Marian Irwin Osterhout

Marian Irwin Osterhout (June 16, 1888 – May 10, 1973), was an American plant physiologist born in Japan. She was the first woman to receive a National Research Council fellowship.

Marian Irwin Osterhout
Left to right: Thomas Hunt Morgan, Linus Pauling and Marian Irwin Osterhout

Early life and education

Marian Irwin was born in Tokyo, the daughter of Iki Takechi Irwin (1857–1940) and Robert Walker Irwin (1844–1925). Her mother was a Japanese noblewoman, daughter of a samurai; her father was an American diplomat, the son of William W. Irwin and a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin. Her older sister Bella Irwin founded a school in Tokyo. Their aunt, Agnes Irwin, was also an educator, the first dean of Radcliffe College.

Marian Irwin was educated in Japan and at Bryn Mawr College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1913. She earned a doctoral degree in biology, at Radcliffe College in 1919,[1] as a student of George Howard Parker.[2] Her dissertation title was "Effect of Electrolytes and Non-electrolytes on Organisms in Relation to Sensory Stimulation and Respiration."[3]

Career

After graduate school, Marian Irwin attended the National Conference for the Limitation of Armaments in 1921, as assistant to professor Hideko Inouye, President of the Woman's Peace Organization of Japan.[4] She became the first woman to receive a National Research Council fellowship, which she held at Harvard from 1923 to 1925.[1][5][6]

Marian Irwin Osterhout was a paid researcher at the Rockefeller Institute from 1925 to 1933 (and unpaid after that for many years, because she was married to another scientist there), specializing in cell permeability, especially the penetration and accumulation of dyes.[7][8] She was a member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and wrote about fifty scientific papers for publication before she married. She also assisted her husband in his research, and they traveled and wrote together.[2][9]

Personal life

Marian Irwin married fellow plant scientist Winthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout (1871-1964), in 1933.[2] She died 1973, aged 84 years, in New York City.[1] Her gravesite is with Osterhout's, in a Philadelphia churchyard.[2] Their papers are held in the Rockefeller Archive Center.[10]

References
  1. "Marian Osterhout, Physiologist, Dead" New York Times (May 12, 1973): 36.
  2. The President's Report (Harvard University 1919): 226.
  3. Laura Puffer Morgan, "On the Outskirts of the Conference" The Smith Alumnae Quarterly (February 1922): 115.
  4. "Marian I. Osterhout, Physiologist" San Francisco Examiner (May 12, 1973): 28. via Newspapers.comopen access
  5. Report of the National Research Council (1924): 204.
  6. Marian Irwin, "Accumulation of dye in Nitella as related to dissociation" Experimental Biology and Medicine 23(4)(January 1926): 251-253.
  7. Marian Irwin, "Influence of Salts and Acids on Penetration of Brilliant Cresyl Blue into the Vacuole" Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 24(1)(October 1926): 54-58.
  8. Elizabeth Hanson, "Women Scientists at the Rockefeller Institute, 1901-1940" in Darwin H. Stapleton, ed., Creating a Tradition of Biomedical Research: Contributions to the History of the Rockefeller University (Rockefeller University Press 2004): 222-223.
  9. "Winthrop J. V. Osterhout papers, Rockefeller University Faculty (FA186)" Rockefeller Archive Center.
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