WOMEN IN SCIENCE ROSALIND FRANKLIN DNA DISCOVERER By Tom Streissguth Content Consultant Dr Amy Bix Professor of History Iowa State University Essential Library An Imprint of Abdo Publishing abdopublishing com
CHAPTER ONE PHOTOGRAPH 51 It was May 1952 in London England The spring days brought welcome sunshine after the long and dreary English winter But on other days thick clouds of what Britons called London fog descended on the city coating sidewalks streets and buildings with grime This fog was a swirling thick soup of coal smoke factory emissions and toxic chemicals But Rosalind Franklin barely noticed Throughout the spring of 1952 Franklin and her student and laboratory partner Raymond Gosling spent long hours indoors They worked with temperamental cameras and complicated X-ray machines Their damp basement lab at King’s College was in an old house with narrow staircases thin walls and a leaky roof Franklin and Gosling’s experiments could be frustrating Rosalind Franklin hard at work in her lab where she was one of just a handful of female scientists 5
