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.

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page from book with illustration of precipitation, evaporation, and other elements of the hydrologic cycle
April 25, 2026
For Families

Stories of Science: April Showers

Join us in our museum EVERY SATURDAY for a family-friendly program that highlights strange and surprising stories from the history of science!

Overhead view of Jacobs Reading Room with researchers
May 1, 2026
Library Programs & Activities

Othmer Library Tour

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

postage stamp featuring a reddish purple peony
May 1, 2026
First Fridays

First Friday: May Flowers

Come celebrate the living chemistry of spring and leave with a deeper appreciation for the plants that have clothed, healed, and inspired us for generations.

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