Richards (Ellen Swallow) is born in Dunstable.

Despite having no formal education until age 16, Ellen Swallow Richards becomes the first woman with a degree in chemistry in the U.S. when she graduates from Vassar College, then graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1873.* She marries MIT professor Robert Richards in 1875, moves to 32 Eliot Street in 1875, teaches chemistry at MIT for the next 25 years, and becomes a pioneer in the fields of sanitary engineering and home economics. Richards helps intoruce nutritious school lunches to Boston public high schools in 1894. She dies in Jamaica Plain on March 30, 1911, and is buried in Gardiner, Maine.