This dissertation focuses on the life of Dixy Lee Ray as it examines important
developments in marine biology and biological oceanography during the mid twentieth
century. In addition, Ray's key involvement in the public understanding of science
movement of the 1950s and 1960s provides a larger social and cultural context for
studying and analyzing scientists' motivations during the period of the early Cold War
in the United States. The dissertation is informed throughout by the notion that science is
a deeply embedded aspect of Western culture. To understand American science and
society in the mid twentieth century it is instructive, then, to analyze individuals who
were seen as influential and who reflected widely held cultural values at that time. Dixy
Lee Ray was one of those individuals. Yet, instead of remaining a prominent and
enduring figure in American history, she has disappeared rapidly from historical memory,
and especially from the history of science. It is this very characteristic of reflecting her
time, rather than possessing a timeless appeal, that makes Ray an effective historical
guide into the recent past. Her career brings into focus some of the significant ways in
which American science and society shifted over the course of the Cold War.
Beginning with Ray's early life in West Coast society of the 1920s and 1930s,
this study traces Ray's formal education, her entry into the professional ranks of marine
biology and the crucial role she played in broadening the scope of biological
oceanography in the early 1960s. The dissertation then analyzes Ray's efforts in public
science education, through educational television, at the science and technology themed
Seattle World's Fair, and finally in her leadership of the Pacific Science Center. I argue
that Ray was ideally suited to promote a dominant conception of a socially useful and
instrumental form of science that lay at the core of the public understanding of science
through the 1960s. These efforts in the public understanding of science reflected a broad
endeavor among scientists to spread knowledge about and values of modern science from
elite American society to a broader public. The dissertation concludes with a short
examination of Ray's neutral gendered identity which, considered within the largely
masculine context of science, played a significantly role in the successes of her
professional career. / Graduation date: 2006
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/28725 |
| Date | 21 November 2005 |
| Creators | Ellis, Erik |
| Contributors | Nye, Mary Jo |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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