Marie Mercury Roth
{{short description|American chemist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Marie Mercury Roth
| image = File:Marie Mercury Roth 1947 crop.tiff
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| caption = Marie Mercury, circa 1947.
| birth_date = {{birth date|1926|04|30|mf=y}}{{cite web|url=https://www.beckerritter.com/tributes/Marie-RothPhD|title=Tribute for Marie Mercury Roth, Ph. D.|publisher=Becker Ritter Funeral Home & Cremation Services|date=January 2020|access-date=May 24, 2020}}
| birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| death_date = {{death date and age|2020|01|03|1926|04|30|mf=y}}
| death_place = Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, USA
| resting_place = Mount Auburn Cemetery
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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| alma_mater = B.A., 1945, chemistry,{{cite web|title=Class of 1945 Gifts to The Campaign for Mount Holyoke|url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/advancement/email14/mhc/campaign/1945.html|website=Mount Holyoke|accessdate=22 March 2016}} M.A., 1947, organic chemistry, Mount Holyoke College
Ph.D., 1951, chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Marie Mercury Roth (April 30, 1926 – January 3, 2020) was an American synthetic organic chemist. She was the first female Ph.D. candidate at the chemistry department of University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she worked with William Summer Johnson. She received her Doctorate of Philosophy in 1951 for the Application of the Favorskii rearrangement to the problem of angular methylation.{{cite web|last1=Roth|first1=Marie|title=Another Ph.D. mom shares her story|url=https://sciencemoms.wordpress.com/our-stories/another-phd-mom-shares-her-story/|website=Motherhood, the elephant in the laboratory|date=8 March 2009 |accessdate=22 March 2016}}{{cite web|title=Marie M. Roth|url=http://academictree.org/chemistry/peopleinfo.php?pid=53772|website=Chemistry Tree|accessdate=22 March 2016}}{{cite book|last1=Roth|first1=Marie Mercury|title=Application of the Favorskii rearrangement to the problem of angular methylation|date=1951|publisher=University of Wisconsin--Madison|url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005760016}}
Early life and education
Marie Louise Mercury was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 30, 1926, to Nicholas and Josephine (Borré) Mercurio. After graduating from Girls' Latin School, she attended Mount Holyoke College for her undergraduate studies. She graduated summa cum laude from Mount Holyoke in 1945{{Cite web |title=Obituaries in Milwaukee, WI {{!}} Milwaukee Journal Sentinel |url=https://jsonline.com/obituaries/mjs018367 |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=jsonline.com |language=en}} with a major in chemistry with minors in mathematics, physics and physiology. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. She then earned a master's degree in organic chemistry while working as a teaching assistant. Her professors included Anna J. Harrison, Mary Lura Sherrill,{{cite web|title=Anna Jane Harrison|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/anna-jane-harrison|website=Science History Institute |accessdate=21 March 2018}} Emma Perry Carr, and Lucy Pickett.
Education and career
File:Kathleen Zier, Anna Jane Harrison, Mary Sherrill, Marie Mercury, 1947.TIF
Although she was hired as a research chemist by Pittsburgh Paint, she was not allowed to work in laboratories once she became pregnant. Instead, she was reassigned to do library research work on emulsion polymerization. While her husband became a faculty member at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Marie Roth worked in private industry and taught undergraduate courses at various universities. She worked at the Medical College of Wisconsin in West Bend in the late 1970s.{{cite journal|title=This 'n' That|journal=Badger Chemist |date=October 1978|volume=25|page=17|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=div&did=UW.BCOct1978.i0018&isize=M|accessdate=22 March 2016}}{{cite journal|title=This 'n' That|journal=Badger Chemist |date=November 1979|volume=26|page=21|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=turn&id=UW.BCNov1979&entity=UW.BCNov1979.p0021&isize=M|accessdate=22 March 2016}}
In 1982, she was the editor of the Amalgamator, the bulletin of the Milwaukee section of the American Chemical Society.{{cite journal|title=This 'n' That|journal=Badger Chemist |date=December 1982|volume=29|page=23|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=div&did=UW.BCDec1982.i0031&isize=M|accessdate=22 March 2016}} In 1985, she became chair of the Milwaukee section of the ACS.{{cite news|title=Science in Short: Roth Elected|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6NwhAAAAIBAJ&pg=4267%2C4521355|accessdate=22 March 2016|work=The Milwaukee Journal|page=2|date=December 27, 1984}}
Family
Circa 1951, Marie Mercury married Donald A. Roth, who had obtained a Ph.D. from the same department in 1944. They had 4 children: Charles, Catherine, Joanne, and Nancy Ellen (born 1965).{{cite journal|title=Happy Landings|journal=Badger Chemist |date=October 1966|volume=13|page=10|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=turn&id=UW.BCwin1966&entity=UW.BCwin1966.p0010&isize=M|accessdate=22 March 2016}}{{cite news|title=Roth, Donald A., Ph.D., M.D.|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=20030825&id=a3FhAAAAIBAJ&pg=1971,3365801&hl=en|accessdate=23 March 2016|work=Milwaukee Journal Sentinel|page=4B|date=August 25, 2003}} Joanne later pursued graduate studies in statistics at UW. Donald died in 2003. Charles died in 2016.
References
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Category:Mount Holyoke College alumni
Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni
Category:American women chemists