ABSTRACT
As early as the beginning of the fifteenth century, historians and scientists described the contributions of women scientists. From the late 1970s throughout the 1980s, and ever increasingly in the 1990s, primarily women authors have rediscovered the often-ignored achievements of women in science (see Fausto-Sterling, 1981; Rossiter, 1982; Keller, 1985; Ogilvie, 1986; Schiebinger, 1987; Alic, 1988; Bonta, 1991; Rosser, 1993; among many others). The discovery or rediscovery of these unheralded accomplishments of women in science indicate that distressingly frequently their contributions were deliberately erased or attributed to male colleagues (see Watson, 1968; Sayre, 1975; and Gribbin, 1985 as examples-again among many). Many people think women have entered science only in the twentieth century and that Marie Curie is the only woman scientist of note. Yet hardly anyone realizes that despite Marie Curie's two Nobel Prizes, she was denied membership in the all-male French Academic des Sciences.
