Women in Kentucky - SCIENCE

Elmer Lucille Allen  (Jefferson, b. 1931)
Allen is one of our earliest industrial chemists.  For young African American women in the 50s “becoming a teacher or day worker were about the only available jobs.”  But Louisville’s Allen knew her chemistry degree would take her different places. 

Margaret Ingels  (Bourbon, 1892-1971)  
In 1916, Ingels became the first woman in the U.S. to receive a mechanical engineering degree.

Sarah Frances Price  (Warren, 1849-1903)  
An amateur botanist and a teacher of nature classes, she discovered and named several new species of plants.

Ellen Churchill Semple  (Jefferson, 1863-1932)
While a graduate student in geography in Germany in 1891, she had to sit outside the door during classes because she was a woman.  No school in America would take women pursuing advanced degrees in geography at that time.