Personal life of barbara mcclintock
Personal life of barbara mcclintock 2...
Barbara’s story
“My life has been well-lived, because I was able to dedicate myself to what I liked doing most”.
[Barbara McClintock]
Barbara was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1902.
Personal life of barbara mcclintock
Her father was a doctor and her mother was an artist (pianist and painter).
Barbara became fascinated by genetics at high-school. At that time women were banned from studying genetics at University and Barbara had to enrol to study botany.
She then specialized in cytology, taking genetics as an additional subject. Several of her works on the chromosomes of corn plants were already published by the prestigious journal ‘Science’ at the beginning of the 1930s.
In 1944 Barbara became a member of the US National Academy of Science and the following year was the first woman to be elected president of the Genetics Society of America.
Despite all of this, in 1951 many of her colleagues criticised the results that she presented at a scientific symposium: Barbara announced that sh