Oberlin's Women: A Legacy of Leadership & Activism

Margaret Maltby

Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860-1944, OC 1882) was an educator and scientist. She graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in 1882. After graduation, Maltby briefly attended the Art Students’ League before working as a high school teacher for one year in Wellington, Ohio and three years in Massillon, Ohio. She completed a M.A. from Oberlin College and a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in physics in 1891.  While a student at M.I.T. Maltby was a physics instructor at Wellesley College from 1889 to 1893. In 1893 she moved to Germany to attend the University of Goettingen and received a Ph.D. in physics in 1895. She was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from any German university with a degree in physics. Maltby spent another year in Germany conducting research before she returned to the United States in 1896 to work as a physics instructor at Lake Erie College. In 1898 she became a research assistant in Germany to the president of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt. She was the only woman to work there at that time. Back in the United States, Maltby studied theoretical physics at Clark University from 1899 to 1900. She was appointed as an instructor in charge of the Department of Chemistry at Barnard College in 1900. She later became the associate professor in charge of the Department of Physics at that university. Maltby retired from her position at Barnard College in 1931. She was active in the American Association of University Women, and in 1926 the organization established the Margaret E. Maltby Fellowship in her honor.

Sources:
Student File (Margaret Elizabeth Maltby), Alumni & Development Records, O.C.A.

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