Marian Irwin Osterhout (June 16, 1888 – May 10, 1973), was an American plant physiologist born in Japan. She was the first woman to receive a National Research Council fellowship.

Early life and education

Marian Irwin was born in Tokyo, the daughter of Iki Takechi Irwin (1857–1940) and

Robert Walker Irwin Robert Walker Irwin (January 4, 1844 – January 5, 1925) was an American businessman and the Kingdom of Hawaii's Minister to Japan. Irwin's most significant accomplishment as Hawaii's top representative to Japan was the 1886 immigration treaty ...

(1844–1925). Her mother was a Japanese noblewoman, daughter of a samurai; her father was an American diplomat, the son of

William W. Irwin William Wallace Irwin (1803September 15, 1856) was Mayor of Pittsburgh and a Whig member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Early life William Irwin was born in Pittsburgh in 1803, and as a boy earned the lifelong nickna ...

and a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin. Her older sister Bella Irwin founded a school in Tokyo. Their aunt, Agnes Irwin, was also an educator, the first dean of

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

. Marian Irwin was educated in Japan and at Bryn Mawr College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1913. She earned a doctoral degree in biology, at

in 1919,"Marian Osterhout, Physiologist, Dead"
''New York Times'' (May 12, 1973): 36. as a student of

George Howard Parker George Howard Parker (December 23, 1864 – March 26, 1955) was an American zoology, zoologist. He was a professor at Harvard University, Harvard, and investigated the anatomy and physiology of sense organs and animal reactions. Biography George ...

.L. R. Blinks
"Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout, August 2, 1871 – April 9, 1964)"
''Biographical Memoirs'' 44 (National Academy of Sciences 1974): 230-237. Her dissertation title was "Effect of Electrolytes and Non-electrolytes on Organisms in Relation to Sensory Stimulation and Respiration."

Career

After graduate school, Marian Irwin attended the National Conference for the Limitation of Armaments in 1921, as assistant to professor Hideko Inouye, President of the Woman's Peace Organization of Japan. She became the first woman to receive a National Research Council fellowship, which she held at Harvard from 1923 to 1925. Marian Irwin Osterhout was a paid researcher at the Rockefeller Institute from 1925 to 1933 (and unpaid after that for many years, because she was married to another scientist there), specializing in cell permeability, especially the penetration and accumulation of dyes. She was a member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and wrote about fifty scientific papers for publication before she married. She also assisted her husband in his research, and they traveled and wrote together.

Personal life

Marian Irwin married fellow plant scientist Winthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout (1871-1964), in 1933. She died 1973, aged 84 years, in New York City. Her gravesite is with Osterhout's, in a Philadelphia churchyard. Their papers are held in the Rockefeller Archive Center."Winthrop J. V. Osterhout papers, Rockefeller University Faculty (FA186)"
Rockefeller Archive Center.

References

External links

*
A 1921 photograph of Marian Irwin and Hideko Inouye
from the Library of Congress. {{DEFAULTSORT:Osterhout, Marian Irwin 1888 births 1973 deaths Bryn Mawr College alumni Radcliffe College alumni 20th-century American botanists Rockefeller University faculty Franklin family Japanese people of American descent Scientists from Tokyo Japanese emigrants to the United States