Ellen Swallow Richards: Mother of Human Ecology?

Abstract

Life and timesThe first person to use the term "human ecology," in 1892, was the remarkable Ellen Swallow (later Richards).She was born into the small, isolated rural community of Dunstable, Massachusetts, in 1842 and raised on the family farm.Both Ellen's parents were well educated for the times, and both had been teachers.They resolved that Ellen would be better educated at home by them than at the local school, and so as a child she received no formal education.Ellen was bright and learned readily, but she was also considered frail and sickly.On her doctor's orders, she was instructed to spend as much time as possible outside, in the belief that fresh air and exercise would be good for her.As was considered natural at the time, she also helped around the house, with duties such as cooking, cleaning, and needlework.Prizes won at the local country fair suggest that she was skilled at these arts too.These formative experiences of the curative power of a healthy environment and the importance of household arts are pointed to as the basis of her lifelong interest in the influence of the environment on the health and well-being of humans (Hunt, 1912, p. 77).Ellen's family sold their farm and opened a store in the nearby town of Westford in 1859.At this time, Ellen commenced her formal education at Westford College, at the age of 17.She proved a very capable student, developing a range of interests, and demonstrating an aptitude for languages and mathematics.She also tutored, helped in her father's store, and cared for her sick mother.On graduating, she became a teacher, but remained impatient to advance her own knowledge, and particularly to pursue an interest in science.In the 1860s, opportunities for advanced education for women were few, and even fewer for a "male" subject like science.However,

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 22 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.