This 1961 photograph was used to illustrate a news story about “sex desegregation” in science and the importance of encouraging more women to become scientists if the United States was to compete effectively in the Cold War. The accompanying caption reads: “Mrs. Carl Gibson who as Jane Blankenship won high science honors in school, combines her scientific work with advanced studies and homemaking.” As a student at Oak Ridge High School, Blankenship won a number of honors. While completing a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Tennessee, she worked during the summers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where her father was a physical chemist. By 1961, she had married a chemical engineer, moved to California, and was working as a spectroscopist for Lockheed aircraft. (Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.)