Rosalind Franklin was born in 1920 in London into a wealthy banking family. As a child, she hated dolls, hated pretend games. She was logical, literal, always seeking facts and reasons. And as the only daughter amongst three brothers for the first ten years of her life, she also wanted to be viewed as tough. She would ignore pain, illness, once even walking blocks to a hospital with a needle stuck in her knee.
As a teenager, Rosalind fell in love with science – chemistry and physics in particular. At fifteen, she decided to become a scientist, setting her sights on going to Cambridge University, to which she gained admission. But her father, who didn’t believe in a university education for women, refused to pay for her to attend. An aunt, the sister of Rosalind’s father, volunteered to pay, as did Rosalind’s mother. With three women now against his decision, Rosalind’s father backed down and agreed to pay.
After college, Rosalind took a job at the British Coal Utilization Research Association in South London. This was during WWII, so she had to ride her bike through bomb raids to get to work. She never complained, but she was scared, overcoming fears because of her commitment to work. And it was in her work that she found much success. She published five papers, which are still cited today, and dozens of articles. Her research changed the way scientists understood coal and similar structures. And it earned her a Ph.D. She was 26 years old at the time and already an expert in her field.
It was also in this work that Rosalind learned she needed to understand X-ray technology to better understand physical matter, the matter from which the universe is made of. She studied, became an expert, and because of her expertise, was offered a position at Cambridge to help analyze X-ray photographs of DNA molecules.
Focusing on determining the molecular structure of DNA, she took X-ray photographs that were considered the most beautiful of the time. And just as in her previous roles, she made critical discoveries that helped build an understanding of DNA.
But because of gender issues of the time, Rosalind received little credit for her work. The research she helped shape would earn a number of men a Nobel Prize, who did little to credit her for the valuable research she did.
Rosalind dedicated her life to science. She never married. Even her love of children was set aside for science, as she couldn’t imagine the thought of her children being raised by nannies while she worked.
At 37 years old, Rosalind passed away from ovarian cancer.
Sources:
McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. Nobel Prize women in science : their lives, struggles, and momentous discoveries. United Kingdom, National Academies Press, 1998.
RAPOPORT, SARAH. “Rosalind Franklin: Unsung Hero of the DNA Revolution.” New York History, vol. 84, no. 3, 2003, pp. 315–29. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23183371. Accessed 4 Aug. 2023.