and for this achievement Oberlin College awarded her an honorary A.M. in 1891. Maltby was able to attend the university through a European Fellowship from the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. This fellowship, created largely through the efforts of Christine Ladd-Franklin, was intended to pressure foreign universities to open their doors to female students on a regular basis. In 1895 Maltby received her Ph.D., becoming the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Göttingen and the first woman to obtain a Ph.D. in physics from any German university.

Career After she received her doctorate she worked at the newly founded Institut für Physikalische Chemie at Göttingen under Nernst.

When she returned from Germany in 1896, Maltby took up a position as associate professor at Wellesley College where she substituted for Sarah Frances Whiting who was on sabbatical. Maltby had previously taught at Wellesley as an instructor in physics from 1889 to 1893 to earn some money while attending MIT. At the end of the fall 1896 term, Maltby suddenly resigned for what she claimed at the time was to recuperate from a serious accident. Maltby resumed her teaching career as an instructor at Lake Erie College in September 1897 where she substituted for Mary Chilton Noyes. Based on their data, Kohlrausch proposed the non-linear law for strong electrolytes. After returning to the United States, Maltby studied mathematical physics with Arthur Webster at Clark University from 1899 to 1900.

In 1900 Maltby took up a position as an instructor in chemistry at Barnard College, hoping that an opportunity would soon open up for her to teach physics. In 1903 Marie Reimer was hired as the head chemistry instructor and Maltby transferred to physics. Maltby's involvement in administration and building up the physics department left her little time for research, although she spent a sabbatical year from 1909–1910 at the Cavendish Laboratory. Maltby held positions at Barnard as an adjunct professor of physics (1903–1910), assistant professor (1910–1913), and associate professor and chair (1913–1931). Although Maltby supported the ability of other female academics to marry, she personally did not believe that marriage would be beneficial between two scientists. She wrote to Svante Arrhenius on the occasion of his divorce that she believed that it was inevitable that one personality would subsume the other in a marriage of two scientists, and so she herself never wanted to get married. Gill argued to Maltby that marriage would be too great a drain on a female professor's time, despite knowing that Maltby had adopted a child. Gill likely viewed marriage as a form of disloyalty by a female instructor to the college, in contrast to motherhood which was an approved role.

The first edition of American Men of Science (AMS), published in 1906, recognized Maltby's name with a star. A star indicated that the individual was one of the country's top scientists. Maltby was a fellow of the American Physical Society. After her death, Meyer burned Maltby's personal papers as she had requested that he do. It has been speculated that this was to protect her public or private reputation.

Selected publications Scientific publications

Publications on education