Join our museum’s Gallery Guides for a “drop-in” tour highlighting the central role of women in shaping chemistry and the material sciences throughout history.

Our Women in Chemistry Tour profiles women chemists from antiquity to the present, sharing stories of innovation, resistance, and change.

On this tour, you can expect to:

  • learn about the legendary founding women of alchemy
  • explore the connections between domesticity and distillation
  • see how wartime changed the laboratory

You’ll also meet pioneering chemists and chemistry educators, from 17th-century French alchemist Marie Meurdrac to Marie Maynard Daly, the first Black woman in America to receive a PhD in chemistry, and Rosalind Franklin, whose work in X-ray crystallography led to the discovery of DNA’s structure. 


Drop-in tours are free and no reservations are necessary.

More events

black and white photo of world's fair display of virus structure model
October 19, 2026
Conferences & Symposia

Artefacts XXXI: Trust and Objects

The 31st annual Artefacts Conference will explore how museums and academic institutions use material culture to build “trust in the history of science.”

Science History Institute Othmer Library
October 21, 2026
Free

Othmer Library Tour

Curious about the other half of the Science History Institute? Step into the Othmer Library of Chemical History!

oil painting showing an alchemist/scholar at a desk
October 24, 2026
Free

Art of Alchemy Self-Guided Visit

Step into the age of alchemy and explore works in our new permanent exhibition, Fire and Gold: The Art of Alchemy (1450–1850).

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