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The following is excerpted from Creating Complicated Lives: Women and Science at English-Canadian Universities, 1880-1980 by Marianne Gosztonyi Ainley, edited by Marelene Rayner-Canham and Geoff Rayner-Canham.
Eastcott (1888–1963) was
born and educated in Ontario, obtained a “Senior Teacher’s Certificate” in
1907, and taught in public schools before entering the University of Toronto in
1915. She worked for the British Cordite Company and the Ontario Agricultural
College during the First World War and graduated from Toronto in 1920 with
first-class honours in chemistry and mineralogy.She then became one of
several women graduate students mentored by the well-known chemist Lash Miller,
obtaining her MA in 1923. Beginning in 1922, she worked as a sessional
assistant in the department. Concurrently, she expanded her master’s research
towards a doctorate in biochemistry. According to the Toronto Daily Star in 1934: “After four years intensive
work, [she] isolated the first element of Bios [chemical substances found in
blood and fruit juices] in 1928 and has now collaborated in identification of
the second [,] found to be hydroxy-aminobutyric acid.” At the 1934 meeting of the
Royal Society of Canada, Lash Miller “reviewed” her research contribution,
together with that of Helen Stantial, another graduate student. According to
the same Toronto Daily Star article, “Bios discovery called triumph
for two girls [my emphasis]. Dr. Eastcott and Dr.
Stantial are searching for chemical substances not for husbands.” Girls?
Eastcott was forty-six!Eastcott’s income,
originally $800 per year as sessional assistant, had risen to $900 in 1923–24
with funds from “Special Research.” The report of the board of governors shows
that the fund paid part of her salary until 1935. Why, with an excellent early
research record, did she remain a poorly paid assistant for such a long time?
In the absence of private letters, one can only speculate that she had chosen
to work with Lash Miller because he had mentored her. Why then had he not
promoted her after her hiring? Perhaps she was not particularly ambitious;
perhaps she had few other professional options during the Depression. After
Lash Miller retired in 1937, Frank Kenrick became department head, and Eastcott
continued as an assistant. Later a succession of male department heads ignored
her, possibly because she was a woman. Finally, in 1944 at age fifty-seven, she
became a sessional lecturer, at a very low $2,000 per year. Her pay as
(possibly still sessional) lecturer increased somewhat until 1949, when she
reached $2,700 per year, but the following year, when for unknown reasons she
became once again a demonstrator, it dropped to $800.Although she was
reinstated as (sessional) lecturer for 1951–52 at a salary of $3,400 per year,
she resigned for personal reasons effective the end of 1951. Normal retirement
age at the university was seventy, so why did she retire at only sixty-three?
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