Katharine Burr Blodgett was a chemical pioneer who made groundbreaking discoveries in material science, yet her contributions were largely overshadowed by her colleague, Irving Langmuir. This is the story of a brilliant scientist who labored for decades in the shadow of a Nobel laureate, her work foundational yet often uncredited.
A Prodigy Forged in Ambition
Born in 1898 to a single mother who prioritized education above all else, Katharine Blodgett was raised with an unusual degree of intellectual freedom. Her mother, a widow named Katharine Buchanan Burr Blodgett, ensured her children—Katharine and her brother, George—received a rigorous education, including fluency in multiple languages. This upbringing wasn’t merely academic; it was strategic. The mother recognized that science demanded an international perspective, ensuring her daughter was prepared for a world where German was the lingua franca of research. By the age of four, Katharine was already writing, displaying a precocity that hinted at the scientific mind she would become.
From Gas Masks to Nanotechnology
Blodgett’s early career took her through Bryn Mawr and Cambridge, where she became one of the first women to earn a PhD in physics. During World War I, she applied her scientific skills to improving gas masks—a grim necessity that foreshadowed her later work with protective coatings. But it was at General Electric (GE) that she truly flourished, joining the industrial research lab at just 20 years old.
There, she built upon Langmuir’s earlier research, developing a method to create ultra-thin films—layers of molecules just one 10,000,000th of an inch thick. These “Langmuir-Blodgett films” (despite being primarily Blodgett’s invention) revolutionized material science, laying the groundwork for nanotechnology and modern coatings used in everything from eyeglasses to electronics.
Erased by History
Despite her breakthroughs, Blodgett remained largely unrecognized. Langmuir received the Nobel Prize in 1932 for related discoveries, yet the film that bears both their names is largely attributed to him. Historians and contemporaries note the stark contrast: Langmuir, the celebrity scientist, while Blodgett was a quiet, dedicated researcher working in his shadow. This imbalance wasn’t accidental; archival evidence suggests that much of Blodgett’s original lab notebooks have been lost or destroyed, obscuring the full scope of her contributions.
The Lost Notebooks and the Search for Recognition
Today, researchers like Peggy Schott are piecing together Blodgett’s story from fragments in library collections and personal correspondence. Schott even went so far as to embody Blodgett at a scientific conference, reclaiming the voice that history had silenced. The missing lab notebooks remain a critical gap in understanding Blodgett’s creative process, but what is clear is that her work was foundational.
The irony is not lost on those who study her life. Blodgett’s coatings are everywhere —in non-reflective glass, protective films, and countless other applications. Her legacy is invisible yet ubiquitous, a testament to the brilliance that was nearly forgotten.
Katharine Burr Blodgett’s story serves as a stark reminder that scientific progress often relies on the unrecognized labor of those who work behind the scenes. Her dedication, ingenuity, and the deliberate erasure of her contributions demand recognition.
