Best Women

P: Ann Haven Morgan, Mount Holyoke College.

P: Ruth Fulton Benedict, Columbia University.

P: Libbie Henrietta Hyman, "at liberty."

U. S. scientists last week called these three the leading women scientists of the country and the equals of 247 topnotch men selected from the names recorded in the forthcoming Biographical Directory of American Men of Science (fifth edition).* Dr. Benedict was "shocked'' at the small number of women named. Professor Morgan received the news with pleased surprise.

Dr. Hyman, 44, youngest of the trio, was astonished at her distinction. She is a zoologist, received her training and gained her reputation in Dr. Charles Manning Child's laboratory at the University of Chicago. She resigned that research appointment in 1931 to devote herself to scientific writing, first taking a year off in Europe "just having a good time." Last week she was in much the same position as an unemployed stage star. Science seemed to have forgotten her, save as a name. The University of Chicago believed she was living in Brooklyn. Investigation found her at No. 41 West 70th St., Manhattan, busily writing her book on invertebrates.

Miss Hyman and Miss Morgan know each other. Neither knows Mrs. Benedict. Professor Morgan, 50, is a short, trim woman with slightly grey bobbed hair, blue eyes. Since 1906 she has taught zoology at Mount Holyoke (except for two years at Cornell), has headed her department since 1916. During school hours she habitually wears a tailored skirt, shirtwaist, tie, white "physician's" coat. She moves briskly about her laboratories, lectures her classes in clear, crisp tones. Her recent writings for learned publications have dealt with the winter habits and yearly food consumption of adult spotted newts. But her favorite preoccupation has been and, says she, will always be Mayflies, because Mayflies are fine for small boys to fish with. Her field book on ponds and streams, which she illustrated herself, is an angler's favorite. She gets "great fun" reading personal letters of praise about the field book. Currently Professor Morgan is preparing a field book on animal life in winter. Again the drawings and photographs are her own work.

Columbia's Dr. Ruth Fulton Benedict, 46, is assistant professor of anthropology, a specialist in the folklore, mythology and religion of Southwest U. S. Indians. Her husband, Professor Stanley Rossiter Benedict, 49, is a Cornell chemist. They have no children. Reflected Mrs. Benedict last week: "I believe women have scientific ability. But there are lots of difficulties confronting them. Marriage and children, for example. . . . Then there is the difficulty of positions. They won't take women in men's colleges or in co-educational undergraduate colleges. That limits women scientists to women's colleges or museums. I am in the graduate school here, and as far as I know I am the only woman in such a position in the country.''

* James McKeen Cattell, editor; Science Press ($12). The new edition carries in all some 22,000 scientific biographies of which 9,000 are new.

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