The Outlook

In the fall of 1946 a survey of the future personnel needs for botanists with advanced degrees and for graduate students in botany was made for the Botanical Society of America. The conclusion, admittedly conservative, was that approximately 1,900 would be needed in 1950, exclusive of the more than 1,000 plant pathologists of comparable training also needed in 1950. To meet the 1950 need would require 369 more plant pathologists and 828 more botanists than were estimated as being available in 1946. The percentage distribution of the additional botanists needed by 1950 (excluding plant pathologists) is given in table 4.

Teaching will be the principal outlet for two-thirds of the additional botanists (except plant pathologists, for whom the demand was greatest in research) needed according to this survey (7). The source of the estimated demand for additional botanists up to 1950 is shown in table 5.

Table 4. Percent Distribution by Field of Specialization of Additional Botanists (Except Plant Pathologists) Needed Between Fall 1946 and 1950

Source: 1946 survey, made for the Botanical Society of America, of personnel needs for botanists with advanced degrees and for graduate students in botany (7).

Table 5. Percent Distribution by Type of Employment of Additional Botanists (Except Plant Pathologists) Needed Between Fall 1946 and 1950

1 The figure for the high school teaching group is believed to be disproportionately low due to the method of sampling.

Source: 1946 survey, made for the Botanical Society of America, of personnel needs for botanists with advanced degrees and for graduate students in botany (7).

There were many more opportunities in 1947 in college teaching for women who had the Ph. D. in botany than there were before the war. A 1947 count of teachers in 330 institutions of higher education, comprising a United States Office of Education enrollment sample

of all the 1,749 such institutions in the United States, showed that there were 151 women listed as teaching botanical subjects in these schools. Thirty-five of them held the rank of assistant professor or above, and 25 of these were Ph. D.'s. With only a very few exceptions, the 151 women taught botanical subjects only. If this sample is as representative of faculty as it is of enrollment, there were slightly more than 650 women botany teachers in colleges and universities, most of them in universities, colleges of arts and sciences, and technical and professional schools. Only a few were in junior colleges or in Negro institutions.

Outstanding women botanists reported offers of good positions from colleges and universities, including some offers to head departments. As enrollments in institutions of higher learning have increased, some schools have expanded existing botany departments or organized new ones. As a result of such expansion, women are now on some faculties formerly composed only of men. For women who had a bachelor's degree in botany, and who had training in other sciences as well, high school teaching continued to be an important outlet. This group is obviously not included in the survey of botanists with graduate training, referred to in table 4.

Industry offers few opportunities to women botanists except in the field of mycology. (See p. 3-13.) There is far less demand in industry for botanists than for bacteriologists and chemists. Women botanists were found in only 1 of the 78 firms with research laboratories visited by a representative of the Women's Bureau in the course of this study. They worked directly on insecticides in a chemical company. However, women botanists are known to be employed in seed houses. They also work as plant pathologists or as technicians who culture fungi and bacteria, or are employed in slide making. Women also do experimental work in some of the 59 or more botanical gardens in the United States. Some are on research projects financed by private foundations or institutions. Museums also employ botanists, but the number of available jobs is small, since, although there is at least 1 botanical museum in every State, the entire country has less than 100. Women are also employed at herbaria and arboretums, among them the Gray Herbarium and the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, the New York Botanical Garden, and the California Academy of Sciences. The National Herbarium of the Smithsonian Institution in 1947 employed some botanists, mostly taxonomists, but they included only one woman, noted for her work on grasses, who was formerly employed by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Government, never an employer of a large number of botanists, does not promise to become an important outlet for them in the future,

except in the specialized agricultural fields in which men predominate. Of the Federal agencies that reported on employment to the Women's Bureau, only the Department of Agriculture employed women under the title of botanists. There were relatively few jobs even with this agency, which employed only seven women as "botanists" and four as "seed technicians" in the Washington area in 1946. Reports from a few field offices further bear out the conclusion that Government botanical jobs for women, in general botany, were scarce. At one regional laboratory, openings for botanists were rare. However, one woman xylotomist, who had a bachelor's degree in botany and had specialized in the study of woody plants in her undergraduate training, was doing microscopic work identifying wood cuttings at this laboratory. A woman with a Ph. D. was in charge of the pathology branch of a technical laboratory of the Department of Agriculture, and another outstanding woman botanist, whose major fields are plant physiology, anatomy, and the study of foreign woods, was also employed. (See p. 3-73 for minimum requirements for Federal Civil Service positions as botanists.)

College placement officers verified the evidence from industry and Government that there was little demand, except in teaching, for women with general botanical training. However, women interested in botany can expand their employment opportunities in industry and Government by taking a substantial number of courses in one or more related scientific fields, such as bacteriology, chemistry, physics, or zoology, or perhaps by combining botany with mathematics, statistics, or economics.

A recently expanded branch of botany is mycology, the science of fungi. Mycology is concerned with structure, affinities, classification, physiology, and growth of fungi, and with all applications of these aspects of the subject in industry, agriculture, and medicine. It has come into greater prominence recently because of the extensive use of fungi in the manufacture of drugs. In this work, a knowledge of bacteriology and chemistry is essential. Employment opportunities in mycology are greatest for those who have a background in plant pathology, biochemistry, and bacteriology.

As the whole field of antibiotics has grown, opportunities for mycologists have developed. A few years ago women were discouraged from specializing in mycology because of the lack of jobs in this field. Openings were rare and chiefly in teaching or research. Many mycologists found that their best opportunities were not in their own specialized field but in teaching or research in some other biological science. Consequently, there were few trained mycologists, and the sudden demand created by the expanding use of penicillin and other

antibiotic drugs far exceeded the supply. The penicillin industry has hired most of those who were available. Only three women mycologists were located in the course of this study: one worked for a drug company, and two were employed by the United States Department of Agriculture in the Washington area in 1946.

Figure 3.-A mycologist at work in the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

Most of the members of the Mycological Society of America, which includes most of the men and women in this country who are concerned with mycology, teach in colleges and universities, although there are a very few in industrial research. Many of the college and university teachers give courses in biological specializations other than mycology.

There is an urgent demand for mycologists by the approximately 14 or 15 basic manufacturers of penicillin and other antibiotics, by the universities where antibiotic research is done, and by Government agencies that are doing work in this field. The antibiotic industry has opened many new opportunities to scientists in various fields, and the mycologist who has a good background in chemistry is especially well favored.

There are also a number of jobs in related fields that might attract women trained in botany (13) (17). For the woman who knows botany and who has some artistic ability, there is botanical illustration or work in the floral industry. Some botany graduates have become successful operators of their own businesses, as florists. There are also possible careers in botanical editing and writing, for the woman who combines writing ability with a knowledge of botany. Several women trained in botany have succeeded to positions as editor or chief editor of technical journals and periodicals in this field. Botanical librarianship is another type of work available to women with adequate training. Although botanical librarians are sometimes women trained primarily in library work, with only a working knowledge of botanical subjects, some positions require a high degree of specialization in botany. In the Department of Agriculture library, for example, a woman with a Ph. D. in botany has compiled an outstanding new type of bibliography. Publishers of scientific books and magazines, educational and research institutions, museums, and botanical gardens are among those who employ botanical illustrators, writers and editors, and librarians.

There is nothing in the nature of most botanical work that makes it an unsuitable field of work for women, and many women botanists in the United States and other countries have done distinguished work. One authority says that, "This is definitely a field in which women may make contributions and achieve distinctions fully equal to those of men * * * women are adapted to successful work in the botanical field. In America they must overcome a certain amount of hide-bound prejudice * * * but they are steadily doing that and demonstrating a welcome talent in this field.”