Rhoda Rappaport

Rhoda Rappaport
Born(1935-08-10)August 10, 1935
Bronx, New York, U.S.
DiedOctober 26, 2009(2009-10-26) (aged 74)
OccupationsHistorian, college professor
HonoursSue Tyler Friedman Medal (2003)

Rhoda Rappaport (August 10, 1935 – October 26, 2009) was an American historian and college professor. She was a professor of history at Vassar College from 1961 to 2000, and specialized in the history of science, especially French histories of geology and chemistry. In 2003, she was the first woman awarded the Sue Tyler Friedman Medal.

Biography

Rappaport was born in the Bronx, the daughter of Jack Rappaport and Esther Rappaport. Her parents were both immigrants from Central Europe. She attended Walton High School, and graduated from Goucher College in 1955. At Goucher she took a course from historian of science Dorothy Stimson. After college she studied with Pearl Kibre, before earning a master's degree from Cornell University in 1958, and completing doctoral studies there in 1964, with research in Paris and funding from the National Science Foundation and the AAUW. Her doctoral dissertation with advisor Henry Guerlac was about the Guettard-Lavoisier-Monnet mineralogical survey and atlas of France.

Rappaport was a professor of history at Vassar College from 1961 to 2000, and is recalled as the school's first historian of science. In 2003 she received the Sue Tyler Friedman Medal from the Geological Society of London. She died in 2009, at the age of 74. An edited collection of her essays was published in 2023 by Routledge.

Publications

References

  1. ↑ "Boning up for College Quiz Bowl". The Evening Sun. 1955-04-29. p. 27. Retrieved 2026-10-07 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda. Guettard, Lavoisier, and Monnet: Geologists in the Service of the French Monarchy. PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1964.
  3. 1 2 Schneiderman, Jill S. "Rhoda Rappaport, Historian of Geology, 1935-2009" Earth Sciences History 29(1)(2009): 171-173.
  4. ↑ Offutt, Leslie (2010). "The History of History at Vassar College". 150 Years, Vassar's Sesquicentennial, Vassar College. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
  5. ↑ Taylor, Kenneth L.; Stroup, Alice (December 2010). "Eloge: Rhoda Rappaport, 1935–2009". Isis. 101 (4). The University of Chicago Press: 833–837. doi:10.1086/657514.
  6. 1 2 Rappaport, Rhoda (2023-04-21). Taylor, Kenneth L. (ed.). Studies on Eighteenth-Century Geology (1 ed.). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003420828. ISBN 978-1-003-42082-8.
  7. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (1960). "G.-F. Rouelle: An Eighteenth-Century Chemist and Teacher". Chymia. 6. University of California Press: 68–101. doi:10.2307/27757193. ISSN 0095-9367.
  8. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (1961). "Rouelle and Stahl—The Phlogistic Revolution in France". Chymia. 7. University of California Press: 73–102. doi:10.2307/27757206. ISSN 0095-9367.
  9. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda. "Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier: —A Biographical Sketch (August 26, 1743—May 8, 1794)." The Journal of Nutrition 79, no. 1 (1963): 1-8.
  10. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (1964-03-01). "Problems and Sources in the History of Geology, 1749–1810". History of Science. 3 (1). SAGE Publications Ltd: 60–78. doi:10.1177/007327536400300104. ISSN 0073-2753.
  11. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (October 1967). "Lavoisier's Geologic Activities, 1763-1792". Isis. 58 (3). The University of Chicago Press: 375–384. doi:10.1086/350270.
  12. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (June 1973). "Lavoisier's Theory of the Earth". The British Journal for the History of Science. 6 (3): 247–260. doi:10.1017/S0007087400016253. ISSN 1474-001X.
  13. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (March 1978). "Geology and Orthodoxy: The Case of Noah's Flood in Eighteenth-Century Thought". The British Journal for the History of Science. 11 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1017/S0007087400015910. ISSN 1474-001X.
  14. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (March 1982). "Borrowed Words: problems of vocabulary in eighteenth-century geology". The British Journal for the History of Science. 15 (1): 27–44. doi:10.1017/S0007087400018926. ISSN 1474-001X.
  15. ↑ Rappaport, Rhoda (1997). When Geologists Were Historians, 1665-1750. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-3386-3.