September, 2018 - Ellen Richards - Mead-Hattan

Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) 

Born in Dunstable, MA, an only child, and was home schooled until the family moved to Westford in 1859. Her gift with Latin, French, and German made her in demand and allowed her to further her studies. She enrolled at Vassar College as a “special student” in 1868, graduating 2 years later with her bachelors, followed by a Masters by 1870. She was the one of the first women to break into the world of chemistry, and the first woman to attend MIT. She also worked as an unpaid chemistry lecturer at MIT from 1873-1878. Her passion became environmental nutrition and clean water, gathering 40,000 samples to study water quality in Massachusetts. This led to the development of the “Richards’ Normal Chlorine Map” which was predictive of inland water pollution in MA. She fought continually not only for water purity and her “humanist ecologist” cause, but for women’s equality, arguing that women’s unpaid labor in the home was the foundation of their second-class status and what kept modern capitalism in motion

The Drink

Mead-hattan
2 oz rye
2 oz cyser (a mead made with apple juice, a kind of half-mead/half-cider)
dash orange bitters

Drinkability: 2
Drunkability: 5
Accessibility: 2
Taxic Diversity: 2
Priority for Conservation: 5 

Comments: President and Secretary agree that for a Manhattan, it's a 5+, Opal Hush added a dash of leftover honey syrup to hers and said it was much more to her liking. 

From "Women in Conservation" hosted by Alabazam and Boiler Maker