A life filled with firsts
‘150 years of MIT’ is a series that looks at specific people and moments from MIT’s 150-year history and explains their lasting effect on the Institute, the nation and the world. See the full interactive timeline at the MIT150 site.In 1887, the Massachusetts State Board of Health commissioned MIT’s new laboratory of sanitary chemistry to survey the state’s drinking water, the first such study in America. Led by Ellen H. Swallow Richards, an instructor at the lab, the two-year survey analyzed more than 20,000 samples collected from inland bodies of water that had been polluted with industrial waste and sewage. As a result of the findings from the landmark study, Massachusetts established the first water-quality standards and municipal sewage-treatment plant in the country.By the time Richards completed the study that many consider her greatest contribution to public health, she had already established herself as a pioneer. As MIT’s first female...