Jane Blankenship Gibson

Description: The caption accompanying this 1961 image reads: "Mrs. Carl Gibson who as Jane Blankenship won high science honors in school, combines her scientific work with advanced studies and homemaking." As a student at Oak Ridge High School, Blankenship won a number of honors. While completing a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Tennessee, she worked during the summers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where her father was a physical chemist. By 1961, she had married a chemical engineer, moved to California, and was working as a spectroscopist for Lockheed Aircraft. Her photograph was used to illustrate a news story about "sex desegregation" in science and the importance of encouraging more women to become scientists if the United States was to compete effectively in the Cold War.

Creator/Photographer: Unidentified photographer

Medium: Black and white photographic print

Persistent URL: photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5799

Repository: Smithsonian Institution Archives

Collection: Accession 90-105: Science Service Records, 1920s – 1970s - Science Service, now the Society for Science & the Public, was a news organization founded in 1921 to promote the dissemination of scientific and technical information. Although initially intended as a news service, Science Service produced an extensive array of news features, radio programs, motion pictures, phonograph records, and demonstration kits and it also engaged in various educational, translation, and research activities.

Accession number: SIA2007-0272

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